From Pus to Prevention: Understanding and Managing Abscesses in Animals
In this episode of the Vetsplanation podcast, Dr. Sugerman delves into the world of abscesses in animals. Abscesses are localized collections of pus that develop in response to infection or foreign material under the skin. Dr. Sugerman explains that they can be quite painful for animals due to inflammation and infection. The bacteria that cause abscesses can come from various sources such as bite wounds, open wounds, or exposure to bacteria-laden objects. But what happens when an abscess ruptures? Tune in to find out!
What You’ll Learn:
Discover the root causes of abscesses in animals and discern their symptoms.
Understand the efficacy of pain management and antibiotics in treating pet abscesses.
Learn about the crucial post-treatment care, with a focus on draining and antibiotics
Uncover concrete prevention methods to avoid abscesses in pets, with special emphasis on cats.
Gain insight into when to seek veterinary care post-treatment and the hazards of over-the-counter medications for pets.
Ideas Worth Sharing:
"It's better to do this right the first time. Keep that cone on for 10 to 14 days while everything heals, rather than risk another infection or complications." - Tyler Sugerman
Watch On YouTube:
Read The Transcript:
Tyler: [00:00:00] Hi, and welcome to Vetsplanation. I'm your veterinary host, Dr. Sugerman, and I'm going to teach you about veterinary medicine. In this podcast, we can dive deeper into the understanding of what our pets are going through. and break down medical terms into easier to understand chunks of information. Just a quick disclaimer, this podcast is for informational purposes only.
This is not meant to be a diagnosis for your pet. If you have questions about diagnostics or treatment options, please talk to your veterinarian about those things. Remember, we are all practicing veterinary medicine, and medicine is not an exact science. Your veterinarian may have different treatment options and different opinions.
The information I provide here is to help pet parents have a better understanding about their pets. If you like our podcast, please consider sharing this podcast with at least one friend or just somebody else who has pets as well. Now let's jump into this week's episode.
Hi guys, welcome back to Vetsplanation, your trusted podcast for all things animal health. [00:01:00] I am your host, Dr. Sugerman today's topic, abscesses in animals. I decided to go with kind of a gross topic today. So sit back and let's delve into the world of veterinary medicine. To begin with, let's clarify like what an abscess actually is.
It's a localized collection of pus that generally develops like in response to some sort of infection or foreign material that gets lodged under the skin. Basically what it is, it's just like this pocket of pus or infection that's under the skin. Many pet owners come across this issue. It is more common in cats than in dogs.
You'll see it a lot in our cat parents coming in. But it can easily happen in dogs as well. What exactly happens when animals develop an abscess? When bacteria enters into the wound, they can multiply and cause infection. The body does try to isolate the bacteria by creating this [00:02:00] wall around the bacteria.
That is what that pocket is. It's leading to this pocket of pus that's in there. Abscesses can be quite painful for animals though because essentially they're just, not just a pocket of pus, but they're really inflamed because of the infection and all of the other things that are going into it to try and help fight off that infection, which as that bacteria is growing and growing and that infection is growing, that abscess becomes bigger and bigger when it's left untreated.
It's also important to understand where the bacteria comes from. Bacteria can come from an animal's mouth, like from a bite wound, and from another pet biting that pet. It can come from that own pet's bacteria. So when that own pet licks something where an open wound already was, those pets naturally have bacteria on their skin that can lead to an abscess, or bacteria from their own mouth that can cause an abscess.
The skin usually acts as a barrier for bacteria [00:03:00] so it stays on the outside of the body, which is beneficial for the body because we want to have bacteria on the skin. It helps to decrease the amount of yeast and stuff that's on the skin. It is beneficial for us, but when that barrier of skin is broken through, that can lead to the pet's own bacteria going under the skin and then causing a problem.
And then lastly, the bacteria could be from something else completely. So something like a foxtail. If anybody's from California, they will know, but there's these little weeds that have bacteria on them that can cause abscesses as well. Or maybe the pet gets poked by something. I have a lot of huskies that run into sharp objects for some reason.
So things like trailers and stuff that has a lot of dirt on it and bacteria on it. And so just poking through under the skin can put all that bacteria under the skin there as well. Another one I commonly see is dogs that chew on sticks. They'll commonly get abscesses, like in the side of their [00:04:00] throat here, from the stick penetrating into the throat and then causing an abscess, putting bacteria underneath that skin.
