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How Fast Should Baytril Work? Bulging Eye And Chewing Problem

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The dreaded vet appointment day has arrived. After a crisp 5 hours of sleep (or laying in bed and trying to sleep while worrying) I'm a bit more optimistic today, but still very unsure what to do. Even though Ampeeri still looks very sorry for himself, I believe I see improvement in him after his Metacam dose. So maybe a higher dose of Metacam could be an option still to try. That would give the Zithromax more time to work, Ampeeri has now had it for 19 days, 17 days on full dose. This morning Ampeeri's weight was 792 g :( Also today was the second time in a row I woke up to see Ampeeri in his hidey, and Voltti sleeping right in front of the hidey entrance, nose to nose with Ampeeri. They normally don't cuddle together, so I believe Voltti must know something's wrong.

Yesterday I had marathon lap time with Ampeeri. I placed him on a pillow on my lap for comfort, and because he felt shivery I also folded a towel for him as a blanket. He eventually relaxed from his hunched posture to a normal one, laid his head down and closed his eyes. He seemed to nap for a good while, while I stroked him gently and told him how much I love him. After I finally placed him back to the cage, he seemed more alert than usual and trotted around like normally he would. I haven't seen him as relaxed as he was in my lap for ages, so hopefully the long nap did him good.

We are at the vet's at 5:40pm, that would be 3:40pm UK time. Wish us luck please!
 
I think a higher dose would be good if the vet would agree to it. There are other stronger pain killers they could look at too but they can affect the gut. I hope today goes ok. I think if you can get more syringe feed in too it will help but I know it is difficult as he is fighting it.
 
I'll see what the vet thinks, and tell her it seems that at least some vets in the UK do go for the 12 hrs cycle in pain killers instead of the textbook 24 hrs.

Today morning Ampeeri ate 4,5 ml of syringe food. It's not as much as I'd like him to, but at least this lot he took willingly. I had to force him quite a lot to give him his meds, so I didn't want to upset him more with forcing the food too. I'm leaving work already after lunch today to be able to feed Ampeeri more before the vet trip.
 
Metacam will be out of their system within 12 hours due to their fast metabolism. What are you syringe feeding? Most of the TEAS piggies hate Critical Care or any of the recovery foods but love mushed up guinea pig nuggets. You can make them into a soft paste by adding boiling water and mixing with a fork. I hope your appointment goes well xx
 
I'm feeding Supreme Science Recovery, Ampeeri seems to like it when he wants to eat. He takes the syringe in his mouth by himself, and doesn't want to surrender it for me to fill it up again. But then he only wants to have the 4-5 ml at a go. I tried mushed up pellets (Burgess mint), but he didn't like it then even though he likes the pellets. I could always try again of course, to give him some variety. I had some recovery food from Bunny GoVet, that Ampeeri hated. Critical Care is not imported into Finland anymore, and I didn't get a chance to try it.

Thank you! xx
 
I just took the cutest photo of Ampeeri chomping on some swede that I had to share! Here you also see the current situation of the right eye. His biting looks better than in a long time!

IMG_20170517_134738.webp
 
Good luck today, and whilst I have nothing constructive to add, I wanted to say that whatever the outcome you have done absolutely everything possible for your beautiful boy. He is clearly a very loved and well cared for piggie.
 
He's so gorgeous and his eyes look bright and the right eye is nowhere near as bad as it could be. Good luck today, I will try to come on before I leave work at 5.30. I agree with everything Swissgreys has said.
 
Thank you so much Helen! His eyes definitely have a spark again that I did not see Sunday and Monday, that's why I was so scared then.
 
Back home with Ampeeri!

The vet agreed that this piggy still has a will to live, and agreed on continuing the treatment for the next two weeks. I've also got instructions on increasing Ampeeri's Metacam dose into 0.25 ml twice a day. Ampeeri's teeth were okay. The vet was concerned about the weight loss, and warned me it's really extreme and could be too much for Ampeeri.
 
Good news that he has agreed to increase the pain relief, you may find that that encourages him to eat more for himself. Have you tried putting mashed pellets in a bowl too?
 
No I haven't, will do that!

I have to add that after this two weeks, if Ampeeri does not improve, the vet really kindly asked me to book a time for pts. So I really do hope we start to see some improvement.
 
