Before I ruin everyones dinner with my own experience today…I’m curious as to others.
Your leg or the cats leg
?
We need more info.
Abscess on cats are from fighting other cats or bot fly(wolf fly).
Keep cat indoors.
Most likely antibiotics required. Do not try to reduce the abscess yourself.
If you got scratched and got an abscess go to doc get on antibiotics.
Oh, yeah.
I had a cat that disappeared for ages one time, and when he came back he was in terrible shape. One of the things he had was an olive-sized abscess on his back, which I lanced and drained a disgusting amount of very thick, vile-smelling puss from. I irrigated it until it healed.
So my cat goes to use the litter box, and i hear some howling, which means one of my other cats has jumped him. I run in to break up the fight and…
Oh great the first cat is spraying diarrhea everywhere while trying to run from the attacking cat except…my cat is shitting out a hole in his leg and I immediatly lost my grip on my sanity. How the fuck can a small cat scratch be oozing shit? Shit that is everywhere and is literally the most foul smelling stuff I’ve ever encountered. And I’ve had kids.
That it was an infection didn’t occur to me much later because the cat seemed perfectly healthy. He’d eat. He walked fine. He didn’t limp. Nothing.
Fukkkkk
Yes, I’ve dealt with cats with abscesses. Horrible, horrible smell. I’ve cleaned them out and treated them with antibiotics and they’ve recovered okay.
StG
If it got on a wood surface what would you suggest to get the smell out other then usual pine Sol water ….
Small abscess that’s already draining?
Keep it clean. Put warm wet towels on it as many times a day as you can. Watch to make sure it keeps draining. Call vet. if cat stops eating/drinking normally.
Large abscess that isn’t draining; and/or cat not eating or drinking; hiding in the back of the closet; or otherwise behaving abnormally?
Call the vet. Infections can become systemic, which is a whole nother type of thing to be dealing with. Antibiotics and/or surgery may be needed.
Actual diarrhea coming out of an abscess? Very strange. Call vet. immediately. Or were you being figurative? What ordinarily comes out of an abscess is pus. If shit can get out of the body otherwise than through the anus something may be extremely wrong.
Bleach. Bleach. Bleach.
Maybe some Pooph if you wanna spend money.
I took him to the vet almost immediatly. Theyll treat him in the morning. I did some research. Since he was asymptomatic and he got so much everywhere, I assume he’s feeling better then ever. I assume in the AM they’ll try and get more out and give him antibiotics and call me to pick him up.
Thorny I was being figurative. But thats what my brain was saying cause thats what it looked and smelled like. And thats what was the most disconcerting thing is. I felt like i was crazy until I could figure out what I was looking at. Imagine that brief feeling you get when you see a possum but you cant figure out what it is for 1 second. Or you see a dog at the end of a street but it goes “Geeee geeeeee geee kiii geeeee” And until you figure out its a fox you feel a little crazy.
“How the hell do you shit out a leg wound?? Theres nothing super long and thin and sharp and Id think if he had a wound leading to his bowels from his leg he wouldnt be able to run around like a cat being attacked and chased by his owner.”
Obviously, its a devil cat with shit for blood is the answer.
I’m glad he’s at the vet. Abscesses do stink; but I’ve never had one smell like shit. To me, at least, it’s a different sort of stink entirely.
It’s possible that due to the other cat’s interference in the cat pan he got shit smeared on the abscess, though; that would explain the smell. Certainly wouldn’t be good for the abscess, but I expect the vet’s got it cleaned out.
Oh yeah, I know the state of mind you’re talking about. Very disconcerting indeed, often even after you figure out what you’re actually looking at.
– they’ll sometimes get over abscesses entirely on their own, without even at-home treatment; but it’s unwise to count on it because of the risk of systemic infection.
What an ordeal.
I was real concerned with poop out of the leg. Whew!
Looks like he popped it all by himself or other cat did.
Still clean up and antibiotics to make sure. Good job.
I put a long clear hose right over the wound and suck it out, I use a clear hose to make sure I don’t get any of it.
One of my college roommates had two cats, and one of them got a sizable abscess that she (my roommate) caught because she was stroking the cat with her foot, and that cat, who was the most mellow thing on earth, attacked her! This cat had an abscess about the size of a golfball, and would have gone septic and died if she’d waited any longer. The vet gave her some hydration and an antibiotic injection, and them 7 days of Clavamox (veterinary Augmentin; I was a P2 at the time). The cat made a full recovery and lived a few more years.
Of all the times to have a typo.
Wait. What!?
O my goodness me yes, many times. 40 years ago our vet had us keep a very dilute Clorox solution on hand, so we had this big bottle labeled “CAT ASS SOLUTION” in the bathroom. We’ve had cats get abscesses with two openings joined by a sinus and the vet passed a shoelace through from one to the other and tied the ends, leaving it there a few days to drain. Hind legs are a frequent site because the victim cat is fleeing and the aggressor is slashing away – the feline equivalent of being shot in the back. Our oldest, now 15, was 4 when we acquired him; he had been bitten clean through the leg between his Achilles tendon and the bones and this had abscessed.
A vet once told me cats are designed by evolution to heal extremely quickly, to be able to handle immediate threats, and then deal with infection on a more relaxed timescale by forming abscesses that drain spontaneously.
The negative impact on songbird populations is horrible. All cats should be indoors, abscess or not.
Had a tiny little gray male, total lover and coward who would hide under the bed for days if a stranger came into the house.
One day there was this thick, stinky, green, mucousy, goop leaking out of his chest. Took him to the vet right away and found out that my lovey little scaredy cat was a fighter. He was covered from tip to tip in scars and had gotten wounded on his chest which then got infected.
Ah, the shoestring drain.
Jojo had about 6 drains at one time. And a grown over kitten collar. He smelled real ripe, let me tell you.
Him is perfect now(well.kinda)
I did find a cat outside with a ruptured, infected abscess on the leg from fighting other cats. The wound took about 6 months to heal (with treatment).