As you can see , bacteria can come from lots of different places. Now there are like special types of abscesses that occur in very specific places. One of these examples would be a tooth root abscess. They generally form just like below into the side of the eye, like in this general area.
There are also things like anal gland abscesses where the anal glands become infected. These are usually located just around the anus. So if you think of the anus like a clock, it'll be roughly around the four o'clock area and the eight o'clock area. Most people think that the pet is bleeding out of their anus when they see this, or they just see blood where the pet was sitting, and they just think that there's somewhere else that they're bleeding from.
But a lot of the times those end up being anal gland abscess. I will talk about those in a future episode. I feel like they just deserve their [00:05:00] own special attention. Now let's talk about what symptoms you as a parent should be watching out for. Pet parents should watch out for things like hot swollen areas on the skin that can cause the animal to be like visibly showing discomfort.
In cats, these often show up around the face or around the base of their tail, usually around their face because they're fighting with another cat and around the base of the tail when they're running away from another animal. Typically these sites are mostly from fight wounds, but they can be from other things as well.
These swellings usually will start out really small, like they can be the size of a pea, and then they can become larger and larger and larger until they can become almost the size of a cantaloupe. You might see like pus coming out of an opening too so sometimes it gets so big that it just like a tiny piece of it ruptures open and you'll start seeing some like whitish yellowish discharge that's coming from it.
You might also find just like when you're petting [00:06:00] your pet, if it's a cat, they start hissing at you or a dog that starts growling at you when you just pet over a certain area. It is important to look in that area to make sure that there isn't something that looks like an abscess in that spot.
It will look like this raised bump. There's also like a lot of stretching of the skin that happens. Like I said, these become really large sometimes. And all that inflammation and stuff signals to the brain that this is a really painful thing. You might also see things like a reduced appetite, they may not eat as much as they normally would, they could become really listless, meaning that they're just really not moving around very much as well, or occasionally you might even see a fever too.
However these also point to a lot of other issues, there can be other things that your pet could have that is not an abscess. It is like really critical to consult a veterinarian for diagnostics and a diagnosis to make sure there's not something else that's going on with them.
Let's talk about, like, [00:07:00] how we treat abscesses in pets. This might sound a little grim, but treatment often involves lancing open, or opening up the abscess, so we can drain all of that pus. The area is then cleaned out with a disinfectant solution, and then often a latex drain is placed into the abscess to allow all that bacteria to drain out from the abscess over a couple of days.
One thing to note here is if you are allergic to latex, you should definitely tell your veterinarian that, as we may be able to place like something different that's not latex in that area, so that way we don't cause any reactions for you. Or simply just wearing gloves to make sure that you're not touching the drain with your bare hands and causing a reaction.
We'll also mentioned to with the drain. A lot of people think that because the drain is usually around tube that that tube is supposed to have all the fluid that comes out of it. That's not actually what this tube does. That tube is there so it keeps the opening open so we can have a regular [00:08:00] opening and we'll have just like fluid that seeps around the drain rather than through the drains that the drain isn't there for fluid to go through.
It's only there to keep that opening open so that way it doesn't close up and then cause a worse abscess. Typically when we do place these strains we usually do perform this under sedation or general anesthesia. The pet will often be on antibiotics usually during and then after the procedure to combat any lingering infection as well.
And then follow up checks are really critical for this to ensure that the infection is under control and then there is no reoccurrence of it. Let's talk about what you need to do at home. So a lot of people ask me what am I supposed to do with my pet at home? So you've lanced the abscess, you've put this drain in, and now what do I do?
One of the key features of this is that your pet will most likely go home with what's called an e collar. This is also known as like the cone of shame or a restraint collar. [00:09:00] We use that to make sure that they cannot get to where that wound is. We don't want them to bite at the drain or tear it out.
If a piece of that drain is left in there, it could actually cause a worse infection when it closes over on its own. We don't want that to happen. We also don't want the pet to be able to rip open the tissue or rip open the sutures that were in that place because then we have to go in and remove more tissue.
Some pets are really good about leaving them alone, but it really only takes a couple of seconds to be irritated by how that drain feels and then for them to rip it out. So you want to keep that cone on for about 10 to 14 days while everything heals. I know 10 to 14 days seems like a long time, but in the grand scheme of things.
