julieandruth
Junior Guinea Pig
Hi! Ruth is my 2-3 year old rescue pig I got last summer, on the 21st of jan, in the evening I noticed she had a very slight head tilt but it was barely noticeable, by the next morning she was completely unwell, the head tilt got 10x worse, she was constantly falling over to the side, couldn't eat, walk, or do anything, she was just sat in the middle of the cage completely out of it, and clearly very dizzy, so of course I quickly crushed up some pellets and made some diy "critical care" as I had none at the time, and syringe fed her while waiting until 9 am for the vets to open so I could call them. They ended up squeezing me in for a 4pm appointment, and she did in fact end up having an ear infection (the vet also said she most likely has vestibular disease as well due to her funky eye movement). She was prescribed 0.55ml of enrofloxacin/baytril, and 0.14ml of meloxicam, both to be given twice a day for a week straight, as well as critical care which the vet managed to give me but told me to order more. I also gave her 1ml x3 daily of fibreplex after 2 days as her appetite wasn't getting any better, but her ear infection did end up clearing up after 4-5 days. Unfortunately I did end up running out of fibreplex right before the last day which might've upset her gut again, but she seemed to be coping and she was eating and drinking, though still felt a bit less energetic than before. I did notice one day that she was puffed up and not eating, and she also had not pooped in a full day. I got recommended to give her a warm bath and a belly massage as it could've potentially been bloat, which would make sense as they had pak choi the day before (which they've always had 2x per week with no problems), lo and behold she got better after that, was releasing a bit of gas and finally pooping, and we were back to the point after antibiotics, where she was eating and drinking fine, but something still didn't 100% feel right and she just didn't have the same energy or excitement as before, especially with veggies. I went to pets at home to get her probiotics as fibreplex would've taken a while to come again and I also just wanted a cheaper option, so I ended up buying vetark pro c probiotics for her, and I was giving her 1 scoop mixed with a bit of water by syringe everyday, though that didn't seem to work very well. She's currently functioning like a normal pig, eating, etc but she definitely does not have the appetite or energy like she always does. I've been weighing her throughout all of this, during the antibiotics her weight seemed to be fluctuating pretty normally, after her bloat she lost 44g in one day, and ever since that happened her weight has been slowly going down every single day, not by a huge amount, but it's been a little while now and she's currently at the lowest weight she has every been, 1057g, when she's usually around 1200-1250g, and I can definitely feel her spine and bones a lot more. I've also noticed she's been drinking way more, which makes me pretty worried that it's something to do with her kidneys, or she has diabetes, especially as she is still eating veggies, hay, etc, while continuously losing weight. Her butt is also quite soiled and I think she has a bit of irritation on her feet from the urine, though I can't tell if that's from her sitting in one place not doing a lot, or if she is actually peeing more. I'm currently giving her critical care and fibreplex which doesn't seem to be doing a whole lot, so I will get a vet appointment for her tomorrow most likely. The only thing I'm just extremely confused about is if all of this is connected to the ear infection and antibiotics, or if this is just a coincidence and she's just having a whole lot of problems in one short timespan, but I'm really hoping she doesn't have something worse going on now like kidney disease/failure.
She's seen the vet today and the vet felt a bunch of lumps on all of her lymph nodes, meaning she very very likely had lymphoma. She took a fluid sample from the lymph nodes and they should be back by the end of this week to confirm if it's definitely cancer, but it most likely is. I got given the options of doing chemotherapy, steroids, or just leaving it. I'm currently leaning more towards leaving it but I'd love some thoughts about chemo/steroids
