# Experiences with sterile abscesses?



## Doodler (Feb 27, 2013)

Has anyone had a sterile abscess pop up in their cats? How did you treat it or did it go away on it's on? 

Backstory; Last month both of my kittens (10 months old) ended up with colds. It hit Conan much harder than it did Andy and I ended up needing to take Conan in to see our emergency vet. The emergency vet gave him a steriod shot and then sent him home with a course of antibiotics. A few days after the visit I noticed a small pea sized lump on Conan's shoulder at the injection site. Over the next few days to grew to the size of a marble. I suspected it might be a cyst and just kept an eye on it until it quite obviously became an abscess and then I called our regular vet for an appointment! We saw the regular vet yesterday. He wasn't able to aspirate the lump because Conan was far too wiggly, but the vet doesn't suspect "injection-site sarcoma" which is what the dreaded Dr. Google came up with when I did a search on what it could possibly be. I should know better than to consult Dr. Google, he is always terrifying! Instead our vet suspects it's a sterile abscess and he sent Conan home with an anti-inflammatory. The vet suggested that if it didn't go away in a few more weeks we may want to consider having it excised, but for cosmetic reasons, which we would not do.

So now I'm wondering what the chances are that this will resolve on it's own? Anyone experience one of these with their cat?


----------



## cinderflower (Apr 22, 2012)

i don't have any experience with my cats having it but i have had problems with MRSA. they resolve but only with different types of antibiotics, but they aren't usually reabsorbed. twice in about twenty reabsorbed. since it probably isn't MRSA in your cat, chances should be pretty good that it just goes away.


----------



## Stryker (Apr 2, 2007)

Doodler said:


> ...our vet... sent Conan home with an anti-inflammatory.


Hi *Doodler*!

Can you post the name of this "_anti-inflammatory_"?


----------



## Doodler (Feb 27, 2013)

He was sent home with chlorpheniramine. I just bothered to google it and it's actually an antihistamine, which makes a little more sense. I've got my fingers crossed that these meds help it to go away or heal without any further action!


----------



## LaurulFeatherCat (Sep 16, 2011)

I have had several experiences with both injection sarcomas and with sterile abcesses. Sarcomas come about when an outside inrritant (like an injected drug) irritates the tissues of a muscle and the body tries to contain the irritation by surrounding it with a bunch of fast growing cells. This does create a lump, usually a solid lump, that is soft to the touch and most likely will never get cancerous or grow much larger than it already is. Often, the sarcomas will slowly disappear over the years and the body notices the irritation caused by the drug has gone away and the body removes the sarcoma through a natural process called 'remodeling'; returning the area of the sarcoma back to its original flat form. This process can talke ten years or more and most people do nothing about these soft, non-cancerous growths as long as they do stay soft and small; if they get hard or start to grow larger, they then have to be removed and biopsied to eliminate a precancerous condition.

Steril abcesses are usually fluid filled, but can accompany a small sarcoma. Again, an irritation has happened from the injection of a drug or whatever and the body is trying to resolve the irritation. The abcess remains sterile because the procedure that delivered the drug (injection with a needle) was done with aseptic technique and no disease causing bacteria were injected under skin, just the drug that caused the reaction. The body floods the site with blood serum, causing the fluid filled blister, with the idea of diluting the irritant drug and ending the irritation. It is usually the treatment to remove the excess fluid with a needle, but if this cannot be done and there is also a sarcoma present, the sterile abcesses are usually left to resolve themselves. The skin is in tact, there is no sepsis or disease organisms present, and eventually the body will reabsorb the fluid and the lump will go away. Usually this takes anywhere from a few weeks to months when the lump is just fluid filled; much longer is a sarcoma is also present.

That is it. The reason they happen, how they are treated and what may happen in the future. Mine, I just watched. The sterile abcesses went away within a month or so, as did one of the sarcomas; but the other sarcoma remained for the entire life of the cat and never disappeared or changed precancerous.


----------



## Doodler (Feb 27, 2013)

Thank you, that was an excellent explaination! The sterile abscess on conan's shoulder has gone down in size some, but there is still a lump there. It's good to know I don't need to worry about it at this point.


----------



## Doodler (Feb 27, 2013)

Update: I'll be taking Conan back to the vet tomorrow. The swelling went down, but morphed into something that looked like a scab/lump about the size of a pencil eraser. It's recessed into the skin and feels hard. Conan does not seem bothered by it, but it hasn't shown any change or improvement in about 2 1/2 weeks now. If it is just a scab, it seems like it should have healed by now...


----------



## Mylita (Jan 23, 2013)

Keeping my fingers crossed for you and Conan. Will look forward to hearing what the vet did for Conan.

Mylita


----------



## LaurulFeatherCat (Sep 16, 2011)

Your sterile abcess has morphed into a keloid scar; a collection of sclerotic scar tissue that is begine and non-fuctional space-taking scar tissue. The body applies what I always think of as a living scab over an area of damaged tissue. The equivalent of putting a patch over a hole in a tire. Over the years, the body will continue to re-engineer that scar tissue until one day it will be just a knot of living tissue without feeling or function except to 'plug' the area of damage.

It is good to have it seen by a vet to make sure there is no infectious tissue under the scar and that the scar will not interfere with the function of the still healthy and functional tissue beneath it.


----------



## Doodler (Feb 27, 2013)

Lois, I hope you're right! I did take Conan in to have it looked at again the day after I posted. My vet looked at it and said "wow, that's different", which did not do much to inspire confidence. He said he'd never seen something like it but thought it was just some necrosis which would eventually fall off. He sent Conan home with antibiotics. I questioned the need for the antibiotics since the area wasn't red or inflamed and didn't seem to bother him at all. The vet said he thought they'd be a good preventative for when the scab did fall off. I never did give Conan the antibiotics. Instead I left feeling like I might need a new vet.

I made an appointment for Conan is see another vet just this past thursday, but we ended up seeing that vet for a very different reason instead. Conan was hit by a car.  More on that in a different post (he's going to be ok). The new vet did look at the unusual spot on Conan's shoulder and basically said the same as the first. She said that in her 17 years of practice she'd never seen anything like it. I wish I'd thought to take a picture of it, I didn't realize it was so strange! She removed it and we're to see what happens from there.


----------