One to two weeks is not a long time. You'd rather do it in 10 to 14 days and have it done with. Rather than take that cone off because you feel bad for them and they rip it out. And now they're [00:10:00] into, maybe that was 10 days in and now you're into another 10 days in, or it was seven days in and you're on to another 10 to 14 days in of this, so it's better to just do this right the first time.
You'll also want to keep this drain really clean. The best way to do that one, wash your hands. People don't think about the fact that you have a lot of bacteria on you just naturally. That's what your skin naturally does. If you put your hands, which has different bacteria onto your pet's body, where it has an open wound, you're going to put all your bacteria onto your pet.
So we want to make sure you wash your hands really well. First, even using gloves. Even better, if you use gloves, I think that that's great because then we decrease the chances of any bacteria happening. You want to use a warm washcloth and just put water on the warm washcloth. You're going to use that to be able to do a warm compress and clean around the drain.
You don't have to use soap, you don't have to use anything special there, just [00:11:00] really warm water on a washcloth is all that you're going to need. You want to clean all the crusty stuff that's around the drain site so we can try to help keep that area clean and allow more stuff to be able to drain out.
Because remember it doesn't come out through the tube, it comes out around the tube. If the whole tube is clogged around the tube, nothing is going to come out. So we want to keep that really clean. You also can use that same thing for doing a warm compress. So that's where you just take that washcloth, put the warm water on it, and then you're going to put it on top of like where that swelling is for about 5 to 10 minutes.
First of all, make sure that that water is just warm enough that you could hold it on your wrist by yourself and it's not going to hurt you. It doesn't feel uncomfortable. You want to make sure it's not too hot for our pets. And then you want to hold it onto that wound, like I said, for about five to ten minutes.
Doing this two to three times a day is like a great natural way to help decrease the inflammation and decrease the pain for our pets. [00:12:00] On that same note of like keeping it clean, it is really important, especially if this is a cat, that they are kept indoors while this is healing. For cats, if they go outside, there's a couple of problems.
If they have that e collar on, or the cone of shame on they can't see very well, right? And that can lead to like serious injury for them. They may jump and may not make it because they can't visualize the depth of things. They may run into the street and get hit by a car because they don't see the car coming.
They could have other animals injure them because they don't see those animals coming. So it is really important to keep them inside. Another reason for both just cats and dogs, just to keep them inside, is to keep that area clean. If they're laying on the ground, right where that abscess is, they're just getting dirt into that area, and more bacteria in there.
And it's not going to help keep this area clean. I've also seen pets who have been put outside and then just, they come back and they have maggots from that wound[00:13:00] because there's flies outside, there are always other bugs and stuff that are out there as well, so they've come back with these maggots, so we want to make sure, just keep this area clean, keep them inside.
The other thing too, is I've also seen them over exert themselves running after something, we give them pain medication. So they feel a lot better. We give them antibiotics. They feel a lot better. And then they start running after things like a squirrel or a rabbit and they've opened up their sutures.
So we need to keep them inside. Where we can help control their environment. Another big thing is just to make sure to give all the medication as directed. So people tend to stop the antibiotics when they just don't see any more discharge. But remember, that bacteria is microscopic. You can't see it. You have no idea if there's more bacteria that's there.
You can't tell if that infection is truly gone. If you stop the antibiotics, then whatever bacteria is left now becomes more resistant to those antibiotics. It's like, hey, I made it [00:14:00] through that 3 days that you gave to me. Now I have the super bug that is not going to be affected by those same antibiotics the 2nd time around when you restart it. You want to make sure that we kill all those bacteria off. And we've done lots of studies, lots of research to determine when the best time period is for all of those antibiotics to be given. Give the antibiotics for the appropriate amount of time.
I've definitely gotten more into trying to figure out what medications are going to be the most important thing. Cause I know that some people just can't give all the medications. Some dogs are really bad at taking them. Some cats are really bad at taking them.
So if you do know that your pet is really bad at taking antibiotics or if they're really bad at taking medications, talk to your veterinarian about it because maybe there's a different type of medication that we're able to give to them. We do have an injection that we can give to cats and you can give it to dogs.
