Pyoderma? If so, what to do? Update: Its Healing!

[Dazzle87]

I'm thinking Dazzle might have some mild/surface pyo (my poor girlie!!) but have never experienced it so thought I'd get some outside opinions. It started with scabs, which I of course assumed were mites...but they're not going away. I know my girlie is a slow healer though from past experience as something isn't right with her immune system :sad3: so I was giving it time. Not only are they still there though, but there's a new development-hair loss and red irritated skin (though the skin is intact I suppose you'd call it. It looks almost like a rash but with no bumps or anything.

She has had hairloss and a lack of regrowth of fur shaved 6 or so months ago, but no scabs or anything so my vet pretty much ended up blaming it on a poor immune system? Something like that. Now I wonder if that was the first sign.

I did my best to get pictures, but...well trying to get a picture of a rats underarm isn't fun..and then my batteries died. I'll show what I got though.

And to show how difficult she was being lol, as when I snapped she was right in position to show her underarm:

PS: Don't mind the silly jammies :giggle:

If this is an infection...I'm not really sure what can be done. She has a serious infection and is even being nebulized and is on baytril, doxy, gentocin (sp?), albuterol, and metacam... I'm not really sure if you can do another antibiotic with all that

Also, I'm trying to info gather as much as I can not for me but I'm leaving on vacation and my mom is going to be taking care of all the rats and I need her well informed for the vet. Slightly OT but she seriously deserves like a mother of the year award or something, she's going to have to bring Dazzle to the vet tuesday, give all her oral meds and nebulize her, give respiratory meds for Missy, and give baytril and take care of Tilley's infected surgical incision, and give playtime to them and my fosters seperately :shock:

 

[lilspaz68]

IF its pyoderma, then you really have her on everything she would need.

 

[Dazzle87]

Hmm well I dunno if that is good or bad since she's still able to have symptoms on all that :?

I think I'll still have her brought to the vet no matter what, as whatever is going on just isn't normal

 

[jorats]

Let us know what the vet said... it looks like it's spreading? It's scary too to think that she's on all those meds and yet still developed that skin issue.
My Jorge had pyoderma, it took a while on Baytril to finally start to get better.

 

[Dazzle87]

Yup, its spreading. Yeah I was thinking if what she was on was going to help would have already but wasn't 100 percent sure since from what I've read they can take a long time to recover. She already has nasal polyps, has (albeit fewer and smaller) mammary cysts, a lung infection, and now this. She still seems very happy and energetic but despite still looking large in her pictures she feels frail/bony so I fear I don't have much more time with her... :sad3:

I will certainly update, trust me I'll be glued to my phone to find out. To be honest, I'm starting to not want to go on my vacation I'm so worried.

 

[smilez_n_hugs]

Poor girl Maybe there's an antibiotic ointment or something you could try?

 

[lilspaz68]

Could it not be pyoderma? There are other things that affect the skin, like allergies, fungal infections and cancer.

 

[jorats]

Yep... it's hard to tell as well without a biopsy.

 

[Dazzle87]

Oh it could absolutely not be. That was just my best guess based on pictures and descriptions. I truly hope it is something else.

Smilez-You know I don't really know whats available but that is definitely something to ask about thanks.

Jorats, I may get one done, the results always take so darn long though (at least in my past experience)

 

[jorats]

Jorats, I may get one done, the results always take so darn long though (at least in my past experience)

I know, it takes about a week here for results, much too long if it's spreading fast. I wonder if pred might help in this case?

 

[Dazzle87]

Jorats, I may get one done, the results always take so darn long though (at least in my past experience)

I know, it takes about a week here for results, much too long if it's spreading fast. I wonder if pred might help in this case?

Yeah last time they told me a week but it took 10 days. I may just out of curiosity and in case whatever we try turns out not to work, as at the point waiting an additional week would suck.

It does seem to have spread a little more, and now there is clearly a raw spot that's kinda hard to explain. I hope she can get seen ASAP, stupid holiday

 

[Dazzle87]

She couldn't get seen immediately, but we still don't really know what is up for sure...will find out soon though (waiting on results).

I still couldn't get pics of her underarms lol, but it had spread up her sides so here is a pic of that:

No improvement yet but I realized I had never updated this.

 

[jorats]

My sister's Prin had skin cancer. Your pics doesn't look like what Prin had. It progressed fast and awful too. Her red lesions would turn to huge scabs that would fall off and expose flesh and leave it like that, it spread through out her whole body... and she was in a great deal of pain.
I'm wondering if it's some kind of fungi if it's still spreading. Does Pyoderma spread like that?

 

[Dazzle87]

The lesions had continued to worsen despite treatment. We think we finally have it though, since nothing else was working, despite a negative for fungus, we decided to try an antifungal anyway so she is on a topical antifungal and dexamethasone. She is finally showing improvement!

It's only been a few days, but they're starting to heal and shrink in size and there are fewer of them. These don't look considerably better from the first pics I shared, but I promise from how she was looking this is much better.

Pics:

 

[mamarat]

That's fantastic!! It's so good to hear the treatment is working.

 

[Dazzle87]

Yeah I'm very happy to give a positive update, I was truly starting to worry we'd never get this properly treated.

 

[SQ]

:joy: :joy: :thumbup:

 

[jorats]

Shrinking is good!!! Yay!