Wound-chewing spot..4th time! Looking for second opinions

[Bioteach44]

Hi all,

My hedgehog is a year and a half old. This is the 4th time that she has chewed a spot open under her chin or arm pit area. The first day was a major infection that led to surgery to remove dead tissue and a 6 week long process of trying to get it closed up with stitches and antibiotics. You absolutely cannot put anything on the wound salve wise.

She was biopsied, cultured, checked for mites and blood work--all came back with nothing. No conclusion as to what caused the lesion.

The third time was just recently when she chewed open a small spot near her arm pit. Again the dr. said she had no idea and possibly self mutilation. Metacam and an antibiotic seemed to heal it up.

But here we are another month later and there is yet again a dimed size superficial chew mark. I don't know what to do as I'm already over $1000 deep in med bills for the year on my love without any explanation or cause. The vet is one of the best in the area and she says she has never seen a hedgie like this in 24 years.

Other specs: room temp 75 degress plus or minus 2 degrees; non clumping tidy cat kitty litter in her pan, fleece liners....



Any thoughts on cause? Should I seek a second opinion?

 

[Raindog]

I would go for a second opinion. Maybe a different vet may have seen something similar. Has the vet checked for food allergies? Do you think it could be a nervous habit? If so you can try soothing things like chamomile tea, you can make it plain and give it to her after it is cool. Just the smell has be known to calm them. Rescue Remedy seems to be 50/50 on if it works or not, you can put a couple of drops in their water. I think you can put one drop on the hedgehogs lips but I am not positive, there is a small amount of alcohol in it. Please let us know how she is now.

 

[smhufflepuff]

My initial thoughts were either it's a behavioral thing (eg, anxiety, fear...) or there's something there (eg, a sliver, scar tissue from her prior medical issue...) that's bugging her. But allergies make sense too.

Given there are some things you can do at home to address the possibilities, I'd start doing those:
- chamomile tea, Rescue Remedy, ensuring there's a schedule for her care that you can stick to (eg, lights come on at X in the morning and off at Y, you scoop her up for playtime at Z...) can help with anxiety.
- giving everything in her cage a super-cleaning, washing her liners in scent-free & dye-free detergent and no dryer sheets nor fabric softener can help address possible environmental allergies. Wash her dishes out well, her wheel, her everything and keep up good cleaning practices.
- food allergies are a touch more tricky... I'd cut out the non-essentials (treats) to see if there's any difference and add them back in one at a time to see what happens. You might try one of the limited ingredient kibbles - Natural Balance Green Pea & Duck is one example.
- remove the litter. At this point, it may be serving as an irritant in her abrasion and/or she may have an allergy to it that helped set things off in the first place. Something as simple as a paper towel in her litter box will work just fine as a replacement.
- continuing on the irritant/allergy line, go ahead and wash your hands and arms up to your elbows in a gentle soap, rinse well, dry, and put on a shirt that's clean (preferably also with the scent-free detergent & no dryer sheets/fabric softener) and hasn't been worn outside before you scoop her up for snuggle time.

On the vet side of things, see if your vet is open to consulting with other vets. Mine have contacted other vets on their own to share test results and discuss possible causes, diagnoses, prognoses, and treatment options. In a particularly problematic case, I asked my vet to call another who was highly recommended (and out of state)... and she did. And my little guy did pull through. Those strategies likely won't cost you anything additional.

I've also brought my hedgekids directly to other vets for second opinions. Yes, of course, that will come at a price... and I understand that when you've already spent up in the thousands, that becomes difficult. So, perhaps, check the consulting route first... Then visit a second vet. You don't have to be sneaky about it... in fact, I would not be sneaky. Let your vet know... and the new vet know. Hopefully, they'll be able to talk to one another about what each sees and come to a conclusion that they may not have been able to separately.

 

[Bioteach44]

Thanks all. I am trying to let her heal this but I am worried that it will become infected or already is. The bottom of the scab looks good but closer under her neck area this evening looks a little discolored.

Does anyone have an infected sore photo for comparison? I'm also worried that it is potentially staph. How in the world would she get such a thing if it is?

 

[smhufflepuff]

Not sure how she'd get staph. I had one quillkid with MRSA and another with "regular" staph. Both were rescues. Best I could figure is it was either that they had it from before and it only flourished after they were with me for awhile OR that staph exists pretty much everywhere, so one random encounter where I brushed up against a surface that had it, then it transferred to my shirt, and from my shirt to my hedgie... I don't know. As you can imagine, I felt very bad... not knowing how this could happen... seeing the horrible effects on the hedgies, etc... I had myself tested at the time and came back staph-free, so I know I wasn't carrying it to them (nor had I been infected by them). But it is crazy-making trying to figure out how.

