Thought I’d show you some pictures of Raf’s infection which has been ongoing since November, seems particularly relevant as there is just now a program on tv about antibiotics.
Back in November Raf suddenly developed cellulitis and was prescribed a 5 day course of trimediazine. Although the cellulitis went down pretty quickly his mud fever wouldn’t shift, which is unusual because normally the cream I get from the vets clears it up in a few days.
So, a month later I called out the vet again - got a different one - who said to scrub the scabs off each day with hibiscrub. This is what he ended up looking like, very sore and you can see his leg is swollen. He also became lame at this point. Should also say that the scabs came back every day too, it was more like a crust from the constant weeping than scabs.
Another vet visit 3 wks later (yet another vet) and she said to stop the washing every day. So this is what happened
In desperation I texted pictures to the boss vet at the practice who is also the skin specialist and he put Raf on a 14 day course of the same antibiotic. However as there was no improvement, in fact a significant deterioration in his lameness, I called the vet out again, who took a skin scrape, injected for mites, changed the antibiotics to penicillin and increased his Prascend dose (his recent bloods showed his levels were fine but they thought it was worth trying in case the Cushings was implicated in his inability to fight the infection).
Initially we thought there was a clear improvement but then he seemed to go backwards again.
Today the results of the skin scrape came back - two tricky bugs, penicillin resistant E. coli and TMP resistant enterococcus. Could explain why we saw initial improvements with each new antibiotic then a deterioration as I suppose the resistant bug took over again.
So, started today on a new antibiotic - Baytril - and Vet due out again next week. Fingers crossed.
Back in November Raf suddenly developed cellulitis and was prescribed a 5 day course of trimediazine. Although the cellulitis went down pretty quickly his mud fever wouldn’t shift, which is unusual because normally the cream I get from the vets clears it up in a few days.
So, a month later I called out the vet again - got a different one - who said to scrub the scabs off each day with hibiscrub. This is what he ended up looking like, very sore and you can see his leg is swollen. He also became lame at this point. Should also say that the scabs came back every day too, it was more like a crust from the constant weeping than scabs.
Another vet visit 3 wks later (yet another vet) and she said to stop the washing every day. So this is what happened
In desperation I texted pictures to the boss vet at the practice who is also the skin specialist and he put Raf on a 14 day course of the same antibiotic. However as there was no improvement, in fact a significant deterioration in his lameness, I called the vet out again, who took a skin scrape, injected for mites, changed the antibiotics to penicillin and increased his Prascend dose (his recent bloods showed his levels were fine but they thought it was worth trying in case the Cushings was implicated in his inability to fight the infection).
Initially we thought there was a clear improvement but then he seemed to go backwards again.
Today the results of the skin scrape came back - two tricky bugs, penicillin resistant E. coli and TMP resistant enterococcus. Could explain why we saw initial improvements with each new antibiotic then a deterioration as I suppose the resistant bug took over again.
So, started today on a new antibiotic - Baytril - and Vet due out again next week. Fingers crossed.
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