How To Treat Abscesses In Cats?

An abscess is the most common purulent pathology that usually develops in a cat after being bitten by an animal or as a result of a scratch. Typically, an abscess causes swelling in the tissues surrounding the injured area, and is accompanied by painful sensations.

Sometimes an abscess may go unnoticed until pus - white, yellow, or yellow-green - begins to flow out of it.

Opened abscess on the cat's head

Most often, abscesses occur on the head of the animal (in the cheeks, ears), on the paws, at the base of the tail from its lower side. Very rarely, abscesses occur in the tissues behind the eye, where they also cause swelling, as a result of which the eye becomes bulging and severe pain appears, even when the mouth is opened. Abscesses are usually treated with surgery. The doctor, after an anesthetic injection, opens the abscess and cleans it out, removing dead cells of the infected tissue. Your doctor will then recommend which antibiotics your cat should take and how to treat the wound daily.

You can determine whether the abscess is ripe for opening by feeling it with your fingers. If you feel a soft bump under your skin filled with fluid, then it's in the bag. If not, the doctor will sometimes recommend a warm compress to the affected area to help limit the spread of the infection. In addition, a warm compress promotes faster blood flow to the affected area and aids antibiotic action. With severely inflamed swollen skin in the area of ​​an abscess and an elevated temperature, it is unacceptable to make compresses without a doctor's recommendation. If the cat does not have a fever and the abscess does not tend to spread further, you can try to cure it at home.

A treated abscess with drainage

If pus is not yet released from the abscess area, that is, the abscess has not yet been opened, you should carefully pierce it with a thick sterile needle and thus open it.

This should be done with clean hands, having previously disinfected the area of ​​the abscess and the surrounding skin surface. Gently squeeze out the pus with your fingers wrapped in gauze. A small abscess can be cleaned up with a small cotton swab wrapped around a match, for example. An open abscess must be flushed twice a day with hydrogen peroxide or chlorhexidine.

Source: H. Nepomniachtchi. 100 feline why