Ok…Mrs. Phlosphr just brought our new little male siamese home from the Butcher…I mean Veterinarian. He was Neutered today.
Aside from the male readers cringing at the thought of having their manhood removed…or at least most of it…Now think about having NO PAIN KILLERS!. As is the case with our kitten.
Anyway, I come home from work to find a makeshift collar around his head, put there by the Butcher…ERRR…VET! To prevent him from pulling out the metal staples in his groin. And Belly (he had a herniated unbilical)
I have never seen the the poor guys eyes so doped up. Our other siamese “the little girl” hissed at him when she first saw him…Anyway I am wondering what are the repercussions of taking the collar off. Now he is fast asleep under the bed…
I know, I know…I said they should never sleep in the bedroom. Well they don’t at night! Just right now…:dubious:
Anyway…any help out there from the teeming millions!
Slight clarification to Mr.P’s interesting question on these boards.
The new little one had a neuter and a umbilical repair - he was not properly delivered at the catery we purchased him from. We have already removed the collar because he was stuck quite irreversibly. So we removed the collar - which by the way was made out of a piece of x-ray paper. :mad:
Basically:
If we do not put the collar back on what are the odds he will be OK? i.e. not blow a stitch…He is a kitten (5 months)
Few things will make you feel guiltier than watching a cat with an E-collar on it. THe cat looks miserable, whines, bumps into things, stuff like that.
That said, the collar is there for a purpose. You don’t want Kitty pulling the stitches out. That would be a mess and can lead to a nasty infection.
After a couple of days, Kitty will adapt to life with the collar. Trust me. When Kitty is hungry, Kitty finds a way.
I would only take off the collar if you want to watch the cat like a hawk. He will go right for his stitches if given the opportunity.
All of this will pass. And good for you for getting your cat neutered. He ain’t gonna miss those.
Well, my bunny was neutered and was collarless in the vets office for about 2 hours in recovery. In that time, he managed to eat all the stitches and reopen his wound so he needed to be resealed, go on antibiotics for 10 days and wear the collar for 2 weeks.
I would just leave it on the little guy - he’ll get used to it and it’s better than him ripping his stitches out.
I had my little white holy terror spayed when she was a kitten. She came home from the vet with the requisite lampshade on her head. The vet had told me to keep it there for something like three weeks. The poor little thing was miserable and cried constantly. I steeled my resolve and pledged that I would not give in, no matter how piteous a performance demon kitty might prove capable of.
One day, after about a week, demon kitty approaches me and gives me a look of such heartbreaking agony that I can’t stand it a moment longer. I unbuckle the strap and release her from that hellish contraption.
A nanosecond later, demon kitty has brought her face down to her belly and is desperately attempting to rip out her stitches with her teeth. I sit rather stunned and wondering what to do when the first stitch pops, then a second one. It takes me about fifteen minutes (and costs me quite a bit of blood) to get the lampshade secured once more around her neck.
After having the vet resecure the stitches (he offered to give me a few as well) I took demon kitty home and had her complete her sentence. No time off for good behavior, either.
Even with massive doses of haldol - I am still reluctant to replace the lampshade. However, infections and [sup]other posts to this thread[/sup] make us realize what we should do.
I’ve had numerous cats over the years and had to face this problem many times. Some cats are fine and never touch their stitches, others have them out the minute your head is turned. Take the collar off if you like while he’s eating or sleeping and you have your eye on him but keep it on at other times. Better to be safe than sorry.
I’ve had 2 cats that had to have collars, and removed them both times. Neither cat tore the stitches out, and kept the sites cleaner than I could have. This seems to be the minority case, however. But if you want to give it a try, and they don’t go for it in the first few hours, my guess is they’re like my kitties and will be cool w/ it.
Feel free to leave it off when you can watch him like a hawk. I mean every single second. Otherwise, I’d leave it on. The neuter incision isn’t such a big deal, really, compared to the hernia. There’s not too much damage he can do to his scrotum, aside from needing antibiotics. He rips open that hernia incision, though, and you could have a mess on your hands. Best case scenario, they have to knock him out again and reclose the skin layer. Worst case scenario, he rips out the internal sutures too, and you come home to a dead cat lying there with his guts hanging out. Absolute worst case scenario: you find him lying in a pile of intestines but still alive, rush him to emergency vet, spend hundreds of dollars on emergency surgery, and he dies anyway. (It doesn’t happen terribly often, but it does happen and it’s damn depressing.)
No pain meds postop for fairly small stuff like a neuter and umbilical hernia is fairly standard in vet medicine, and most patients do just fine without it. It’s also perfectly normal for kitty to be more doped than you’ve ever seen him. After all, this is probably the first time he’s ever been under general anesthesia. He should be pretty normal tomorrow. He may still be a bit nauseated in the morning, so give him a fairly light feeding for breakfast, then he can have a normal amount for dinner. As for the xray film e-collar, that’s a pretty standard way to make one if you don’t normally keep them around or if you’ve got an animal too small for a standard-sized one. Since your kitten probably isn’t abnormally small for a feline neuter patient, that says to me that your vet doesn’t normally send his neutered kittens home with collars. The fact that he went to the trouble of making one specially for your little guy says to me that he’s given them reason to think he needs it.
CrazyCatLady - Have some compassion Damn it!
Ok that said…Now I read your second paragraph. And I take back the above, but because you said “intestines” I’ll leave it up there…
Anyway. It is the morning after and we opted to leave the collar off. He could not get to his food at all, and he seemed fine. This morning, he was fine. He seemed disinterested in the stitches, he did not touch them all morning. So my wife and I are hoping he will be fine without the collar. Unfortunately my wife will not be home all day today, and I will be at work most of the day as well.
