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Tallulah has an abscess :(

Poor little girl, just one thing after another. She is very lucky to have you caring for her. What a feisty piggy she is. 💕
 
Very swollen this morning, looks like she has a squashed jam donut half sewn into her neck :(
Seems a long time until 10am when the vet appointment is... she's had her baytril and loxicom and eaten an enormous breakfast though so she's well set up for whatever happens next!
 
Poor little love. I’m such a fan of the bat-hippo, she sounds like an amazing, feisty, funny little thing I’m not surprised you’ve completely fallen for her.
 
Not good news from the vet... the lump is turning hard and they think a granuloma is forming, so her immune system has reacted badly to the suture material and is causing huge inflammation and forming a big lump of scar tissue full of white blood cells trying to attack the stitches. They cant take the stitches out, cant put any more in, so it's watch and wait and bathe the big hole with hibiscrub then let it dry and put manuka honey on later... vets every day until it settles or doesnt... ideally she needs more surgery but they'd have to take a lot of tissue out and if it happened again there'd be nothing left to sew back together...
Its a very rare complication, the vets havent seen it in a guinea pig before... bloody awkward hippo girl, please stop this daft granuloma business and heal up :(
 
PigglePuggle said:
Not good news from the vet... the lump is turning hard and they think a granuloma is forming, so her immune system has reacted badly to the suture material and is causing huge inflammation and forming a big lump of scar tissue full of white blood cells trying to attack the stitches. They cant take the stitches out, cant put any more in, so it's watch and wait and bathe the big hole with hibiscrub then let it dry and put manuka honey on later... vets every day until it settles or doesnt... ideally she needs more surgery but they'd have to take a lot of tissue out and if it happened again there'd be nothing left to sew back together...
Its a very rare complication, the vets havent seen it in a guinea pig before... bloody awkward hippo girl, please stop this daft granuloma business and heal up :(
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Would a change of antibiotic help? We always use Zithromax for anything where abscesses have been involved. I haven't got any experience of this happening, so can't be any more help. What a nightmare! x
 
furryfriends (TEAS) said:
Would a change of antibiotic help? We always use Zithromax for anything where abscesses have been involved. I haven't got any experience of this happening, so can't be any more help. What a nightmare! x
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There's no infection, it's like she's having a big allergic reaction to the stitches, her immune system has recognised the suture material as "foreign stuff that shouldnt be there" and is trying to get rid of it... she may get an infection if the wound stays open too long, but so far its clean, no abscess stuff left... just seroma fluid and now this weird inflamed scar tissue forming... I never thought as a pharmacologist I would be pinning my hopes on manuka honey but the vet said it should keep the wound edges clean and soothed and might promote healing... so manuka honey and more buprenorphine and loxicom and keep up the baytril to try keep any new infection away it is!
 
So sorry to read this. I haven’t heard of this kind of reaction to suture material before. Must be quite rare? She certainly is a complex little character.
 
Oh no, poor Tallulah. She's still eating though so I'm really hoping it looks worse than it feels - all my fingers are crossed for her.
 
Very rare, the vet has seen it in dogs and cats before but not a guinea pig... in dogs and cats they normally put a drain in the wound until the fluid stops accumulating then do a second surgery later to take the lump of scar tissue out... but she's just too small for any of that... so if she does heal up she might be a hunchback with a scar tissue lump... camel-bat-hippo-franken-pig... just gotta hope her immune system calms down and stops over reacting to the stitches!
 
Aw, so sorry this is happening, what an awful time for you all, sending big hugs to you and bat hippo girl x come on get better Tallulah x
 
She's just taken 4mls of syringe feed and 2mls of pro-C and I've covered her wound in manuka honey so we'll see how she goes.
I sort of get the feeling the wound and seroma/granuloma lump might look less swollen and sore if a whole herd of vets weren't squeezing it and prodding it and sticking needles in it every day... twice a day yesterday... she seems to like the feeling of expensive pharmaceutical grade honey trickling down her neck anyway and it will be a tasty surprise next time she grooms herself! Here's little lumpy-back-camel-bat-hippo covered in honey.
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What a nightmare you are having. Poor Tallulah. Hope things start to improve soon. I really do have everything crossed for her. 💕
 
Oh bless her. What an amazing special piggy she is. This type of problem just needs time and good nursing care (which you are giving). The Manuka honey is really good for healing wounds and l have used it a lot in piggies and humans.
I am sure you will see an improvement soon
 
Thanks everyone! I think she's feeling better than she looks, the vet seemed hesitant to ask if she was eating even a tiny bit of syringe feed, but today she has eaten: 2 bowls of pellets, a handful of porridge oats, a slice of cucumber, a slice of carrot, some bistro salad, some beansprouts, a slice of red pepper, 2 stems of coriander, 2 hay trays full of hay, and 2 syringe feeds.
Just got to watch and wait and keep bathing her wound and putting manuka honey on it and checking in with the vet every day for a buprenorphine injection and some fluid draining and general poking and prodding.
It could go either way at this stage, only Tallulah's odd little white blood cells know what they might do next... but for now she's eating and pooping and running about and giving piggy daddy friendly piggy kisses so he had to wash blood and recovery food and manuka honey out of his beard before going to work!
 
Poor Tallulah and poor you. You must be so worried, pity they don't do anti histamines for piggies. Fingers crossed for a complete recovery.
Come on Tallulah.xx
 
I am very worried, I know enough about immunology to understand this is a bit weird and grim, fortunately piggy daddy has no biomedical knowledge whatsoever so he makes a great piggy nurse. Tallulah has no idea how ill she is either. They just cuddle up on the sofa enjoying a syringe feed while I measure out the meds and do the nasty wound bits!
 
Its lovely how piggy daddy always just sees the piggy not the illness, I'm always freaking out a bit and thinking of the medical bits and what could go wrong, but piggy daddy just sees a hungry piggy that needs a cuddle, he's so relaxed he even got Tallulah eating coriander while I was flushing her wound! I think we make a good team with this piggy nursing stuff :)
 
The manuka honey has done something, the wound looks more broken open and crusty scabby (kind of like when a kid grazes their knee, no sign it was ever a neatly stitched surgery wound) but the swelling has gone right down and there's much less oozy fluid and blood...
Bathed it an hour ago (went for saline, it looks too open to risk hibiscrub) then let it dry out and just put another big dollop of manuka honey on... lets see what the vet thinks tomorrow...
 
Sorry not been on in a few days so just caught up! What a nightmare you've been having, hope the vets goes well!
PigglePuggle said:
And most of the dinner has disappeared, and the hay tray has been sat in, and there was a bat-hippo shape scurrying away when I went in to top up the hay and do the water bottles... please get well funny little hippo girl! There's just such a big hole in her neck... oozing all sorts of stuff... maybe @alpacasqueak 's Pedro and Tallulah should start a club for "feisty rodents with big surgical holes in but surviving"...
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Yep her and Pedro should definitely start a club for troublesome ones with holes that are blooming cute but like to cause stress! :tu:
 
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