It's just a more expensive one, but it lasts for a week. I'd rather them get that antibiotic for a week [00:15:00] and unfortunately be more expensive than for that pet not to get antibiotics and now we've created these super bugs. Also you could ask them like what is the most important thing to get into your pet for abscesses.
Those antibiotics are going to be the most important thing. Second most important thing is going to be pain medication. Third most important thing is going to be an anti inflammatory. If you can get all three of them in fantastic, but if not, at the very least, just trying to get these antibiotics in. The next thing to know is in about three to five days, the drain is going to need to be removed.
As long as everything looks good, then they'll take the drain out, clean everything up, and then just send you home. If the drain site isn't looking very good though, then you may have a doctor come out to talk to you about some of those potential problems that arose. If they have sutures in, then they'll actually need to have those taken out later.
So those will be about 10 to 14 days for those sutures to be removed. And now let's kind of like talk about what the [00:16:00] prevention is for these pets. For cats, the best prevention is keeping them indoors. It helps prevent them from fighting with other pets where they can get bacteria that's forming.
Also just keeping your pet's environment clean and monitoring kind of their interactions with other animals. You may even have two indoor cats which fight. And then they end up having abscesses that way. Your cat didn't even have to go outdoors and you still can get an abscess. Or for dogs, just trying to make sure there's no big, I don't know, these metal things that are sticking out, especially if you have a husky. Like I said, I don't know why I always have one of these huskies who run into metal objects, but just try to make sure there aren't things in their pet's environment that can harm them.
All right, let's talk about some of the common questions that I get now. So a common question is, people have asked me if the abscess will eventually rupture on its own, then why can't we just use the antibiotics and let it drain out on its own?
Why do we have to put a drain in? [00:17:00] So that would be a great theory that if I could just give them antibiotics once it ruptured. But we have to think about some of these other things first. So one of the first things we have to think about is how did that abscess get there in the first place? So the pet had a bacteria that was introduced under the skin, like we talked about, that shouldn't be there.
And then it heals over too quickly and traps this bacteria in this little pocket under the skin. That bacteria quickly multiplies and then creates this abscess. So if we have this abscess that ruptures and it has this little hole that's in it, we have stuff coming out that will heal again on its own just like it did from before.
And now all that bacteria that's still in there is still trapped in there, and we're going to have the same problem over again. Yes, some bacteria ruptured out from this little, little rupture, but not all the bacteria, because all of that bacteria is embedded in all of that tissue. There is no way to be able to get all of that [00:18:00] bacteria out.
Again, it's microscopic. We can't see it. So that pet will heal that opening. The bacteria will multiply, leaving another abscess in its place. Or worse, that bacteria can also spread now into the bloodstream and then make that pet very sick. The second reason why that doesn't really work is now because that skin has been stretched out, it was like this, very taut, and now it's being very stretched.
It actually makes the skin Very thin, and it doesn't have a really good blood supply. So this can lead to some of the skin dying, or what we call necrosis. The more tissue that dies, the more tissue we have to remove, which means that it's now harder to close that tissue. So if I have to remove this whole big layer here, I now have to pull skin as much as I can to be able to close that.
That's really hard to do. So it's not a great idea to be able to just allow it to try to heal on its own. Another question that I [00:19:00] often get is what should I be watching for at home? To determine when we should actually bring them back. So really it's a lot of the same things that you saw in the first place.
If you start seeing redness again, swelling, increased discharge, your pet is lethargic so they don't really want to move. They're not really wanting to eat or they seem a lot sicker. Those are definitely reasons to bring them back in. For these abscesses, we have to guess as to what type of bacteria is under there.
And we have to guess as to what type the antibiotic is going to be the best antibiotic. We use our best guess based on other bacteria that has been found in abscesses, but what if this wasn't one of those bacteria? What is this was that husky that ran into the, the metal piece and then now has some bacteria that got put under the skin.
There's no paper or data that says this is the type of bacteria that you will find on a metal trailer. So it's really hard for us to know [00:20:00] sometimes exactly which bacteria is going to be and exactly which type of antibiotic is going to the best for that bacteria. Sometimes if you start seeing those things, it's because we aren't on the right antibiotic and we might have to switch antibiotics.
Some other things to watch for is if the skin is becoming black. Sometimes that skin dies off because of that lack of good blood supply when it's been stretched out. And, we did everything we could to help prevent that from happening, but, unfortunately, it just happens sometimes. In those cases, we will likely have to do a second surgery to remove all of that black tissue that's there.
