any vets online?

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lizzieuk1

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Our shetland has one almighty abcess on his rump, i found it about 10 days ago just grooming him and found some scabby bits, on further investigation began to find more scabs and on clipping the area and washing seems like more nasty underneath. anyway have been cleaning it everyday and thought it was just a scab where he had rubbed himself, so far aklthought the skin woulnd has healed there is now a shed load of pus draining from it, and today we've found that the muscle underneath seems to have been invaded by what i assume is an abcess so poor thing has a nasty dish in his rump and pus draining out. well have phoned vets and asked for 10 days of anitbiotics for him as think no chance otherwise, but am wondergin if thereis anything else that should be done, would you normally excise the area on top of the abcess or just leave it to drain under the skin? i'm not sure if it will all shed off eventually anyway but at the moment the skin seems still alive except from the originl patch. Help please!
 
no offence taken and yes i am thinking of getting them to visit, i usually try to deal with things first and did train at vetschool for 3 1/2 years so have a strong knowledge already but would never put one of ponies at risk, am just trying to gauge whether there is a need at the mo and whether any other course of action would be necessary.
 
Do you have a photo of the wound? Perhaps it doesn't look as bad as it sounds - it certainly sounds pretty bad and something which I wouldn't hesitate to call the vet out for.
 
sorry no photo as yet, actually to look at it it doesn't look horrendous, there is a scab about 3inches round that is quite well healed but it is all underneath that the problem is lurking. underneath there is lots of pus, well not at the mo cause have drained it, there is a drain hole at the lowest point where it has burst out so i releasing the pus quite well, but i am a little worried about the loss of muscle bulk and whether the skin needs to come off for it to resolve properly.
 
as long as it can drain, and you are flushing it with saline, it might resolve, but i would definitely get a vet out for something as nasty-sounding as that. you don't want the pony getting septicemia, for e.g.
btw, i'm not a vet, obviously!
 
ok so have decided to take pony to vets tomorrow, at least they can do all necessary at the clinic, i couldn't bare the guilt if something happened to him and he is such a sweetie he deserves the best.
 
dunno about horse abscesses but with smallies we just make sure there's a draining hole, flush with dilute iodine, get owner to wash with salt water at home and give them antibiotics.
 
thanks star, yes that was the lines i was going with, keeping wellwashed with dilute iodine- though i think it needs a serious flush out, i am worried though as it is a huge area affected, don;t know how it got so big, you wouldn;t have known it was there 10 days ago, all nicely covered in hairy shetland hair i guess.
Does the skin usually slough off over the abcess area or do you think it'll recover? also what so you think about the invasion of the muscle underneath?
 
quite often the skin sloughs off over the top but in smallies it's only usually a tiny area. with the bigger ones we tend to get them in and GA, debride, flush and suture. presumably same sort of thing could be done with horse under sedation.
 
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