Enlarged lymph nodes

[christie1c]

Hello, all -

On Friday, I accidentally, by luck, noticed Bruno had an enlarged lymph node on the right side of his neck. I immediately called his vet (who I found out went on permanent medical leave) to get him in. The new vet couldn’t see him until Monday, but prescribed amoxicillin (I was suspecting a bad tooth, even though he had a deep cleaning approx. 7 months ago). On Saturday, I decided that this shouldn’t wait and found him a new vet. Yes, his right lymph node was extremely swollen, and the others were slightly swollen. His vet did blood work, which I’m anxiously awaiting the results, & an FNA, which I’m also anxiously awaiting the results. The dreaded word lymphoma came up; however, even though the vet sent the sample out, he also did a smear in the office, which showed Bruno had an infection in the lymph node as well as an infection in his salivary gland. His vet said this makes lymphoma LESS likely; however, he still needed to be checked. Now the concern goes to killing this infection w/o having to send Bruno into surgery. Btw, his vet kept him on the amoxicillin from the previous vet & added a heavy duty antibiotic, Baytril, to hopefully take out the infection.

So, after all of that, my big question is - how long do lymph nodes remain swollen? You would think I could find that answer on the internet, but I seem to have stumped Google.

[Wylie's Mom]

It's really hard to say bc we don't know how inflamed they are, how advanced the infection, how inflamed the immediate surrounding tissues are. But after starting Baytril, you likely should see some sort of change in the inflammation within 5-7 days.

Also, don't let it bother you terribly that the Amoxi didn't knock out the infection - it really is a first-line antibiotic and just won't do the trick for many bugs nowadays.

Please do keep us posted and I'm hoping for the best outcome !