I have heard some more mellow kitties are fine with no collar…I desperately hope ours is that way. He is very mellow…
I’m sorry if the word intestines bothers you, but you asked a factual question, and that’s the factual answer. It’s rare that that happens, but not nearly so rare as I wish it was. I can think of four or so animals who have come in during my shifts for just that during the past year. One made it through with no further complications, one died before we could get the OR set up, and two made it through surgery, then got septic and died. Several dozen more have come in needing the skin layer of various incisions resewn. On one dog, we’ve resewn the same damn incision four times because the owner just won’t keep the e-collar on. That site should have healed more than a month ago. We’ve told her and told her that he needs the collar, and I’ve personally told her twice (once adding that those things were kind of a pain to put together, and we certainly didn’t do it because we were bored), but he keeps coming in to be stitched up again.
It’s something you need to be aware of to make an informed decision for your cat, is all.
Also, in a few days that incision will likely start itching as it heals, so you may need to re-evaluate the need for the e-collar then. Some animals are great when you’re with them, but licking and chewing the second you turn your back, and for those animals we suggest leaving the collar off when you’re home, but putting it on when you’re at work. If it’s a little big for him to get to his food and water, you can trim the edges back, just make sure that when the collar is pushed all the way back to his shoulders, the edge still extends a bit beyond the tip of his nose. Alternatively, you leave it as is; he won’t starve or dehydrate in 8 hours.
I’ll have to post back to this when I get home. I have been worried sick all day, and truly I have like 45 minutes before my wife gets home. I’ve already chomped my bit through and am working on another!
I understand the logistics behind needing the collar. And It did not occur to me until around 11 am that the wound will itch soon. And he may be wanting to go for it. However, he did just fine last night, and did not appear to notice it this morning. I did see it was very clean this morning.
Are there alternatives to the e-collar? Something I can get readily?
I should put it back on at night…my wife and I know this. And will most likely do it.
My cat had a minor operation and came home with a cone. We came up with an alternate solution though. Do make sure the cat can’t get to the stitches; even human’s can’t be trusted not to pick at healing wounds and however guilty you feel seeing the cat with a collar you’ll feel much more guilty if you see the cat with a ripped belly and ugly infection… and still wearing a collar (after you find out he can’t be trusted the first time).
My cat was only 4 pounds so was small enough to fit into one of my old socks with the toe cut out and two holes for the front legs. I don’t think this will work for your cat’s stitch location however. My cat had stiches on the back of her shoulder, so the sock covered it completely. I’m not sure how you could keep a cat from getting to their belly or (former) nuts - other than the cone.
I’m not as worried about the nuts as I am about the belly…
However, I just got a call on my cell phone from my wife who just got home. Everything is fine. No problems at all…he’s very playful and eating a lot! So thats good.
So…should we put the cone on anyway in a few days…I mean if it is itching doesn’t that mean that it is healing…?
My HappyCat had surgery and had to wear the cone. Oh, man, on man! Did he manage to get around it! The vet was starting to panic because he’d already ripped so many stitches out. They tried to cones at once, one wide, one narrow, but he still got at his stitches.
They ended up taking a cone for a really big dog, cutting it and duct taping it so that the end effect was that HappyCat had a long white tube attached to his head. We had to supervisie him eating and drinking because he cold do neither with this thing so it’s the only time it could come off.
The vet was really, really worried though because if he got at those last few stitches it could have meant fatal infection. :eek:
Nowadays they make soft ones, or for the little wee kittens make-shift ones will do just fine (so don’t be too mad about the X-ray paper, it serves the purpose). The soft ones can only be described as “clown-bibs”.
The non-rigid collars are much better suited to a cat.
Fatcat had got the clown-bib after surgery on his wee-wee (not neutring, something else). But the vet said to take it off and keep an eye on him because she suspected he “could not reach his stitches anyway.” True enough. Fatcat’s build at the time was such that if he leaned forward to try to reach his stitches, he was denied by a roll of fat!
Depending on how far up his belly the incision is, you may be able to put a shirt on him. No, really, that’s what we do for chest tubes and feeding tubes. We’ve got a selection of t-shirts, from baby size to adult, and for very small animals we’ve got bandage material that comes in tubes that we cut leg holes in. (Animals with chest tubes generally don’t feel good enough to get up to any mischief, and for some reason they almost never bother their feeding tubes, so they don’t need e-collars.)
For a 5-month kitten, you could probably make him a shirt from an old sock of your wife’s. Cut the toe out and cut two holes for his legs, then slide it on over his head. It should be fairly snug, or else it’ll just flop around and won’t protect his sutures. (That’s why I suggest your wife’s sock, yours is likely to be too big.) A shirt will interfere with his ability to groom, and he’s not going to care for that. Being a Siamese, he’s likely to tell you about it, loudly and in great detail, but he’ll get over it. A shirt won’t offer as much protection as an e-collar, but it ought to at least slow him down some.
And he might not even need the shirt. Some cats never even look at their sutures, but most lick at them at least a little. I’d keep the shirt or collar close at hand and ready to slap on his hairy little self at a moment’s notice, and I’d put one or the other on him while you’re at work. Better safe than sorry. You can also check a pet-supply store for a recovery collar, one of the cloth ones with plastic stays. Some cats tolerate them better than rigid e-collars, but it might be hard to find one small enough for your kitty.
We will try the sock method if needed. So far - and this is day 2 - He has been decidedly uninterested in his stitches. The only thing I have noticed is that the area is very clean. Well we will see what happens. I hope all will be ok.
If the area is very, very clean it means he’s licking the area. A lot. Licking can irritate the area and cause the incision to ooze and swell. That tends to lead to more licking, and often to chewing or stitch-yanking. Sounds to me like somebody needs a party hat, or as our behaviorist calls them, the cone of shame.