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Charlie's jaw abcess/bone infection- not good-another abscess

natandfluffs

Alpha Buck
I posted briefly about this in chat but want to start a thread here. I would really welcome any experience, advice and support please... and we need all the positive vibes we can get.

Charlie had all his molars and premolars extracted a few weeks ago, and now has a crack in his jaw and a really nasty infection in his bone. An abcess was removed last weekend and we're flushing it out and applying manuka honey twice daily. We've been injecting penicillin too but It's not doing a lot so the vet is also doing a more thorough clean every few days. My poor boy is taking it all in his stride, but we got the bacterilology results back yesterday and its not good. The only antibiotic that can touch it is quite nasty, and that didn't do a lot when they were testing either :cry:

So I'm injecting amikacin twice daily and hoping for the best... we looked at his x rays again and he has another couple of very small abcesses and his remaining tooth roots aren't great. I think the vet was preparing me for the worst. But Charlie is still so happy and snuggly I have to try anything.

I feel so sad. He's only been with me for three months :(
 
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I'm so sorry to read this about poor Charlie. :(

I don't have any experience of this, so can't offer any advice, but I just wanted to send Charlie loads of vibes. xxx

Thinking of you both. xx
 
I'm so sorry to read this about poor Charlie. :(

I don't have any experience of this, so can't offer any advice, but I just wanted to send Charlie loads of vibes. xxx

Thinking of you both. xx

Thank you... we need all the spare vibes we can get I think... touching wood and crossing everything here!! xx
 
Millions of vibes from me. And Inca sends special sympathy vibes as she knows how horrible abscesses are :(

I hope a thorough clean at the vets will help get on top of it. From what you were saying your vets are fab so will deffo do the best they can.
 
Thank you

My vets are amazing and i know between us we'll try and cover everything. I just need to hope.

How is Inca now? Is she access free?
 
Ignore that Kermit, I've just seen your post about Inca. Mega vibes for her too.

Charlie has just come and sat next to me and done a lovely dead bunny flop while I was putting toys in a box. At least he seems pretty happy right now :love:
 
Lots of vibes for Charile. I posted on your other thread that my specialist really recommends echinecea, Doughnut is on it to build up her immune system after being ill for so long. I also put a pinch of avipro on her food, it's a probiotic to try and keep her has healthy as possible with all her meds.
 
I'm updating this in case anyone can add any thoughts, or in case our experience is useful to anyone else.

So Charlie had another surgery on Sunday. My vet thought things looked slightly better and decided that putting antibiotic beads in and closing the gum was worth a try as the pus was going up through the gap where a tooth had been removed rather than down and through his jaw. That all went fine and x rays were repeated which showed little/no change in the abcess. :cry: My vet also opened out the hole in his jaw a little more to allow for better cleaning/drainage.

I'm continuing to inject amikacin twice daily, flush the wound twice daily and give metacam twice daily.

He seems fine in himself, but my vet has said that if it's not showing improvement in 2 weeks we need to consider it untreatable. So I guess I may have some tough decisions to make...

We're back for a check up tomorrow, please keep fingers crossed for us.
 
Aww sorry Charlie's not well such a worrying time sending him some get well vibes hoping he can get better :love:
 
cant believe i missed this ... im so very sorry you are having to go through this ... I had meant to message back to see how he was doing after your last pm ..but im sorry it slipped my mind.

If we had known things would get this bad for him ..especialy so quickly ..he would not have gone up for rehoming .. :( ..i feel so bad for you .:(

Ican see you are doing everything you can for him ...and Im so grateful for that ... I hope it doesnt come to having to let him go ... but if it does im sure it wont be without lots of thought .

if theres anything i can do ..though i cant think what .... then please get in touch ..

Angie x
 
cant believe i missed this ... im so very sorry you are having to go through this ... I had meant to message back to see how he was doing after your last pm ..but im sorry it slipped my mind.

If we had known things would get this bad for him ..especialy so quickly ..he would not have gone up for rehoming .. :( ..i feel so bad for you .:(

Ican see you are doing everything you can for him ...and Im so grateful for that ... I hope it doesnt come to having to let him go ... but if it does im sure it wont be without lots of thought .

if theres anything i can do ..though i cant think what .... then please get in touch ..

Angie x

Don't worry Angie, I don't think there is a way anyone could have predicted this. Every time my vets look and then do surgery it's worse than they thought... it started as they might or might not remove a single tooth and have a look and turned into removing all the teeth down the left side because they were all infected- and the pattern has continued- every surgery seems to find something unexpected.

I think despite it all its been worth it- even now when it's so hard his loveliness outweighs it all. And he's been really good for all of us, Toby included who is now much more confident around animals in general. And I think (hope) Charlie has got what he wanted/needed- he seems really happy as a house bun, so hopefully that starts to out weigh his rubbish start.

I'm mostly just cross at the people who had him before and whoever bred him- I suspect some of his difficulties are genetic.

It will be a really difficult decision if it comes to it. I hope we will be able to keep him happy and comfortable for a while if treatment doesn't work. I guess that doing that will need to factor in how we keep him comfortable. Pain killers are fine but I suspect I can only keep prodding and poking to clean it out for so long before he gets very fed up- he fought me for the first time this morning but I'm hoping it was a one off. I'll just have to follow his lead I guess
 
Update

I've been getting a LOT of pus out since his op at the weekend. We had a check up yesterday and agreed that this probably wasn't great as there was so much at the outside. however when the vet cleaned, he did say the blood supply was better, which was a good thing. So we still have no idea which way this will go.

I have however had much less pus out today, which I hope is good. He's also back to climbing on the dining table at dinner time so I'm having to banish him to the hall while we eat- which hopefully is a good sign!
 
Don't worry Angie, I don't think there is a way anyone could have predicted this. Every time my vets look and then do surgery it's worse than they thought... it started as they might or might not remove a single tooth and have a look and turned into removing all the teeth down the left side because they were all infected- and the pattern has continued- every surgery seems to find something unexpected.

I think despite it all its been worth it- even now when it's so hard his loveliness outweighs it all. And he's been really good for all of us, Toby included who is now much more confident around animals in general. And I think (hope) Charlie has got what he wanted/needed- he seems really happy as a house bun, so hopefully that starts to out weigh his rubbish start.

I'm mostly just cross at the people who had him before and whoever bred him- I suspect some of his difficulties are genetic.

It will be a really difficult decision if it comes to it. I hope we will be able to keep him happy and comfortable for a while if treatment doesn't work. I guess that doing that will need to factor in how we keep him comfortable. Pain killers are fine but I suspect I can only keep prodding and poking to clean it out for so long before he gets very fed up- he fought me for the first time this morning but I'm hoping it was a one off. I'll just have to follow his lead I guess

well i wish it wasny happening ... but im so pleased he has you to love and care for him through it all ....

come on Charlie boy ... aunty Angie is sending loads of vibes from here
 
We had a LOT of pus over the weekend. I managed to clear it pretty well but overall it's looking worse.

I saw a different vet yesterday and he took bloods. Charlie's kidneys are fine, so he is coping well with the antibiotic. But the prognosis doesn't look good as the infection seems worse. Though he seems fine in himself....

This vet was of the opinion that while he is coping with the treatment we could keep trying as there is a very small chance it may suddenly start working. I'm struggling to know what to do but i think we'll go a bit longer before we say its definitely not going to work. He does hate the injections though :-(

Fingers crossed for a big change
 
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