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However, Ask Dr Mike is available only to subscribers of our Vetinfo Digest.Please do not send questions if you are not a subscriber.Surgery and Surgical Complications in cats
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Chest abscess lumpectomy/spay suture reaction and infectionalso see Abscess
Chest abscess lumpectomy\spay suture reaction and infectionQuestion: I had my kitten (5 months) go thru surgery last Monday, July 16, for a
lumpectomy (abscess on chest) and spay. 2 days later (July 18) the
lumpectomy started oozing so I took her to the vet & they put her on a
different antibiotic, clavamox. Then on July 23 at 2:00 a.m., Keary
(my kitten) woke up screaming in pain & attacking the spay area. So we
rushed her to an emergency clinic to be worked on. The lumpectomy stitches
had been torn open also. The hospital worked on her & bandaged the top
part so it could heal open & it's doing well. I visited her Wednesday, July
25, & she still seemed very sensitive & sore in the spay area. So on the
26th, the surgeon put her under & checked out the spay area. He removed her
stitches & said it could have been a reaction to the stitches & also
her licking both the abscess wound & the spay wound so now the spay wound
is infected. They found a few pockets of pus & they cleaned her up.
They said they checked all the internal walls to see if the infection had gotten
in & it had not. And she doesn't have a fever and is eating great. They
left the wound open & tried to bandage it but Keary kept attacking the
bandage.
So now they have her in an e-collar to prevent that. The spay wound
is still super sensitive today & they say it's too early to tell if it's
going to heal up since the operation to remove the stitches & pus was
yesterday.
And they say the top wound -- lumpectomy -- is healing great. I don't
want to get my hopes up but we really love this kitten. Is it normal for
the spay area to be so sensitive -- the spay was 2 weeks ago but the area
was working on yesterday. She is now on a new antibiotic, cephalexine.
Have you ever seen this before? She's been tested for feline leukemia &
FIV 3 times w/strong negatives each time. Can this just be a chronic
infection that we're struggling to deal w/? I'm hoping it's not life
threatening.
They also cultured both areas Wednesday (7/25) but we don't have the
results yet. Thank you for any advice.
Lisa
Answer: Lisa-
I can't recall a patient who had an abscess at the time of a spay
surgery and ended up with an infection in both areas but I can see where this
might happen in that case. We have seen a couple of patients with pretty
severe suture reactions and they do go on for some time. The last patient we
saw that seemed to have this problem had been spayed about 6 weeks
previously at another veterinary hospital and still seemed to be reacting to the
subcutaneous suture material. I am not sure what the suture material
used was in this case, though. Removal of the suture remnants seemed to calm
the problem down but I think it took about 2 weeks after we removed the
sutures before the dog (this patient was a dog) finally was willing to leave
the area alone.Most surgical sites can be allowed to heal by second intention (to heal
without sutures by scarring in on their own). So far, this has worked
most of the time for us when it seemed necessary. Hopefully, that will be
your experience, too.I do think it is a good idea to have culture and sensitivity results on
the bacterial infections when that is possible. It helps in identifying the
antibiotics most likely to work and given the length of time you have
been dealing with this that could still be very useful information. If the
cultures are negative it might be worth thinking about l-form bacteria.
These are odd organisms that seem to respond to tetracyclines better
than other antibiotics. Usually, doxycycline is used in cats for this
problem.It is frustrating to wait these problems out but it usually does work.
I hope that holds true for your cat, too.Mike Richards, DVM
8\3\2001
Last edited 09/23/02
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