Spay Incision

Od3n

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I recently got my cat Alex spayed on the 25th at a low cost spay/neuter. I have gotten pets fixed before, but they were all dogs so a cat was new to me. The first day was a little rough, because as soon as I put a cone on her, she went haywire. She was jumping EVERYWHERE and we had to catch her, and immediately took her cone off and she calmed down. Luckily no damage was done to her incision, which has dissolvable sutures underneath her skin, and surgical glue to seal the incision.

She remained without the cone for a day until she settled as her usual self. The incision during this looked clean and healthy, with no redness or weeping or anything.

However, she did get nicked by the razor when they shaved her, and she’s licking herself there, so we put the cone back on her and she did wonderful with it, unlike the first time. However, she took off her cone trying to squeeze into her sleeping spot during the night and the incision looks a little different. I’m not sure if it’s just healing or if it’s possibly infected.

There is no oozing or pain or heat coming from it, the wetness in the image is from a cotton ball with hydrogen peroxide that I used to clean the area (idk if I’m supposed to do that, but her instructions stated to). It just looks a little funny to me. She’s doing her usual snoozing, drinking, eating and begging for treats when I take them out. Nothing out of the ordinary using the litter box either. I’m just a little on edge because when we got our dogs neutered a while back, they managed to open their incision with their CONE and it got horribly infected, and I don’t wanna go down that same road again. 8501E85F-3A03-4840-8B49-01B27235F62B.jpeg
 

Willowy

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It's a little pinker than it should be, but at this point it just looks like irritation, not infection. Keep an eye on it and call the clinic if it starts to look worse.

Usually nothing should be put on the incision, I don't know why they'd put that on the aftercare sheet. Peroxide, especially, is irritating. Here's the standard caresheet:

Post-Op Instructions | Maryland SPCA
 
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Od3n

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Ah ok, thank you Willowy! Hopefully it is just irritated and no infection sets in - and I’ll discontinue the peroxide because that stuff stings bad.
At the moment, she doesn’t have her cone on since I’m supervising her, but she’s not making any attempt to actually lick it - should I put the cone back on her to be safe? Only reason I’m hesitant with the cone is because of her sleeping spots being narrow areas
 

Willowy

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If she's not licking it too much, no, don't bother with the cone. It stresses them out and stress delays healing.
 
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Od3n

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Alright, I’ll keep the cone off of her for now since she still hasn’t licked the area.

I’ll clean it up and sanitize it to use it on our other cat when she’s spayed next week - I already tested the cone out on her and she was absolutely not having it, but she obsessively chews on any injury she gets, like scratches, so I have no choice because bitter spray does not deter her 😔
 
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