Tumor abscessed?

Momo has highly aggressive mammary cancer, as some of you would know. Found this near one of the tumours near her hind leg. This one has no hair and it's softer than her other tumours. Also movable, feels more like it's in the skin than connected to her. Assuming it's an abscess.. would you say that's accurate? If so what should I do about it? Leave it or get it lanced at the vet?

That kind of looks like a sebaceous cyst. If it's an abscess, you can do warm compresses to coax it to come to the surface and pop. At which time you would clean it, flush it several times a day.

jorats said:

That kind of looks like a sebaceous cyst. If it's an abscess, you can do warm compresses to coax it to come to the surface and pop. At which time you would clean it, flush it several times a day.

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I'm not sure what it is, but either way it's opened up a little and there's kind of a bloody opening in it. Now, granted I'm not sure if it's by Momo's doing - because I noticed tooth marks in the exact same spot it opened up a week ago. I think she was biting it. Should I take her in for an appointment? I'd take a picture of the wound but I can't for the life of me get a good shot of it. She's a squirmer and my cameraphone's auto focus is HORRIBLE and impossible to disable

It looks like a cyst to me as well. Have you tried compresses? This can encourage a cyst to open up as well. The top develops a dark spot just like an abscess.

IF the top opens and becomes a weird scabby crater then he might have a weird localized tumour I have seen on other boys. If it looks like that I can dig up pics for comparison.

lilspaz68 said:

IF the top opens and becomes a weird scabby crater then he might have a weird localized tumour I have seen on other boys. If it looks like that I can dig up pics for comparison.

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It doesn't look like it opened naturally though... from the rectangular shape, it looks like a bite mark. I know what a rodent bite mark looks like too, cause I had a hamster with a severe biting problem when I was a kid and it did a number on my hand once

Okay so as it happens I managed to sneak a pic while she was sleeping so that should give you guys a clear idea of what she's got.

Drain from home or see a vet?

Bump? Please I need advice asap.

My gut tells me that is not something you should mess with. Is there anything other than blood coming out? Does it smell? If I remember correctly it looks alot like one our boy Kona had and when it burst he had to have emergency surgery to remove it as it was a tumor mass.

I personally wouldn't see a vet for that; the surrounding tissue doesn't look too bad and if her personality hasn't changed I would just try home care.

dspch911 said:

My gut tells me that is not something you should mess with. Is there anything other than blood coming out? Does it smell? If I remember correctly it looks alot like one our boy Kona had and when it burst he had to have emergency surgery to remove it as it was a tumor mass.

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It looks like just blood.. no smell. The growth has also become more hard and flat than it was before, and given the fact that I haven't found any blood or pus around the cage - I'm certain it hasn't popped.

My theory is that it's a tumor Momo has personally messed with, and I had the advantage of seeing the early stages of this wound beforehand... rectancular, looked like a bite mark. In any case she doesn't seem bothered by it, but the wound itself seems to be getting worse. I'm honestly not sure how to deal with this besides keeping an eye on it and hope it heals, in the event that it's not a cyst or an abscess. Reason being is I heard a story on here awhile back about a person that popped her rat's "lump" thinking it was an abscess and it leaked grey-ish goop and blood and didn't shrink.. the rat ultimately died because it was a tumor.

If she were mine, I would take her to the vet .... to see what it is and to find out what the options are

SQ said:

If she were mine, I would take her to the vet .... to see what it is and to find out what the options are

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Couldn't hurt to get that specific lump looked at I guess.. but if it's another tumor and the vet suggests surgery then there isn't anything I can really do, since Momo has mammary cancer and roughly six small, malignant tumors along her mammary line. Anything removed will just come back, which I unfortunately learned through previous surgery. Plus she's getting up there in age to boot, and I can't really afford it right now.

Ugh, so many things are making my head spin right now. I'll take her anyways, just to see what my options are.

This is actually good though - because there's this new vet I've wanted to check out for awhile. She's supposed to be very knowledgable on rats, which is so much of a relief for me given how frustrating my last vets have been ><

Mandon said:

Momo has mammary cancer and roughly six small, malignant tumors along her mammary line. Anything removed will just come back, which I unfortunately learned through previous surgery.

