Lump on jawline or neck

brooklet425

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First I have to say that I have a vet appointment at 3:45 (Pacific Time) this afternoon, but in the meantime I'm worrying a lot so if anyone has ever dealt with this before I'm curious to know what your experiences were.

I have a 4 month old kitten who has had URI problems since the day someone found her. 2 night ago she was hiding, didn't come out to eat when I fed the cats and seemed tired. She had watery eyes, but this is normal for her, but since she was acting weird otherwise we called the emergency vet to see if they thought it was an emergency. The vet told us to take her temperature if we could, and base our decision on whether or not she had a fever accompanying the other signs. We took her temp and it shot right up to 106.2 degrees. (she felt warm too but my cats like to lay on heating vents so I had hoped that was why she felt so hot.) Needless to say, we rushed around, got her in a carrier and headed off the the vet that's 45 minutes away. By the time we got there her temp had dropped to 104. She was kept overnight. She was given something to reduce the fever, clavamox for a secondary bacterial infection (the vet said her nose had discharge indicative of a bacterial infection) and some anti-inflammatory medicine.

When I picked her up yesterday morning her temp was completely back to normal and she seemed MUCH more alert and active. She acted normal and playful all day long, but then when I fed them last night I noticed that she seemed to be having trouble eating. She WAS eating though. In fact, she was practically inhaling her food (she hadn't eaten the night before and the vet said she only picked on some food that morning). It just looked like she was having problems chewing. She didnt' look like she was in pain, but she did look uncomfortable. About an hour later I was petting her and I noticed what felt like a lump on her jawline. I honestly can't tell if its on her jaw, her cheek or her neck. She's still pretty tiny so I don't know if thats why its hard to tell. It just seems to be in that general area. It doesn't bother her when I touch it - in fact she was purring and trying to play as I was trying to figure out what it is. Its on the side of her face that seemed to be giving her problems as she was eating though.

I didn't notice the lump before last night. I guess I could have missed it, but shouldn't the emergency vet have noticed it if it was there the night before?

I called and got her an appointment for this afternoon but in the meantime I've been googling to see what it can be and I really need to stop doing stuff like that because now I'm practically convinced that she has cancer and is going to die. I'm aware that it COULD be cancer, but of course I found 500 other things it could be too. I'm concerned that it appeared less than a day after she spiked a high fever. She also had 3 vaccinations last Friday (Felv, FVRCP and rabies - the only one she hadn't gotten before was the rabies. the others were boosters.) The emergency vet said that her fever could have been related to a vaccine reaction, but was unlikely because of the URI symptoms she also had.

So while I know no one can tell me what this is for sure, and if anyone here has had this experience before, it could be very different from the next person's, but if you ever found a lump on your cat in that general area would you mind telling me what it turned out to be for you?
 

otto

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It could be a dental abscess, totally unrelated to anything else, or possibly related. All that Upper respiratory is related. Maybe even a swollen gland?

. Poor little thing, how lucky she is to have you taking care of her.

let us know how the vet visit goes.
 

otto

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Two questions by the way

Is she on l-lysine?

what anti inflammatory did the vet give her?

(make that three!):

What is her name?
 

farleyv

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It could have significance or not (the lump). Perhaps a cyst? My mom's cat had a cyst on her chest that finally had to be removed. It was not cancerous.

I hear what you are saying about "too much information". It can be our worst enemy. Vow not to search anymore until you find out what this is.

I am sending and I hope all goes well and it is nothing serious.

Please let us know how the vet goes today.
 

otto

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She has been tested for FeLV/FIV?

I recommend another test, at three months after she came to you.
 
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brooklet425

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Originally Posted by otto

Two questions by the way

Is she on l-lysine?

what anti inflammatory did the vet give her?

(make that three!):

What is her name?
Her name is Samantha
and she's a solid black, sweet little kitten. My husband actually swore that he would refuse to allow another cat into our house once we reached 9, until he went to pick up some prescription food for another cat, saw Samantha in a cage in the waiting room with an "I need a good home" sign on her cage. He claims that she reached out to touch him and then meowed at him, so she "chose" him
. Needless to say, that bumped us up to 10 cats. She really is sweet and adorable, and he loves her to death (I do too of course), so I really hope this turns out to be something that isn't too serious.

