My cat's severe neck wound is oozing. What can I use to clean it?

Hi. I'm Dr. Johnson. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! Poor Garfield! There are other families of antibiotics your Vet could choose to help. I'd recommend getting him looked at. The woundscon his face could be from allergies or an infection. Also I'm in the US and in Iran there could be other causes for the wounds. Good luck!

Hi, it looks like Gelato has an infected wound. If you take a close look to the picture you can see there is a yellow tinge to it. It is not going to heal while infected. To start with, you could clean the area with some salty water putting one spoon of salt in a mug of hot water and leaving it to cool down. Once the salty water is luke warm, you can use it on the wound with some cotton wool. It might be that the yellow scab comes off and it leaves an open gap that it oozing some discharge. I also recommend to wear gloves to clean the wound. If possible at all, nest to have it checked over so your vet can clean it for you, and give antibiotics. Hope this helps !

Surgery may be needed to clean the edges and see if the wound can be repaired. Often times, this does require some times for the tissue to declare itself before this is done to see what tissue will be healthy to save. All you can do until it is ready for surgery is keep it clean and stay on antibiotics to prevent an infection. Rechecks should be frequent to determine when surgery would be best. Cats are the best at healing and granulating in new tissue as long as the infection stays under control.

Hi there and thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach to address your concern. Judging from the picture, this could be a ruptured abscess or secondary to self trauma from him scratching at the area. I would recommend having him examined by a veterinarian so that the most appropriate treatment recommendations can be made. He will need the hair clipped from around the wound and the wound cleaned. I would also recommend an antibiotic and anti-inflammatory. I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns and I would be more than happy to help you further.

Hi there and thank you for using pet coach! I typically recommend mixing Betadine and water until you get a light brown mixture and use that to clean wounds. If it is a superficial scrape then it will likely heal but if there is a flap of skin or the wound looks to be deep, it will need veterinary care most likely. For superficial cuts and scrapes I recommend zymox topical ointment or vetericyn spray gel. I hope this helps! Please let me know if you ha e any other questions or concerns.

That is a pretty large wound! That being said though, it looks like it is healing fine. It does not appear swollen or to have discharge coming from it. The tissue looks healthy. Having it stitched when it first happened which would have allowed it to heal faster. I am not sure how long it's been but a wound that size would take weeks to heal without stitches. If I were you I would keep applying a topical antibiotic cream and just leave it be. Stop using the Betadine. If he is licking it you must stop that behavior by using an Elizabethan collar (cone). As long as he keeps licking it will not heal. If you want it to heal faster you need to take him to a vet to have it stitched. Hope this helps. Best wishes!

From the picture I can only say this may be due to a trauma or localized spot of skin infection (likely to be caused by bacteria or fungal). A check up, appropriate disinfection and possibly antibiotics or antifungal meds (oral, topical or in a shampoo formulation) are needed to solve the problem. More investigations like sampling and bacterial swabs would be needed to determine the underlying cause more specifically. In my experience I have seen large wounds like this one from Poxvirus infection (but usually other wounds are present as well). I would suggest to handle this wound always with gloves (you are doing it anyway as I can see from the pic). Buster collar may be useful as well to avoid any licking. Hope this answer was helpful, but please do not hesitate to contact us again on the forum or by requesting a consultation if you have any more questions or to discuss it any further.