LRI - Unusual case and had to be on a Sunday! Help

[pepperpots]

My 9 month old boy started with noisy breathing about 8 days ago. He’d been absolutely fine in the morning, heard him make some choking noises when I gave them morning veggies but he was normal afterwards, then went in later to check and he clearly wasn’t ok. Went to vets and they could hear noisy lungs, nothing upper respiratory. Had metacam and Baytril. After an hour after having the meds he was completely recovered - you’d never have known anything was wrong.

He’s still on Baytril till Thursday but went in this morning and the noisy breathing is back and he’s not himself. He’s still eating so I gave him some critical care pellets and some metacam. Two hours later and he’s still no better. Is eating (slowly), but noisy breathing and not his cheeky self.

Not sure what to do. I’d have to take him to the emergency vets which is massively expensive- and I will if I need to of course.
What else can they do if he’s had antibiotics and metacam?

This all seems v weird - not presenting at all like a usual respiratory infection. He was totally fine last night - boinging around like usual. There’s no sneezing, coughing or mucus. He’s not lost weight. But he’s clearly miserable.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[Piggies&buns]

I’m sorry to hear this.

It’s possible they could put him on a different antibiotic. Given it is a breathing issue, I would go to the emergency vet regardless.

It sounds as if you may already be doing this
- but switch to daily weight checks and step in with syringe feeding to ensure his fibre/hay intake doesn’t suffer.

I hope he is ok

 

[Wiebke]

I’m sorry to hear this.

It’s possible they could put him on a different antibiotic. Given it is a breathing issue, I would go to the emergency vet regardless.

It sounds as if you may already be doing this
- but switch to daily weight checks and step in with syringe feeding to ensure his fibre/hay intake doesn’t suffer.

I hope he is ok

Hi

I agree with @Piggies&buns . Very sorry about the weekend timing!

You may also want to discuss whether nebulising may help or not.

My fingers are firmly crossed.

 

[pepperpots]

Weirder and weirder. The breathing sounds have now gone. What could he have which is essentially made better by metacam? There’s no way the antibiotics had time to work the first time it mysteriously got ‘cured’ - it was only about an hour after the first dose. Must be the metacam as I’d stopped it a couple of days ago.

 

[Wiebke]

Weirder and weirder. The breathing sounds have now gone. What could he have which is essentially made better by metacam? There’s no way the antibiotics had time to work the first time it mysteriously got ‘cured’ - it was only about an hour after the first dose. Must be the metacam as I’d stopped it a couple of days ago.

Could it be either caused by the heart or related to the high pollen count/hot weather we are experiencing?

See how it goes and if needed see an out of hours vet if stops being off and on.

I feel for you. Situations like these are soooo stressful.

HUGS

 

[pepperpots]

Yesterday was warm but I’m in the north of England and we’re back to grey rain now. It’s v strange. Even if he’s ok today, I’m going to book him in with my senior vets tomorrow to try and get the bottom of it.

 

[piggieminder]

Metacam is an anti inflammatory as well as a painkiller. If he has irritation somewhere in the respiratory tract which is inflamed the Metacam will have brought any swelling down hence the breathing sounds improving. I've just gone through 6 weeks of this with one of my boars. The chances are it's still an infection and needs ABs. We ended up using Baytril and Doxycycline together which seems to have worked. It's been a massive roller coaster of a time.
Sending your piggy healing vibes.

 

[pepperpots]

He’s now absolutely fine with no sign of anything wrong with him at all. Will be at vets tomorrow to find out what’s going on and see if we need to add in another kind of antibiotic.

Thank you everyone for your help! I’m used to having weird animals (medically wise) as am in cat rescue and they tend to be drawn magnetically to me, but this is my first time with piggies (and am completely smitten).