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My senior cat has infected body masses. What should I do now?

Updated on September 23rd, 2025

Pet's info: Cat | Domestic Mediumhair | Female | spayed | 17 years and 4 months old | 10 lbs

Hi. We have a senior car (she’s 17 years old) and she began developing some masses on her body. We thought it was food allergies, switched her food, and she seemed to improve. Now one of the masses became infected, we are not sure what to do, we think the infection has progressed and needs more than topical treatment. Advice please?

1 Answer

Most Helpful Answer

Answered By Destini R. Holloway, DVM

Veterinarian

Published on May 6th, 2019

Oh my. Poor girl. I am so sorry but this appears to be a severe infection and you are correct in that this needs more than topicals. In fact this may be a resistant bacteria in need of culturing through your vet. It looks like the skin could be badly infected due to several possibilities here: resistant skin infection, mites, skin cancer. I highly recommend taking Smoky in to your vet right away to start with some skin testing to help determine the underlying cause, so that we know how best to move forward with her. Until you can get her in it is best to just clean the areas with Betadine diluted 50:50 with warm water, then rinse with sterile saline from your local pharmacy. Ensure that none of the Betadine gets in her eyes however, so use a cloth and use extreme care.

I do hope that you are able to get Smoky's skin back to normal and get her some relief soon. Best of luck and take care.

1Pet Parents found this answer helpful

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