The vet gave me Enisyl_F Lysine Treats for her and for the other cats. A few of them developed eye infections shortly after we got her, even though she was as healthy as she could be when we first brought her home. The vet said that its all probably related to herpes, and can't be sure if the older cats already had it, or if they got it from her. But either way, they all get lysine treats now.

And the anti-inflammatory from the emergency vet is meloxicam oral. The paperwork with it says "Meloxiacam is a once a day liquid anti-inflammatory to provide pain relief and reduce inflammation." of course I just googled this and found stuff that says it can be dangerous for cats. I really should just stop googling. I go to a great vet thats AAHA certified and they highly recommend this emergency vet so hopefully he knows what he is doing. There are only 3 doses of the meloxicam though.
 
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brooklet425

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Originally Posted by otto

She has been tested for FeLV/FIV?

I recommend another test, at three months after she came to you.
Yes she's been tested - a little over a week ago actually, but I already plan to ask for another one. I had an 8 month old kitten die from FeLV and he had tested negative originally so I am super paranoid about that now.
 

otto

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Stop giving her the meloxicam (in my opinion)! it's metacam and can cause acute kidney failure.

I am glad you trust your vet, and I know many vets use metacam in cats (off label in the USA) and say they have never had a problem. However, This kitten has enough going on without dealing with that.

I will not ever let it be used in my cats, and will always speak out against it.

At the very least it should not be given without a complete blood panel first, and should never be given more often than every other day, and I can't imagine how a "safe" dose for a cat so young could be figured.

On a brighter note I haven't a doubt Samantha Chose your husband, and she knew what she was about!

Please do keep us posted on dear little Samantha.
 

strange_wings

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Talk to your vet about the meloxicam before you follow internet advice to stop using it completely. Yes, it can have bad side effects and should be used with a lot of caution - and not at all in cats that already have serious kidney issues.
I have cats that have received it to help with inflammation and pain - the alternative for inflammation would be a steroid, which have just as bad of side effects, and something else for the pain (even more side effects).

Since she has an URI and the lump is around her jawline there's a high likelihood that it's a swollen lymph node. It's common for one or both on the neck to swell up when a cat has a bad infection - a secondary infection needs to be ruled out.
And yes, if they swell enough it can interfere with swallowing and they will get painful.
 

otto

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Originally Posted by strange_wings

[I]Talk to your vet[/i] about the meloxicam before you follow internet advice to stop using it completely. Yes, it can have bad side effects and should be used with a lot of caution - and not at all in cats that already have serious kidney issues.
I have cats that have received it to help with inflammation and pain - the alternative for inflammation would be a steroid, which have just as bad of side effects, and something else for the pain (even more side effects).

Since she has an URI and the lump is around her jawline there's a high likelihood that it's a swollen lymph node. It's common for one or both on the neck to swell up when a cat has a bad infection - a secondary infection needs to be ruled out.
And yes, if they swell enough it can interfere with swallowing and they will get painful.
Yes, I should have phrased that better, thank you for clarifying my words.
I see the word 'metacam' and kind of lose all sense of tact, thank you.

But, I will always advise against use of metacam in cats.
 
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brooklet425

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Don't worry...my googling today has thoroughly freaked me out so I was already going to ask about the metacam. I don't like the idea of not listening to what the emergency vet said, but she's not due for another dose until tonight so thankfully I have an appointment before that to ask lots of questions
.

Thanks for your opinions though. I'm thrilled that I found this forum - I guess sometimes googling is a good thing
.

