Oliver went to the vet this morning for his chin. The vet claims it is the worst case he has ever seen! We reminded Oliver that it isn't a competition! The vet poked and prodded and took some cultures of the pus. The zits are deep in the hair follicle tracks on the chin. At one point, he had a whole tip of a q-tip in his chin, so these are not superficial zits! Oliver did well, all things considered!
Oliver got a depo injection today to hopefully help with the inflammation and make him more comfortable. He is starting on Zenequin, an oral antibiotic (once a day pill). We will stay on this until the culture comes back and then, either continue or change depending on what the culture shows. We can keep doing the warm compresses, but can stop the ointment because it isn't getting deep enough to be effective. After 48 hours, we can start combing again to help keep the tracks open and oozing. We are waiting a couple of days to let the steroid kick in.
We are both hoping this is a one-time weirdness that Oliver has developed, however, if it returns here are some steps we are going to take...
Biopsy - to see if it is a rare bacteria
Food Trial - to see if he is allergic to his food
Once those are done and results back, he would see the dermatologist at the vet school.
Thanks for the suggestions and words of encouragement and healing in the comments yesterday! Continued purrs would be appreciated.
Oh, continued purrs and purrayers from us! We hope all this takes care of it, poor love. How on earth did he get it? The only way I know how is from plastic dishes, but I'm sure there are other ways for cats to contract it too. :-/
ReplyDeletePoor Oliver! I hope the antibiotics clear it up. I can't remember if I mentioned it before, but does he have a plastic food bowl? Flynn used to get acne when he had a plastic dish, then I heard others say that it had caused their cats to get acne too, so I changed him and Eric to ceramic dishes and his acne cleared up.
ReplyDeleteI see that Kea has mentioned it too. I must have been leaving my comment as hers went up.
DeleteTo Kea and Jackie - we don't use plastic bowls. We have always had glass or ceramic. Oliver is now using Stainless Steel because it will definitely be less porous. Unsure what has caused it, but hoping it will go away!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad the vet is taking all these steps to see what's causing this! Normally I'd say something about plastic bowls too... but this sounds like something above and beyond the normal chin acne!
ReplyDeleteWe didn’t know Oliver was having some issues. Sounds like your vet is doing what’s necessary and we hope Oliver can get some relief.
ReplyDeleteContinuing purrayers and POTP for Oliver. Hope some of his helps !
ReplyDeletePoor Oliver! Sure hope he comes through this quickly and it doesn't recur.
ReplyDelete