There are tons of feral cats in my area, and the city doesn't seem to care. One particularly vicious female hangs around my apartment, and has attacked a few of us in what seems to be unprovoked instances. It always attacks us from behind. The latest victim is my mom, who was walking by and suddenly had 4 canines embedded deep into her calf, along with a ton of claw marks and long scratches. She was in a dress, so there was no cloth to protect her. We did the entire first aid drill - washing with antibacterial soap under running water for five minutes, hydrogen peroxide, letting the punctures bleed, antibiotic cream and gauze.
We went to a doctor today, who said the bites were bad and then prescribed 250mg Amoxicillin 4 times a day. I called the SPCA and the 'specialist' said no antibiotics were necessary. The specialist didn't even ask where the bite was! Both the doctor and SPCA have been dismissive, saying that cat bites are absolutely not serious. (Bit of a contradiction there with the doctor, who said the bites were bad but cat bites are not serious). There are apparently no instances of cat rabies in this country either so that's one less thing to worry about. Cats are not popular pets here, so I figure that the number of cat bites is pretty low. In fact, the person at the SPCA thought getting bitten was quite a ludicrous occurrence.
Again, this is a feral cat with no history of any vaccinations.
I asked for Augmentin, but the doctor said Augmentin is too strong and not necessary for prophylaxis for cat bites. However, I read online that the first line of defense is Augmentin (Amoxicillin + Clavulanate), due to the fact that cat bites are all considered serious due to bacteria in their mouths and the depth their bites can go due to their needle-like teeth.
One tooth went deeper than the others, and the puncture bled for over an hour. All the puncture sites have red welts around them, but the welt for this particular puncture seems to be getting bigger over time. There's currently no fever, no red streaks, no loss of sensation, or pus. I've been slathering triple antibiotic ointment on all of punctures and clawed areas 2-3 times a day.
I've read so many horror stories online about cat bites, and I don't want to wait until she has cellulitis or goes into crisis mode due to lack of seriously-given care. Considering the type of health care in this country, she'll most likely die if she reaches the point of needing IV antibiotics and emergency surgery.
It's been 27 hours so far. I'm considering going to another doctor in the morning and demanding Augmentin or Doxycyline as the prophylactic treatment, rather than waiting for an infection to most likely develop. I know there are a LOT of cat owners and lovers on Codex, so I figure you'd know what you're talking about and can offer some advice.