Jemma may have to be put down

[gentle giants]

I don't know... I really have to agree with Randy and sas on this one. I have only treated a couple of abcesses in my rabbits, so I don't have nearly the experience that I know Randy at least has. But when my Skitterbug had a truly nasty abcess on his hock, the Pen G cleared it up inside of five days. I really don't think I would ever put a rabbit through surgery for an abcess now, it's just so darn hard on them. Plus, with the shots, there is no stress, no recovering from surgery when their immune systems are already down, etc. I know this is a hard decision, but personally I would go ahead and adopt her and do the shots.

 

[Ivory]

The vets think that surgery is best- and frankly, from a strictly medical standpoint, the chances of an abscess coming back after only antibiotic treatment is much higher as opposed to after surgery. Draining the abscess causes a MUCH stronger immune response than simple antibiotic treatment alone.

An abscess is the body's attempt to wall off an infection- but when you lacerate it, the immune system basically says, "Okay, so I can't wall you off- I'm kicking the crap out of you!" Or in other words, starts an acute response to the bacteria causing the abscess. Draining also gets the bulk of the pus out and in the long run, is less painful than having a huge, swollen lump of fluids hanging around.

In my experience with abscesses (from both observation and personal experience)- which are incredibly common- the draining/antibiotic treatment is by far the most effective.

 

[Raspberry82]

I'm still wondering just how common it is for abscesses to return after surgery/antibiotics.. I'm told it is really a case by case thing and difficult to predict

 

[Ivory]

It does happen. It's case-by-case.

 

[Raspberry82]

Thank you very much everyone for being so helpful and for the great input/onfo, it is greatly appreciated.

 

[cmh9023]

The Bicillin/PenG did wonders for my Sherry's abcsess. It hasn't returned.