Rat with abcess & rat who has chewed out her stitches

Question
QUESTION: I am having lots of problems recently with two of our seven pet rats. Rosie, a hooded rat, has had a second mammary tumour removed a week ago, she developed a hematoma beside the wound, on her stomach and the vet drained it with a syringe on Thursday, and today we discovered she has chewed the stitches out and there is an open area filled with smelly pus; we can't get her to the vet till Monday,as it is the weekend and we live in the mountains quite some distance away too.Our Russian blue, Molly has had continual problems with mycoplasma. She had a bad time recently when a vet injected her with baytril and she has just recovered from the burn. Now she has got very noisy in her breathing again and also has a hard swelling beside her right ear. the vet thinks it is an abcess and told me to use a saline compress on it three times a day for three days to see if it drains. nothing is happening. both rats are nearly two years old.it is all very upsetting, can you offer any advice. our vets here haven't much knowledge of rats as pets.

ANSWER: Sounds more like an abscess than a hematoma.  A hematoma is nothing more than a collection of blood that was pulled to the surface, in other words, a bruise.
Is there a chance the word is "seroma" rather than hematoma? That would make a bit more sense since a seroma is commonly seen after surgery. It is a pocket of serous fluid that may be seen after surgery. The cause is from tiny blood vessels that rupture, and this causes blood plasma to seep out which will "pool" in an area around the surgical site. This may become infected and is considered a complication from surgery.  The good news is that the fluid usually is  absorbed gradually over time.


Obviously the vets dont know much or they would not have injected your poor rat with baytril.  If you read my critter city site you probably came across a rat with nasty baytril burn.  Baytril is very caustic and it coagulates under the skin and burns the layers of skin causing a nasty ulcer.  I know someone that lost a rat to baytril burn that became infected and the infection spread to the blood stream *bacteremia*   Did the vet give her baytril to take orally too?  She should be kept on oral medications for up to 30 days to fight off myco properly.  You can read about myco and the proper treatment here:

http://www.freewebs.com/crittercity/mycoplasmosispage.htm

The location of this lump concerns me as well. Please check out my page on tumors and scroll down to see the photos under ZYMBALS GLAND TUMOR and let me know if the lump is in that area.

http://www.freewebs.com/crittercity/allabouttumors.htm


Please get back to me right away!

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you for all this information, i assume I will need to take Rosie back to the vet to be stitched as the open wound is the size of a small finger nail and we can see the lining to her intestinal wall. As for Mooly, the photo shows just what Molly looks like. this is so sad, she has struggled with respiratory problems since we bought her from a pet shop. She was very quiet and unsociable for a long time but I worked with her each day, just letting her sit inside my jumper, then all of a sudden she came round and used to chase all the others all over the place. She has mostly had a great life but I will be very sad to see her go. She should be 2 years old in April, but I suppose she won't get to that. I have Baytril and doxycycline in tablet form which I have started molly on again and will keep her on them for the rest of her life now; its just hard to cut the tablets to the correct dose.

ANSWER: How are things going lately, what has been going on since we last talked?

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Rosie was stitched up again on Tuesday and seems fine so far. I passed on your information about Molly's zymbal's gland tumour to my vet .She is on a higher dosage of baytril plus amoxycilline and prednisone for her myco, she will stay on all this for the rest of her life. Have you any idea how long she has got?We would like to be prepared.

Answer

Bingo   Sounds good (the medication that is) and keeping her on it for life is the best way to go. I wish more vets did this!

As for the zymbals gland tumor, if it truly is, it will get ugly as it spreads since it is cancerous.  The steroids may actually slow down the process though so thats good news.  

When zymbals gets worse the rats jaw starts to deform and she may have a hard time chewing and swallowing. Sometimes they start to bleed from the ears profusely as well.  These are reasons to let her go peacefully once she is uncomfortable but its hard to say how long it will be till this happens. My boy had Zymbals for months and months. We inserted a tiny drain that he kept in place and he was ok for....at least 5 months from diagnosis.  

I may be totally wrong about what she has and not every abscess in that area is a zymbals gland tumor....but it is when it doesnt heal properly and spreads out and causes all these problems is when you know your dealing with more than just regular infection.


Here is my brave boy, Bingo, with his little tube in place. He never tried to remove it....he was such a good boy!