I'm sorry to hear your Volde has a diagnosis of heart disease. I'm more sorry to hear that your vet seems to think his time is so limited and treatment should not be given.
My guinea pig Muffin presented with fluid in the abdomen/under the chin and clearly had heart disease. She wasn;t breathing properly and she had a blue tinge to her ears/lips. Her paws were also swollen. The vets had never seen a heart pig before but I paid for them to do the Xrays etc and also gave them all the info on guinea lynx.
http://www.guinealynx.info/heart.html
They were convinced by the info and agreed to prescribe heart meds. Muffin lived another very happy 12 months on her daily meds before she passed to the Bridge with a completely unconnected bladder stone complication.
There is a big difference between a piggie suffering from heart disease and suffering from heart failure - the latter is a terminal event and unfortunately i think sometimes the word failure is used when really it should be the word disease. You can;t cure heart disease - but you can alleviate the clinical symptoms and give them a few happy extra months/years (which is a long time in piggie years) before the heart finally fails - so you will have to decide whether that is what you want to do for Voldemorte.
Your options are - go back to your existing vet armed with additional info adn demand the (off-license) treatment - or find a more piggy experienced vet who is prepared to prescribe these drugs. If you tell us whereabouts in the country you are we can point you in the direction of a good piggie vet.
The treatment you should be looking for is as follows (once the new vet has probably done an Xray for confirm the diagnosis)
Firstly in the acute phase following diagnosis, you need to reduce Volde's fluid levels quite dramatically given the problems with abdominal swelling - and to do that you will need to give fruseamide diuretic orally at up to 10mg/kg twice daily for the first few days. During this time you will need to be careful that he drinks plenty and doesn;t get dehydrated. Once you have got the fluid levels (oedema/ascites) and breathing under control (if it;s severe this could take 7-10 days) then you can gradually reduce the dose to the normal 2mg/kg twice daily.
You also need to give oral heart meds - fortekor has the best record in guinea pigs - dose is normally 1mg/kg twice daily. Another heart med given in addition or as an alternative is pimobenden (vetmedin). Different vets have different preferences. Over the first few weeks it is trial and error and several vets visits to monitor progress may be needed in order to adjust the dose to suit Volde's condition. (ie you may have to up the dose gradually)
I have another heart pig diagnosed a 5months ago - most vets would probably have given the same prognosis as your current vet....ie 2 weeks. Mr Maggots is now on regular heart meds and is popcorning round his cage. We have ups and down where we have to adjust the dosage of diuretic (often dependent upon hot humid weather) to help his breathing owing to excess fluid accumulation but it is not interfering with his quality of life and I am glad I have such a good vet.
Hope this helps - happy to chat over the phone if you Pm me for my phone number.
x
