Pledge a Pound

Most of you know that Harry has a jaw abscess, we've been fighting it for months, he's been on depocillin and now we've switched to Zithromax. Everyday we drain it, clean it and pack it with Manuka, he's also on Metacam.

He's still very active and happy within himself, he's running around the living room as I type, he's got a great appetite, but doesn't eat hay, so I've upped his pellet intake and added Allen and Page for more fibre.

Has anyone else got experience of this please - we'd be grateful for any advice

He's back at the vets next Monday to see if there's been any progress or deterioration, operating will only be a last resort because of his age and the site of the abscess

Wesley had two abcess ops back in November last year. I had the same treatment as you. Washed it out with a mild solution of hibiscrub. Not really anything else I can suggest. Touchwood Wesley seems ok now but he was 4 years old so were able to operate and get the majority of the abcess out of his jaw. Good luck.

I've read on an American site of successful treatment with implanted beads . the beads are made of cement mixed with an antibiotic called amikacin. Although with initial limited success it seems the second course of treatment was successful.
http://www.rabbit.org/journal/4-4/pandora.html
(details of amikacin are on Wikipaedia as it's used for humans).

I don't know anything about this personally- have only Googled for you-but you could mention it to your vet to see what they think if you think it's feasible?
sue

I have found that parsley seems easy to eat for dental buns (though no experience of abcesses).

Twinkle had an abscess and most was removed through surgery about 18 months ago, she'd always had dental problems and was a prime candidate for an abscess She's still on Depocillin as she had a little bit of discharge from one of her incisors recently, but on the whole she made a brilliant recovery

Thanks for the info, I'll talk to the vet next week to see what we can do for him

Just to say I will be thinking of Harry today and hoping the vet will have some solutions to the abscess problem.
sue