Author(s): "Dr. Janice Huntingford, Essex Animal Hospital, Ontario, Canada."
Signalment: Feline, 10 years old, F/S, DSH, “Honey”.
History: The patient was found after a house fire (occurred 3 days previous to presentation), unknown if she was inside or outside the house during the fire. Vaccines not up to date.
Diagnosis and Exam Findings: The patient presented with whiskers burnt, burns exposing underlying muscle on ears with a swollen face, and paw pads& back legs as well (both second degree burns). The patient was also dehydrated, approximately 5-7%. Diagnostics were not done due to financial constraints.
Laser Treatment: The affected paws were treated with the preset wound treatment protocol, selecting 1” X 2” surface area for each paw. Patient design selection was as follows: Feline, under 10lb, average body condition score, medium skin & coat pigmentation.
Frequency of Treatments: PBMT started 9/20/18 with a daily treatment until 10-1-18, for a total of 12 treatments. Further treatments could not be done since the client was relocating.
Other Treatments Included: The patient care plan consisted of multimodal pain management and wound care, including: zeniquin, buprenorphine (oral and sustained release injection), antibiotics (oral and sustained release injection), oral NSAID, gabapentin, and burn cream. The patient developed diarrhea early in the convalescent period, this was addressed with oral fortiflora and oral metronidazole. Surgical debridement of wounds was done four days after being seen initially since maggots were found in her wounds. Bandages were reapplied using insulin and flamazine daily for approximately 3 days before starting laser therapy. Continued to do bandage changes daily with flamazine and insulin for a week, then just used flamazine after that.
