>I would like to know what might be expected in the long term for a ferret
>who appears to have had a botched descenting done.  My vet wants to hold
>off any treatment to see whether it will abscess again.  I picture an
>enclosed pocket of gland tissue with nowhere for the secretion to go.
>Unless the body is able to reabsorb the secretion, how could this NOT
>abscess over and over?
 
X - you are right - there is nowhere for it to go, but downward and
eventually out.  However, without a draining tract to follow, going in
without any clinical signs is a fairly low-percentage option.
 
The key here is that when it abscesses again - and it will - to go in and
make sure you get out the remnants.  The more times you go in, each time
that you go in, the less chance that you will find that little piece of
secretory tissue.  That first return visit, you can find it, though.
 
With kindest regards,
Bruce Williams, DVM
[Posted in FML issue 3722]