# Scabs and infections.



## sweebab (Feb 4, 2013)

Hello all. I have a bit of a long post and I need advice. I'm going to jump right into it.

One of my last posts concerned my cat, Pinky. I was planning on taking him to the vet since I discovered a large, black scab on his right back leg. I showed it to my aunt, who is a vet tech, and she said that there was no infection and it was nearly healed, so a vet visit wasn't required. I ended up not taking him to the vet, and the scab eventually fell off and his leg looks fine.

However, a few weeks later, I noticed his rear right paw looked swollen. I held him and lifted his paw and, to my horror, the entire bottom of his paw, in between the pads, and a mess of black scabs and red, infected skin. I took him to the vet the next day, and she held him overnight to sedate him and clean his paw up.

She said she wasn't sure what caused it, maybe an infected cut, maybe an itch that he bit and scratched himself. She sent him home in an e-collar with clavamox drops, onsior pills, buprenorphine drops, and clorhexidine cleanser. He was in the e-collar for two weeks.

At Pinky's one-week check up, the vet said his foot was improving, but she recommended another week of clavamox and clorhexidine cleanings. We did this. At his next check-up, nearly two weeks later, she said his rear foot looked great (which it did, it was almost completely healed) but that he had developed a small scab on his front left paw! She showed us and yup, there it was. She gave another week's worth of clavamox and told us to now clean his front paw with the clorhexidine. We're still cleaning and administering this round of antibiotics for his front paw.

I asked what could cause these scabs, mentioning that he did play roughly with his brother and I wondered if these could be infected nips and scratches from playing.

She said no, it probably wasn't caused by playing. She suggested a few things, from an immune disorder to allergies to a nervous personality that causes him to chew his feet. She said the nervous personality or allergies were most likely, because he would have sores or spots in other places like his face and gums if it was an immune disorder.

Pinky is a bit of a prissy cat, but I've never seem him chewing spots that didn't already have scabs on them.

*My question is, does anyone have an experience or advice with anything similar to this? Any ideas as to what it could be? How can I help my cat? If these scabs are preventable, I want to do anything possible to avoid this irritation and pain for Pinky.* I only adopted him 5 months ago, so I have no idea if he has a history of medical issues like this.

He is an indoor cat only, no outside time. He eats Orijen Cat and Kitten dry food and Evo Cat and Kitten wet food.

Here are a couple pictures, unfortunately I don't have a picture of his badly infected foot, but I do have a picture of his new scab.

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Pinky and his brother Derpy. Derpy is very happy to have his brother back after a night alone.










This is his new scab.


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## emilyatl (Sep 9, 2013)

I've seen "lick spots" in dogs who were nervous where they scab up, and since these spots have been places he could easily bite/chew, that's a possibility that he did it to himself. Was she able to see any bite marks/punctures or anything to indicate where the source of the scab was? I haven't seen allergies present like this, but that doesn't mean it's not allergies. What were her recommendations/next steps? 

They're both adorable!


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## sweebab (Feb 4, 2013)

So far our vet says to treat the spots and monitor him closely. She said as long as he didn't develop more scabs he didn't need another vet visit. As for wounds' ass he had on the bottom of his foot were two tiny, horizontal scratches. It didn't look like a claw scratch but more like he fell on something.


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## emilyatl (Sep 9, 2013)

Sorry I can't be of more help. I haven't seen anything quite like this before. Hopefully someone else will have some advice or have seen this. And I hope you don't find any more scabs!!


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## sweebab (Feb 4, 2013)

sweebab said:


> As for wounds' ass


Oops, that is supposed to be "wounds, all" haha.

Thanks for the well wishes, I hope I don't find another scab, either.


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