# puffy, swollen cheeks??



## skiipy (Dec 6, 2014)

hello,

My mouse Beat said good morning today with very puffy, swollen cheeks.. I noticed it straight away that he had such a huge face! Nothing new has happened in his cage, no new bedding, no new toys, no new food, nothing. His cage is cleaned weekly, it was due tomorrow. I decided to clean it today just to make him feel better.

I have a photo of him BEFORE his swollen face.
Sorry for the fuzziness, the photos are better but sending them to my computer reduced their quality.










Now here's a photo from this morning after he woke up, such a huge swollen face. He is a little hunched up because I have to take him outside for the photos, or else he won't sit still enough. He is just a little scared to be outside, thats all. He has normal posture in his cage.










He likes to sleep curled up in a ball, with his face flat on the ground underneath him. He has a cage mate, no signs of fighting over the night. They argue, but they never try to hurt each other.
The swelling is even on both sides, his cheeks are so puffed out that his jawline looks squared from a front angle. He usually has a narrow face.

The temperature of my room has been the same all around, it's summer here in australia so it has been nice and warm for them.

I bought Beat when he was a very young mouse. He has started to grow a little bit bigger so I thought maybe the cheeks were a sign of maturity, but his cage mate is fine, and Beat looks so swollen! I'm worried for my little mouse, I love him a lot. I have had him for 2 or 3 months.


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## SarahC (Oct 3, 2008)

He doesn't look quite right to me in the before picture.One side(right on the pic)looks swollen.Impossible to say what the cause is.Could be teeth,ears,whisker follicle infection,infected bite or tumour/abscess.Antibiotics would be my first line of treatment and if it's a buck sharing with other bucks I would separate.It would be a good idea to check the mouth for overgrown teeth.


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## PPVallhunds (Jul 26, 2010)

If he is in with another buck I'd say it's a high chance he has been bitten and its now infected, bites can be hard to see especially if it's on the underside of his jaw.

Agree with Sarah seperate and antibiotics. I've used baytril with mice before.

Once bucks start to argue they need separating before one is hurt as it normaly escalates as one becomes more dominant over the other.


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## raisin (Sep 22, 2014)

I don't know about this mouse, but I think a similar thing might have happened to a rat of mine. Her face swelled up while in the care of my dad, who didn't pay attention to it. I think it looked similar to this. Then it popped- it was an abscess. I tried antibiotic cream on the giant wound on her chin, but she died a few weeks later. It wasn't from another rat or a wound or her teeth- just one of those things. she was not young though, and I'm sure age was a factor.


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## raisin (Sep 22, 2014)

sorry! I don't mean to alarm you with something that is probably not even in the realm of what your mouse might have. I seem to recall something saying that mice can get a bit swollen when they have a cold or something similar.


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