Lump on neck under skin

[JustinDmo]

Hi,
I'm reaching out because out of nowhere there is a lump in my cats neck. She is only about 5-6 months old, small stature, and a mixed breed potentially including Siamese ancestry due to eye shape.

From the pictures you can see the lump protruding out from the shape of her hair. It's located under her right ear underneath her jawline, potentially her lymph nodes. Her left neck nodes feel normal. Like I mentioned before it must have appeared within the last day or so because we've been applying terramycin for conjunctivitis, we would have noticed this earlier. It's a hard mass slightly larger than a quarter in diameter. She recently is getting over some type of infection where she was sneezing and uncontrollable diarrhea. Those symptoms have finally subsided around a week ago, but now this mass appeared.

Unfortunately our primary vet won't be open until tomorrow, just wondering what this forum's thoughts are on what this could be! Her name is Rory and we are very worried.

 

[nurseangel]

It could be so many things that I couldn't begin to speculate. But I would get her to the vet ASAP, which I know are your thoughts also. Best case scenario IMHO is a lymph node with the underlying cause being infection. Please keep us posted on what is wrong and how she does with treatment. I hope she is better soon. You have my prayers.

 

[cmshap]

Hi, and welcome to TCS.

I really, really don't want to scare you by posting this, but I feel like I really should. My cat had a lump under his ear that turned out to be lymphoma.

I have a whole thread on it, in which I am detailing my experience with it, and his ongoing treatments. I have written a ton of detail in there, so if you want to know more specifics about my cat's case, give that thread a read. I've been pretty meticulous about everything I've experienced.

In my cat's case, the most worrying sign was that his lumps (turned out to be more than just the one under his ear) were growing rapidly... like from one week to the next, they grew noticeably. That was the biggest sign that it could be cancer. I brought him to my vet as soon as I noticed this, and she did a biopsy surgery and diagnosed it as large-cell lymphoma.

But, I really am not intending to tell you that's what I think your cat has. There could be many other causes, including infection as nurseangel mentioned. I am just giving you the details of my cat's particular case, so that you can look through my documentation of it and see if anything seems similar (or different).

And, BTW, my cat's treatment has been going very well. We started it about two months ago. And he's 11 years old now.

I agree that you should try to get it diagnosed ASAP. And I hope I didn't scare you... I just wanted to impress the importance of trying to get it figured out early, in case it is something serious, but treatable.

 

[JustinDmo]

Hi Everyone,
Thank you so much for your replies. After bringing Rory to the vet it was determined she has an infestation of demodex in her ears which probably contributed to the swollen lymph node. Medication for her ears was prescribed. Thankfully, it has since gone down in size and hardness. We will continue to monitor her health but she seems the be improving! If there is more information or updates I will post them here.

 

[cmshap]

Hi Everyone,
Thank you so much for your replies. After bringing Rory to the vet it was determined she has an infestation of demodex in her ears which probably contributed to the swollen lymph node. Medication for her ears was prescribed. Thankfully, it has since gone down in size and hardness. We will continue to monitor her health but she seems the be improving! If there is more information or updates I will post them here.

Thank you for taking the time to reply and give us an update.

I am a cat person by accident... my cat randomly showed up at my doorstep, and I had to figure everything out as I went along. I found TCS to be very helpful in this regard, and it is always helpful to read completed stories... meaning when a thread-starter takes the time to post updates/conclusions to the story they started.

I'm glad your cat's issue wasn't more serious, and thanks for updating us.