And hopefully, if everything goes well, we'll be able to close that tissue as well. The last question that I often get is about over the counter medications, like pain medications. like Advil or people apply topical medications instead of giving the liquid or a pill. So first of all, that's not a good idea to give over the counter medications.
So even doggy aspirin, [00:21:00] because it can interfere with some of the medications that we need to give them. So some common examples, I've just, I've had people that have given aspirin and for some reason I had to give a steroid instead of an anti inflammatory and then now it can cause ulcers. Or I've had people who have We were like my cat was in a lot of pain, so I gave him Tylenol, but now he has a Tylenol toxicity, which now we have to recover the cat from that and from the abscess, which means the cat has to be in the hospital.
So it's not a good idea to give over the counter medications. It's much better just to get them into the veterinary hospital. As far as like topical medications, so things that you're going to put on top of it, One problem with that is like we have this opening again, right? If we have this little tiny opening and you're putting something over it, like a bandage, or you're putting back, you're putting like the triple antibiotic white man toward neosporin, you're trapping everything in there, so things can't come out.
Bacteria [00:22:00] still inside there and it can't penetrate all the way deep down into the tissue and now it's getting trapped because it can't come out and we have the bacteria from your hands on there. So it's just it's just not a good idea to put stuff over it. It's better just to clean it up. And then I said, bring them in so that they can get medications.
And then also, again, like if you're worried about medications that you have to give to them, like you're worried about the fact that you can't give pain medication or you can't give an antibiotic, just talk to your veterinarian about that. Because like I said, there are some long lasting medications that you can give instead.
That is always going to depend on what the availability is for that. For that veterinarian, because not every veterinarian is going to have all the medications. All right, so now we're going to talk about our fun animal fact for the day. So for today's fun animal fact, I picked a weird one.
I just thought that abscesses are gross. And so we're going to talk about something else that's a little bit gross. So we're going to talk about [00:23:00] wombats. So if you haven't looked at a picture of them, you should. They're very cute. So that's not the gross part of them. They are marsupials that are native to Australia and they're like opossums of America.
Those are also marsupials. In case you don't remember like what the distinct feature of a marsupial is, basically they have a pouch that's able to carry their babies until they're big enough to be able to survive on their own. So like a kangaroo essentially. Unlike opossums though, their poop is Cube shape, just basically like a brick shape.
So they're literally pooping bricks. And I'm sure you know what I'd rather say there. Or what I want to say, but I'm not going to say it, but scientists have found that they have this really weird way that they move their intestines that they can make them really skinny and then relax them so that contracting and relaxing them over and over in this very specific way that makes their poop [00:24:00] into a cube shape.
They even have this mathematical calculator that they've used to determine, like, how the intestines create this shape of a cube. Can you imagine if somebody came to you and they're like, hey, can you make this computer program that makes poop into a cube? I can't imagine who, who asked somebody to do this.
But, the weird thing of this is they're trying to figure out why they're cube shape because like their anus is round, just like every other animal. So how is it that if their anus is round that they're making cube shape poop? Like I said, they. They found out that just like the way that they there are contracting relaxing is doing this, but they also were trying to figure out like, why did they do this?
Like, why isn't it just oval shaped around shape? Like, why does it have to be cube shape? I feel like that would be like more painful to pass. They don't 100% know, but scientists think that it's just a way that they can use it to mark their territory. [00:25:00] If they're cube shaped, they're not round and so they can't really roll away. So if they use it to like mark territory or find a mate, or essentially just to communicate with other wombats. And literally, these are the only animals in the world that have cubed shaped poop. Animals are weird sometimes, alright, that is it for this episode of Vetsplanation.
I hope you have a clearer understanding of abscesses now. Pet health is really an ongoing process, and we're here to help make it more manageable and understandable for you. So stay curious and tune in next time as we continue exploring the exciting world of animal health. Until then, keep your pets happy, healthy, and well loved.
Thank you guys!
Thank you guys for listening this week. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or you just want to say hi, you can email me at Suggs, S U G G S @ Vetsplanationpodcast.com or visit the website at Vetsplanationpodcast.com or [00:26:00] find us on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok at Vetsplanation. Thank you all for listening and I'll see you back here next week.