Bone like bump on jaw

[Ckaladjian]

Hi I wanted to see if anyone dealt with anything like this. I have a 1 month old skinny pig & i just noticed a hard bump on his jaw that almost feels like a bone / marble like I took him to the vet she said to monitor it and if it gets bigger it might be a abscess & she will numb the area & drain it. But has anyone dealt with anything like this? It just feels like a bone to me but none of my other 3 have it but I can’t stop worrying

 

[weepweeps]

Hello and welcome to the forum. I have dealt with a tooth root abscess on my piggy. Here is his thread.

Dental? Pepper is off to the vets tomorrow

There’s too much information to say again here. Have a read and see if it sounds like your piggy. Is your piggy losing weight?

If it is an abscess I would think it won’t go away on its own. It will definitely need pain relief, antibiotics and probably draining too. Zithromax is a very good antibiotic.

Good luck. I hope it gets sorted soon.

 

[Wiebke]

Hi and welcome

My Dylan had a dental root abscess that started out like feeling like a bony bump on the jaw.

If it is an abscess, it won't go away on its but will grow and become much softer to the touch. That is when it can be lanced, drained at the vets and stitched open (marsupialised) so it can be flushed twice daily with a mild antiseptic for as long as possible to allow the abscess to heal from the inside out but ensure that no little speck of infection is left inside to eventually start a new abscess.
Keep an eye on the front teeth - if they grow slanted, it means that the lump is causing pain and one-sided chewing and that the back teeth on the abscess are starting to overgrow. You have to brace for loss of appetite/weight loss. I would strongly recommend to monitor the weight very regularly by weighing on your kitchen scales first thing in the morning for best day to day comparison. Hay and fresh grass make over three quarters what a piggy eats in a day but they are generally the first food group that is impacted by any pain. The silica in the fibre is what actually grinds down the cavy back teeth while the front teeth are self-sharpening against each other.
Just watching a piggy nibble on a little veg can mean that a lot of weight can be lost quickly without you noticing. You have to also be aware that the poo output is running at least a day behind the food intake and that it is not an exact measurement. The kitchen scales are your greatest and most reliable ally in monitoring any health issue.

Make sure that you order some recovery formula so you can step in as soon as needed with support feed to make up what is lost in terms of hay intake. Your feeding support care can make all the difference.
These two very practical care links with lots of how-to tips tell you all you need to know and do if it turns out to be in an abscess indeed:
Weight - Monitoring and Management
All About Syringe Feeding and Medicating Guinea Pigs with Videos and Pictures

 

[Ckaladjian]

Hi and welcome

My Dylan had a dental root abscess that started out like feeling like a bony bump on the jaw.

If it is an abscess, it won't go away on its but will grow and become much softer to the touch. That is when it can be lanced, drained at the vets and stitched open (marsupialised) so it can be flushed twice daily with a mild antiseptic for as long as possible to allow the abscess to heal from the inside out but ensure that no little speck of infection is left inside to eventually start a new abscess.
Keep an eye on the front teeth - if they grow slanted, it means that the lump is causing pain and one-sided chewing and that the back teeth on the abscess are starting to overgrow. You have to brace for loss of appetite/weight loss. I would strongly recommend to monitor the weight very regularly by weighing on your kitchen scales first thing in the morning for best day to day comparison. Hay and fresh grass make over three quarters what a piggy eats in a day but they are generally the first food group that is impacted by any pain. The silica in the fibre is what actually grinds down the cavy back teeth while the front teeth are self-sharpening against each other.
Just watching a piggy nibble on a little veg can mean that a lot of weight can be lost quickly without you noticing. You have to also be aware that the poo output is running at least a day behind the food intake and that it is not an exact measurement. The kitchen scales are your greatest and most reliable ally in monitoring any health issue.

Make sure that you order some recovery formula so you can step in as soon as needed with support feed to make up what is lost in terms of hay intake. Your feeding support care can make all the difference.
These two very practical care links with lots of how-to tips tell you all you need to know and do if it turns out to be in an abscess indeed:
Weight - Monitoring and Management
All About Syringe Feeding and Medicating Guinea Pigs with Videos and Pictures

Thank you how fast do they usually grow? I’m supposed to go back in on Monday for a check up but it’s still so small and bony can they cut it open this early you think? He is so far eating normal

 

[Ckaladjian]

Hello and welcome to the forum. I have dealt with a tooth root abscess on my piggy. Here is his thread.

Dental? Pepper is off to the vets tomorrow

There’s too much information to say again here. Have a read and see if it sounds like your piggy. Is your piggy losing weight?

If it is an abscess I would think it won’t go away on its own. It will definitely need pain relief, antibiotics and probably draining too. Zithromax is a very good antibiotic.

Good luck. I hope it gets sorted soon.

Thank you and yes he is eating normally and gaining i weight him daily since he is still a month old

 

[Wiebke]

Thank you how fast do they usually grow? I’m supposed to go back in on Monday for a check up but it’s still so small and bony can they cut it open this early you think? He is so far eating normal

It can take several weeks to really get going but when an abscess blows up, it will so very quickly more at a rate of hours than days. At the stage yours is, it is too early for lancing since it is still solid right through and there is not yet any infectious fluid to drain off.

Even using a very strong antibiotic like azithromycin (UK brand name: Zithromax) in combination with very high metacam dosages is sadly often not enough to make an abscess go away at this stage. It just suppresses the processes for a while but once the antibiotic has worn off, the abscess will come up again.

I was once very lucky with my Dylan who presented with a lump like yours in the run up to Christmas for which we had already booked flights for a family reunion in another country, so we tried it this way to avoid an emergency over the holidays and have the abscess come up when everybody was around again.
It took two courses, i.e. 4 weeks on Zithromax (the second of which wiped out his appetite and required full-on syringe feeding for several weeks) and 0.5 ml twice daily of dog strength meloxicam (metacam 1.5 mg/ml) for his weight of ca. 1 kilo to get him through the holiday absences and clinic closures but much to our surprise the lump did not only disappear it never came up again the nearly 3 years that Dylan lived after this - good thing because it was not long before the Covid pandemic took off.
It is however an exception rather than the rule. I was definitely not so lucky with my Hywel whose jaw abscess twice came up while the dental savvy vet was away on holiday or on a course, which made his treatment rather a bit of a nightmare around a couple of operations of my husband's as well.

All the best. At the moment it is still wait and see what happens.

 

[Ckaladjian]

Thank you so much for this info very helpful! I will definitely wait until I see it at least getting a bit soft before doing anything luckily my vet can get me in same day so shouldn’t be a issues since she already is aware of it as well. I hope he gets all better