I'm hoping that its just something that can be taken care of. Swollen lymph nodes were something that I came across in my searching today, along with dental abscesses. The words "cancer" and "malignant" keep jumping out at me though and I just hope that isn't the case. She's already been through so much in her little life that I just hope its something that can be taken care of. Not to mention the fact that in the past 5 months I have gotten so much bad news about my cats and about the feral cats that we were caring for (I posted that in the ferals and strays subforum), that I am just not mentally or emotionally prepared to get another hard blow today. On a positive note though, one of the hard blows from 5 months ago did end up having a happy ending. One of my other cats, 2 1/2 years old, had a urinary blockage caused by crystals, but he also had bladder stones that required immediate surgery, and during the surgery they found urine in his abdomen which indicated a torn urethra. The vet that I go to is actually 3 vets, but all wonderful with a lot of experience. The one who owns the place who has been in practice for over 30 years said that it was the worst bladder infection (on top of everything else) that he had ever seen and with the urethra tear he didn't think he was going to live
. They asked me while he was already under anesthesia if I wanted to euthanize him right then, and thank God my husband was deployed at the time because thats the only reason why I said no. I won't let an animal suffer if there is nothing that can be done, but at the same time, I didn't want to agree to anything until I talked to my husband first. Thankfully, in the 2 hours that it took for me to get in touch with him, one of the vets went out of her way to call specialists and read several case studies and by the time I called them back they had increased his chances of survival from less than 1% to 20%. Its funny because out of the 3 vets, there is one that I liked the least. She's very blunt and very aggressive and doesn't have wonderful bedside manner...but she's an amazing vet. I just never liked her personality. It turned out though that she was the one who told me she wasn't ready to give up on him, and since I know she doesn't sugarcoat things for anyone, I trusted her. She ended up saving his life and I still feel bad for ever disliking her just because of her personality towards humans. It was touch and go for about 3 months though. But in the end, he survived. (and before anyone asks...I felt HORRIBLE about not even noticing that he was sick in the first place, but its not because I have 10 other cats. I actually have a picture of him playing happily the day before I noticed that something was wrong. And by the time I noticed something was wrong, he was near death. I wish cats didn't hide things so well. The only place where the other cats would have caused a problem is the litter box. If I only had him I would have noticed that he wasn't going, but thats hard to tell when a lot of cats are using the litter boxes. He would go into them, but I just didn't know that he wasn't actually urinating.)

Anyway, I didn't' mean to just ramble off into a completely different topic. My point is just that I have had so much bad news regarding these cats recently, so I am just hoping and praying that this won't turn out to be more bad news.

As a side note though, is it normal for lymph nodes to just swell that quickly? That may be a stupid question, but this lump didn't appear to me until last night. I know I could have missed it, but shouldn't the emergency vet noticed it if it was there 2 nights ago?
 

strange_wings

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Originally Posted by Brooklet425

If I only had him I would have noticed that he wasn't going, but thats hard to tell when a lot of cats are using the litter boxes. He would go into them, but I just didn't know that he wasn't actually urinating.
I have the same problem. The only reason I knew Sherman was blocked is because I called him to come eat lunch (this cat is food obsessed, btw) and he didn't come. I found him straining to pee in the litter box and called the vet right away. BUT, I had caught him licking himself late the night before and didn't like how he was licking, so I was already paranoid and following him around. That's really all you can do with multiple cats - follow them to the litter box.


And yes, metacam makes me nervous, too. I dislike using more than two doses of it in a cat and will let the vet know if the cat has had it within the same year that I don't want more used.

As for the vet with no people skills - lots of people with poor people skills choose to work with animals. I bet she's like that.

I do understand you're stressed and it's been hard lately.
I hope that this isn't too serious (no more than the URI already is). Lymph nodes can swell fast if the immune system is fighting hard to get an infection under control - people can often have them swell up literally overnight and I've seen them swell up quickly in cats who have URIs + a secondary infection. (of course, other infections/viruses can do it) There are some antibiotics that not only fight infection, but can help with inflammation some, too. So I hope it will be something simple like that.
 
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brooklet425

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Well its good news for now!! I just got back from the vet and it looks like it was an abscess due to a bite or a scratch which would be VERY possible in this house. In fact, we just cut everyone's nails a little over a week ago, and we had slacked off on that for a bit so the tips of their nails really were like small pin pricks.

The vet felt it and said it was definitely something, so he wanted to shave off her fur there to see if he can see anything and he wanted to see if he could get anything out of it. (he told us afterward that he was concerned that it was a tumor) So he took her in the back, shaved her fur and stuck a syringe in it. He came back into the room with a syringe full of pus. It was pretty gross and my husband, who can tolerate almost anything, said he felt like he was going to pass out just from looking at the amount of pus. But once that was done, the lump was gone. The vet also found a tiny little spot on her skin that looked like a newly healed wound which is what he thinks caused it. He also thinks that the fever she had 2 nights ago was almost certainly because of this abscess. Plus she had 3 vaccines on Friday which may have temporarily lowered her immune system, which already wasn't too good to begin with.

