Matted dewlap from dribbling U/D much worse

I wasn't sure if this was more appropriate in health so please feel free to move if so.

Nena has an abscess and an ulcer and has been dribbling. She's on appropriate pain relief and treatment but obviously still dribbly, although she's dribbling less as the days go on. She's sort of dribbled her entire fur off under her mouth but her dewlap has become a bit matted as it's now dribbling right down there instead of being caught on her chin. I did have a tiny go at trying to brush it out but gave up swiftly as I know it must be painful for her. I really don't think I can brush it out at all - it'd really really hurt her and I don't want to do that especially when the entire area is very sore.

The skin underneath doesn't look sore that I can see. She has a vet checkup monday so I'll mention it then, and she'll need a GA in the next 3 weeks at which point she could be shaved/clipped there to get the mats out.

Just wondering if anyone has any solutions, and whether it's fair to leave it? She doesn't usually have a dewlap, it's just where it's all gotten wet and not dried out really. I could try with scissors but I'm very hesitant as it's so difficult to know where the skin is there. I may have a go at trimming it back 1mm a day or something to see if I can at least reduce the size of it...

Shaving it off before it can become sore would be the ideal, but it would depend on what your vet is like (I know some that just wont dematt)

Poor baby having an abscess and an ulcer

BB Mommy said:

Shaving it off before it can become sore would be the ideal, but it would depend on what your vet is like (I know some that just wont dematt)

Poor baby having an abscess and an ulcer

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This is definitely what I'm concerned about, the fact that it might get quite sore after a while. It's only been 2 days so far but it sprung up overnight so I didn't have any chance to work on it! I wonder if they could give her a little bit of anaesthetic at the appointment on Monday and give it a quick trim then just to get rid of some of the excess... I'll definitely mention it. I think the clippers will terrify her though going under her chin! My vet is very good so hopefully she'll be willing to do what she needs.

Yeah my poor baby is going through the wars at the moment! She has the mouth ulcer because the abscess made her whole cheek swell and she was biting on it. She's been on abx and painkillers for a good two weeks now and she's getting more of an appetite, the ulcer is going down and she's being a cheeky monkey again (which is fun at medicine time :roll:!), so hopefully she's through the worst of it for now . Her entire left side of her jaw is messed up and wonky so she'll keep getting them unfortunately, but hopefully not for a while

So I had a better look today and it seems to have progressed and become worse. There's now a bald patch that's a tiny bit pink under the whole matted wet dewlap, and upon carefully cutting some straggly bits away I've located a massive wet mass. It's so wet that it's solid, like it's glued together. I snipped away some of the bits that I could and I've given it a very gentle rub with some plain water which loosened up some of the matt, and I'm going to try cutting away a little bit every morning and evening to try to sort it. It's very obviously bothering her now, I saw her furiously grooming it before I brought her in for her meds. I'm not sure what to do. The scissors are only going to be effective up to a point. The scissors now won't even get a grip on the massive wet gluey mass and I can't separate it to try and cut it away in chunks. The water helped, so hopefully she might groom it a bit in the night and loosen it up for me...

My vet seemed okay about possibly clipping it, and she also mentioned a more water based version of sudocrem which I could have if it got worse. I'll ring her tomorrow and get my brother to pick that up. I cannot take Nena to the vets (obviously unless it was an emergency) until friday afternoon - I have a uni exam tomorrow afternoon and an exam friday morning, and I haven't revised for the exam friday morning yet. I need to cram all day on thursday to even have a hope at passing this module, and there's no way I can face retaking this module after the lecturer nearly made me cry abut 10 times. There won't be any time to take her tomorrow evening after my exam either. I feel terrible. I'm going to see how it looks tomorrow morning and try to snip away a bit more. The skin underneath is only a tiny weeny bit pink and feels/looks very healthy otherwise, so I'm relatively sure that it's not actually anything more than annoying her right now, but I'm pretty much about to cry.

Sorry for my ramblings.

Does anyone know what might help the massive gluey matt? We don't have any clippers here, animal or otherwise - plus I think she'd pretty much have a heart attack if I came near her with clippers while she was concious.

After googling, I heard that olive oil can help. Googling also tells me that a few drops of olive oil shouldn't harm her, but wanted to know if anyone had any experience with it? Does it help, or does it just make the problem worse?

no experience sorry but hope she feels better soon xccc

natsusakura said:

no experience sorry but hope she feels better soon xccc

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Thank you. I know it's not exactly life threatening but it's just one thing after another for my poor girl. I hope someone has some experience of this, hopefully a rescue or something?