I don't have any pics of what it looked like. For MRSA-kid, his only symptom was a constantly runny nose; MRSA was found during the culture. For the "regular" staph kid, it started out looking like dry skin, then moved to looking like small abrasions. At its worst (and she was on treatment by this time), she developed some pretty large scabby areas... well, large for a hedgehog. Maybe about the size of half to three-quarters of a dime. The scabs were rather thick and would bleed at the edges. It took quite a long time to heal. Eventually, the scabs and the quills that were contained within the scabs fell off. Her skin looks fine now, but the quills have not grown back in those areas.

It sounded like you'd brought her in before to get a culture. Perhaps it's a good idea for a re-check. Bring her in to get swabbed and have the vet run a culture and sensitivity analysis. The culture will let you know what it is you're dealing with. The sensitivity will let you know what medications will kill whatever the bad mojo is. One recommendation: do not apply an antibiotic like neosporin before you get to the vet to swab the area, else, you run the risk of killing off, or otherwise limiting the growth of, the bacteria that are needed for the testing. I ran into that problem once - getting a culture done too close in time to when one of the hedgies was given meds. --At least that was the vet's thought when the symptoms returned after receiving the "all clear" from the culture.

I wonder if, since you mentioned you had a culture done before... maybe it showed up negative because she was still on treatment at the time?

 

[charlie]

Lots of experience with this. I have a neurotic chewer, and have had several emergency vet visits, a ton of separate opinions etc. Let me grab a post from another forum where I laid out some recommendations....back soon.

 

[charlie]

We have had significant experience with self-biting. It has been a five year battle, so here's my experience, hopefully it helps. It can be treated, the difficulty is in narrowing it down. I suggest it is done by elimination:

1. Is it an infection or mites? A vet (one or two depending on their experience) can usually help rule this out. Just because it happens in the same place, won't mean it is an infection. Greyson chewed his chest right through (we had to take him to emergency more than once)
and always in the same place. It turned out not to be an infection or mites but this one is usually the easiest to rule out first. Taking out the liter if you use it and other potential allergens is always a good step just in case as others suggest.

2. Urea reaction - MOST COMMON– some symptoms include slight reddening of the skin, and can sometimes be confirmed by a hedgehog with no mites and no underlying masses and who stops biting for a few days after a bath and then begins again. A urea reaction happens most often when a very messy hedgie runs on his/her wheel, and ends up getting a mix of urine
and poop on their skin throughout the night. It is irritating after only a few
days, and really can only be treated by a bath and preventing the hedgie from getting into the mess (which is very difficult). Suggestions for this include – doing a quick wipe of the wheel as soon as the hog has made a mess and before he/she gets really going, and/or letting out your hog so that he does his bathroom before getting started on his wheel. If there is no wheel, then it is a matter of determining how this might be getting on the hog and reducing the likelihood that it lingers on their skin.

3. Neuroticism/behavior issue…this one is tricky but does your hog have a desire to bite down on things? Offer her a fleece blanket or T-shirt (no strings of course) and see if she wants to bite down on it when she starts to chew. Does she start to play tug-o-war with aggressiveness? Hedgies sometimes do this anyway but the aggressiveness is different in this case, it is almost rabid. Behavioural stuff as most of us know can be caused by anxiety so this is best treated by reducing source of anxiety. Do NOT in this case give polysporin or any other scented product on their skin unless absolutely necessary, as it will increase their anxiety (and cause them to chew the area more). Is your hedgie slightly over-weight? If she cannot reach certain areas of his body (this is more specific to males but may apply to females as well), this may be causing her anxiety. The hog will instead chew the only area she can reach (chest, leg)…When she starts biting offer an alternative (blanket to gently tug on) or if she refuses to stop chewing herself, put her into the bath so she can no longer reach the area without getting her nose wet. Once out of the bath, reduce noise and light until their urge passes.

4. Allergens – this one is difficult (if not impossible) to diagnose. Treatment is process of elimination but one should rule out #2 first because changing foods, eliminating desired items from the cage may cause more anxiety. Others have given you some good suggestions for treating this already so I won't dive in.

Greyson's self-biting (to the point of dangerous mutilation if not monitored) was a result, we strongly believe, of options 2 and 3. He now runs out in the living room for a few hours every night until he has gone to the bathroom and is returned to a quiet cage with his rubber chew toys and clean wheel. If he starts acting up, we cuddle quietly, play tug-o-war until the urge passes and sometimes have a soothing bath. Because of the cause of his biting, we never treat his affliction with polysporin (he had an anxiety attack from an attempt with polysporin and chewed deep enough to tuck his nose under the chewed skin resulting in another ER visit). Hopefully this helps.