Chinchilla recovering from nose injury major scabbing

[SookiFace1]

Sookie unfortunately played chicken with the sofa and the sofa won. She managed to rip the flap of skin that forms their nose (that skin in the middle). This happened approximately 8 days ago and I can proudly say after 5 stitches she is healing beautifully and her nose looks great. My vet told me to watch for scabbing within the first 24 hours and to dissolve the scabs with a q-tip dipped in water. She has major scabbing that looks like either the stitches disolving or scabbing attached to the stitches. Its so thick that in order for me to dissolve it with the qtip I'd need divine intervention to keep her still and lots of time. Its not completely blocking her nasal passages but is taking up a good 50% of each one. What should i do? is this normal? should i rush her back to the vet? she shows no signs of discomfort and is not even pawing at her nose, acting normally, is eating and drinking fine. Any and all advice/ experience would be greatly appreciated. <3

 

[LeoMonster]

I don't know much about this topic, but could you possibly burrito wrap her in a towel to keep her still for the amount of time you'll need? If you are really worried you could always call the vet first and see what s/he says as well.

 

[SookiFace1]

oh my goodness yes! How do you burrito wrap them or hold them still without hurting them? I'm going to attempt to dissolve the scabbing because it worries me but I have no idea how to safely keep her still!

 

[AZChins]

If she's acting normally and she can breathe, I'd just keep an eye on it. When it heals up the scab is going to fall off on its own. Poor thing, that must have really hurt when she did that. Chins scab up with some pretty thick scabs, it's normal for it to scab up like that.

 

[SookiFace1]

I cant seem to get the burrito wrap right. she always found a way. smh.. But I was able to lightly moisten the scab and a large portion of it fell off. Thank you for the advice and letting me know that the heavy scabbing is normal to chinchillas

 

[SookiFace1]

Just to double check that her scabbing is normal and to not mess with it I just took this picture.. Every night she with or without our help we manage to get it wayy down but every time she wakes up its this bag again

 

[BooBoo*TheKiddo*]

Ouch. That looks nasty.

My concern would be it getting worse than the picture show and blocking her nasal passage. Have you taken her to a vet?

 

[SookiFace1]

Her checkup is next week to make sure everything healed fine.. And he did tell me to watch for scabbing within the first 48 hours and if it looks like it might block her nose ti take a wet qtip. I did that a few nights ago and to say the least she was not a happy chinchilla! It definitely helped but since then I havent attempted to mess with it again. She manages to break some off herself at night but every morning when I get her ready for bed it looks like it just grows back to this size and shape! shes breathing and acting fine but you can see why Im still super paranoid about it..