So he kept her on the Clavamox, the lump is gone for now, and he did say to take her off the Metacam. He said it was probably ok, but to be safe, he doesn't think she needs it if she already had 2 doses of it (one at the emergency vet and one last night). Now we just have to keep an eye on her and that spot.

I feel 100% better now, but I do have a question from my husband. While I relaxed and stopped worrying, he started freaking out a little. In my mind, this isn't a tumor so thats a great thing. Its a bad infection, but from what I understand abscesses aren't all that uncommon in multi-cat households, and while this sucks, it can be cured. He thinks that the size of the abscess was huge for such a small kitten (she's about 4.5 pounds and it was the size of small olive maybe. It was a little hard to judge just how big it was), and he's concerned that its a larger problem than the vet made it out to be. He also thinks the spot that was a likely puncture wound is too small to actually be a puncture.

I disagree with him but I told him that I posted this on here this morning and that I'd ask opinions when I posted an update. Yes it was a large abscess for a small kitten. But just because we only found it last night doesn't mean that it wasn't forming for a while before that. She had a really high fever 2 nights ago so if its connected then obviously this didn't just get infected overnight. He's just really concerned that its not a bite wound or a puncture wound and that we're going to realize that its something worse in a few days. In my opinion based on the fact that the last time we cut everyone's nails they could have easily made small puncture wounds into another cat or a human, it seems clear to me that thats what it was. Yes it was hard to see, but I've gotten wounds like that from the cats before (mostly when they attack my feet in bed...I've gotten stabbed a few times) and even on me its a tiny little mark. It might bleed at first, but not a lot, and it heals very quickly, so a small light spot on her skin seems like it would be the same thing to me. Just a healed puncture wound.

So I guess I'm just asking opinions now. Does this sound like it can be something worse? I do trust this vet and to be honest I'm not exactly sure why my husband seems even more concerned about this than he was last night, but maybe I really am just missing something....
 

otto

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Abscesses are very nasty looking things. I remember the first time I ever dealt with one, I was so horrified at this gaping wound on my cat.

The important thing about an abscess is it has to heal from the inside out. It has to be kept open, until the inner layers of skin have granulated.

Keeping him on the antibiotics is good and warm packing the abscess a couple times a day will help it drain and heal.

It sounds ti me like your husband is deeply emotionally invested in Samantha!
 

otto

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PS, Tell him puncture wounds are just like they sound. A tiny hole, with a bigger deeper wound inside. That's why they are so dangerous.
 

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Maybe abscesses are in some multicat households, but not in mine. And I have a female that doesn't like other cats and a male who really dislikes her because of her attitude (they swat and hiss at each other often). Do you know which kitty could have done it -even accidentally? If it was from any sort of aggression/frustration then that will need to be dealt with.


As said by otto, keep it clean. Frequently feel over your cats for any signs of scratches or other wounds if they're getting rough with each other.
 
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brooklet425

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Originally Posted by strange_wings

Maybe abscesses are in some multicat households, but not in mine. And I have a female that doesn't like other cats and a male who really dislikes her because of her attitude (they swat and hiss at each other often). Do you know which kitty could have done it -even accidentally? If it was from any sort of aggression/frustration then that will need to be dealt with.


As said by otto, keep it clean. Frequently feel over your cats for any signs of scratches or other wounds if they're getting rough with each other.
I'm pretty sure it wasn't aggression. For the most part, my cats all get along and this is the first time I've ever had to deal with an abscess. I also have a female who doesn't like the other cats (she was my first cat and she is definitely the queen in her mind), but she's declawed (not by me - I don't believe in declawing) and any time she "attacks" another cat its done by a nice smack on the head. I've never seen her even try to bite one of the others - just a lot of growling and smacking. In general though, she tends to stay away from the other cats and they all learned very quickly to just leave her alone.