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Actually they do not come back .... but she will likely keep getting more mammary tumours, especially if she is not spayed
Mammary tumours are usually benign .... but, yes, some are malignant and invasive
http://ratguide.com/health/neoplasia/mammary_tumor.php

I hope that they are very slow growing and she has lots of good time left

SQ said:

Actually they do not come back .... but she will likely keep getting more mammary tumours, especially if she is not spayed

I hope that they are very slow growing and she has lots of good time left

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Well what she has isn't the same as benign tumors that just come back because she's a female. It's a highly aggressive mammary cancer that spreads and branches quickly. I had a couple tumors removed from her that had the same shape and hardness and another was there immediately after the surgery, although so tiny and near the incision that I didn't know what it was until it quickly grew and formed itself into a tumor like the other one after a mere two months, and then quickly started to spread. I decided then that it wasn't worth putting her through surgery after surgery and potentially risking her life... I decided to let her live what time she had left comfortably, and so far she's lived much longer than I expected. She's a tough cookie, that's all I can say.

I don't know that I would go to the vet just yet, but watch it a few days and see what it does on its own. Sorry about your little girls tumors. We have a boy with aggressive cancer and have him on maitake (herbal). So far he's doing good.

dspch911 said:

I don't know that I would go to the vet just yet, but watch it a few days and see what it does on its own. Sorry about your little girls tumors. We have a boy with aggressive cancer and have him on maitake (herbal). So far he's doing good.

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What does maitake do for him? If I can do anything to help Momo's cancer in any way I want to explore any options I have... I just didn't know there were any.

Mandon said:

What does maitake do for him? If I can do anything to help Momo's cancer in any way I want to explore any options I have... I just didn't know there were any.

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Our vets are also into holistics and she has had some good outcomes using maitake to keep aggressive non operable tumors at bay. We know she didn't get his whole tumor and so far there is no further growth. We also have DMG that she has just told us we can give him for his immune system. JT Max's formula is a powder for cancer that can be given too. We got that for one of our PT rats, but forgot we had it. She said we can put him on that too. I honestly don't know if they work, but since they are herbals we figure it cannot hurt to try. Like your girl, our boy cannot have them removed anymore since this one had tentacles and vet won't go back in.

dspch911 said:

Our vets are also into holistics and she has had some good outcomes using maitake to keep aggressive non operable tumors at bay. We know she didn't get his whole tumor and so far there is no further growth. We also have DMG that she has just told us we can give him for his immune system. JT Max's formula is a powder for cancer that can be given too. We got that for one of our PT rats, but forgot we had it. She said we can put him on that too. I honestly don't know if they work, but since they are herbals we figure it cannot hurt to try. Like your girl, our boy cannot have them removed anymore since this one had tentacles and vet won't go back in.

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Crap x.x If I'd known about that I wouldn't have let Momo's spread as much as they have....

Well it doesn't seem to be getting worse but the wound was moist today, like it's not able to scab because of interference from Momo. What's worse, Momo seems to be getting more sluggish and slow. I like to think it's because of her old age but I'm concerned she's deteriorating. She's still eating and drinking fine and she isn't losing weight or anything I'd assume is associated with the body shutting down due to cancer - but still... One of Momo's favourite games is having me sit by the cage with the lower part open while she continuously jumps on my leg and onto the floor, only to be picked back up again by me since, of course - she can't be allowed to explore the outside world. She tried doing it but instead of hopping down she climbed down, and then scurried back up. She considered doing it again after having a snack but then she decided not to. It's so unlike her.. she was always ruthless in her efforts to get down on the carpet.

Aside from that though, she's acting normally. Just slower, and seemingly less keen to explore. She's also more skitties when out of her cage. On the flip side though, she did explore my leg and the couch pretty much as enthusiastically as before, so I don't know...

EDIT: She just did the hop on my leg thing again. She seems okay right now.