See what the next couple of days bring now he is on a better dose of Metacam. I do agree with the vet though as he has lost so much weight and has not been eating enough by himself.
 
I'll see. And I do understand that this can't go on forever, and it's not a full life like this. But still I hope...
 
:agr: and I think the fact that he's still trying to eat for himself is a good sign. I haven't had anything useful to say for the last few pages because medical issues aren't my forté, but I've got everything crossed for Ampeeri. He's a heck of a pig :hug:
 
Thank you @Lorcan ! I can't even describe how much I appreciate the support I've received here for Ampeeri. It means so much! I've also told Ampeeri he's got people here cheering for him :nod:

I can also inform that Ampeeri just very kindly ate 10 ml of support food in one go! 5 ml of it completely on his own, and the rest just mildly forced by me :yahoo:
 
Some positive news :)

Ampeeri ate 45 ml of support food yesterday, and today morning he continued eating it really well, 15 ml in one go. His weight has not dropped, actually we had a slight gain today at 803 g. I know this can be the result of a full bladder and not real gain, but since seeing 10-15 g drops each day for more than a week, I'm taking this as a good sign. The mashed up pellets were a hit, as you can see below. I might add that my boys usually never share a bowl without bickering, but as I added a filled bowl of mash, both zoomed right in and ate a good while. There's no way I can keep Voltti away from such a treat, but luckily he was a good boy and let Ampeeri have his share too. I've added the amount of Metacam gradually as instructed by the vet, and today evening I'll reach full dose. I believe the bigger dose is really doing it's job. Fingers crossed!

IMG_20170518_184406.webp
 
I have some good and some not so good news :(

Ampeeri has continued eating his support food like a champion. Yesterday I think he ate nearly 60 ml, and today we had a record of over 20 ml in one go. He really seems hungry for the support food. His weight has continued a slow gain, today being 827 g.

But. He has spent most of his time sitting in a corner of the cage or run, looking really tired. This started Saturday, when Friday evening was the first time I gave him a full dose of Metacam. So I'm thinking, could the big dose make him sleepy? Friday morning I gave him 0.2 ml, and since Friday evening he has had the equivalent of 3.75 kg which is something over 0.25 ml. I can't remember the exact mls, since I'm using the kg syringe provided with the Metacam. On Friday he was even playing with his chew toys and trotting around much more than now. Could this be related or not? I'm thinking of maybe trying the lower 0.2 ml dose again, and see if he would perk up or not.
 
I have had pigs on over 0.2ml twice a day and not experienced any drowsiness but all pigs are different. Has his eating of the syringe feed been better since the increase in pain relief? Or was that starting when you split the original dose?
 
He started being better with the syringe since I increased the dose on Wednesday. I increased the dose from 0.125 ml to 0.25 ml gradually, reaching the max Friday evening. And Saturday the drowsiness started. Today he literally woke up 20 mins before evening medicine time. I decided to give him just 0.2 ml of Metacam, that's Friday morning's dose. Now it's one hour after meds, I placed him back to the run, and he started to look around, right now he's chewing a stick. During the day I had him out of the run for food, and he just zoomed straight to a corner cosy cup when I put him back, and stayed there.
 
Okay, that didn't last long, he's again napping in the cosy cup :( Would be sweet if he hadn't spent most of the day there.
 
I'm not sure what to suggest as he is eating better with the higher dose. Could you space it out a bit more throughout the day?
 
He actually was a bit more active yesterday evening, he just had a quick nap and then continued trotting around. He seemed fine this morning after only getting 0.2 ml of Metacam yesterday evening, so I decided to continue with that dose for now and see how it goes. If he seems ok with a smaller dose, then I can't see reason in giving him more than he needs? Your suggestion of spacing the dose out more is a good one, but I'm not sure if I would be able to do that since going to work. I can't think of an even interval that I could do time-wise, other than the 12hrs I'm doing now.

At least he took his syringe food again really good this morning, I had to mix more because he finished his 15 ml portion so quickly and seemed to want more. And morning weight was 837 g.
 
It's great that he is eating and gaining weight - come on Ampeeri!

Does he seem sad or fluffed up, or is he just tired?
If he is just tired maybe his little body is starting to heal itself, and he is just exhausted from being so ill for so long?
Fingers crossed he perks up again soon.
You are doing an amazing job with him.
 
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