I do have one suspect, but again, I don't think it was from aggression. I have a 16 pound Maine Coon mix who seems to be completely unaware of the fact that he's so much larger than all the other cats. He's super playful, but I like to attempt to supervise him when he's playing with the smaller cats, and I can't always do that. Like I mentioned before, we slacked off on cutting their nails recently, so if the puncture came from a nail, it wouldn't surprise me at all if it came from him. We're usually pretty diligent about keeping their nails trimmed, so this could very well be our fault
. But on that same note, all of my other cats seem to be completely fascinated with Samantha (which is actually a little odd just based on the way they usually react to new additions), and she loves them. In fact, when I brought her home from the emergency vet yesterday she made a point of head butting each one of them, including my grumpy queen, as if she was saying "Hi! I'm home now!". They all play with her and she's a typical kitten. She's very active and playful and seeks out the others to play all the time. So assuming that she wasn't bitten, and the puncture came from a nail, my first guess would be the Maine Coon, but I guess in reality, it could have been any of them. We're definitely going to make sure we don't slack off on nail trimming again.

I've seen very small scratches on the cats before, that usually just look like an accidental scratch from playing, but this is definitely the first abscess I've seen in this house. I'm paranoid in general, so I'll definitely make sure to keep it clean and keep an eye on it to make sure its draining and not reforming.

The good news is that she definitely feels better. Its funny because when I brought her back from the emergency vet yesterday I thought she was acting normal again, and to a point she was. She was eating, drinking, playing, and purring. But we got back from the vet a little over an hour ago and since that time shes been bouncing around the house like crazy. She was playing yesterday, but she's playing even more today. It definitely seems like she already feels MUCH better!
 

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I hope she heals up quickly.

Anything could have happened. While mine don't leave puncture wounds, Tomas will get scraped looking spots on his neck from wrestling around with the other cats. He plays rough so they play rough back. What can you do about playing, though?
Just patch them up when accidents happen. (just like kids
)

Do you use feliway diffusers? All this back and forth to the vet, and the scents associated with it, can upset things.
 
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brooklet425

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Originally Posted by strange_wings

Do you use feliway diffusers? All this back and forth to the vet, and the scents associated with it, can upset things.
Yes! I love Feliway!! Its been my saving grace around here for a while now. I can ALWAYS tell when I've forgotten to refill the diffusers because everyone will start growling and hissing at each other, and just start acting up in general. Whenever that happens, I check the diffusers, and sure enough, they're empty. Once refilled, everything goes back to a normal (or as normal as things can be with 10 cats
). I can definitely attest to the fact that it works.

I know what you mean about the vet scents though. When Samantha came home yesterday and headbutted everyone, 3 of the cats sniffed her and then hissed at her. Thats happened before when I take the cats to the vet. Some don't seem to care, but I have 2 that never fail to show their displeasure with the vet smell by hissing at whichever cat I just brought back home. Thankfully, they usually hiss just once or twice and then seem to get over it. I don't know if the Feliway keeps them calm or if they just want to show their displeasure somehow, but we haven't had to deal with any major upset from bringing vet smells in and out of the house yet.
 
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brooklet425

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Well it was back to the vet today and my little girl is in surgery right now. When the abscess was drained last night, it appeared that the entire thing had drained. The vet thought that if we kept applying a warm washcloth then anything else would drain out. She was fine last night, but I woke up this morning and the abscess had healed so there was no opening anymore (there was only a needle opening to begin with) and she had a lump there again. She's still acting fine, but I took her back in this morning and they are going to do surgery to remove and clean the entire thing. The vet said that we probably could have gotten away with just draining it again and possibly again. She's on antibiotics so he felt like her body would eventually realize it didn't need to keep fighting off an infection, but since he couldn't be completely sure, and she's so young, he went ahead with the surgery instead. I feel better about that. I wouldn't mind bringing her back a few times to keep draining it, especially since everything else about her is normal right now, but I just feel better knowing that this should hopefully clear out any bit of infection and will hopefully heal well eventually.

I'm a little worried about the anesthesia because she's so young and sickly, but they said it should be a very fast procedure so she won't even be under that long. I'm just hoping for no phone calls from the vet all afternoon (I have to pick her up at 5:30). No phone calls means everything went fine so please keep her in your thoughts.
 
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