Mollybx
Junior Guinea Pig
My piggie (Luna) will be 6 this year.
Last year she was very poorly with a urine infection and gut stasis (luckily she fully recovered). She has always been a small piggie but due to this illness she did drop about 100g of weight that she hasn’t put back on.
After this she had a run of 3-4 urine infections every few months, whenever she was put on pain relief (arthrocam), this would clear up and she would have a dry bum! After previously having issues in her hind leg over the past couple of years, we came to the conclusion she has arthiritis so the decision was made to keep her on long term pain relief which seems to be working wonders for her - no more uti’s!
This brings us to the latest issue, bless her! She recently has lost a little bit of weight (in the past couple months I’d say around 30g). A few weeks ago we noticed that her breathing pattern was unusual. Her breaths appeared to be very deep and she was using her side muscles to breath. Her breath rate has never exceeded 80brpm though. We monitored her for a few days and decided to book a vets appointment. The vets could not find anything abnormal, no heart murmurs and her lungs sounded clear. We decided to keep her on her arthrocam and monitor her for improvement. The vet didn’t want to give her antibiotics yet as she had only been on them a couple months ago. A couple weeks later, she hadn’t gotten worse but also not any better. We found that when outside in her run she would happily munch away on grass for a couple of hours then when we bring her back inside she seemed exhausted and still breathing deeply. I booked another vets appointment to see if they could find anything else - still the same answer.
So 1 week ago I took her to an exotic specialist. From just 1 examination he told me she has 1 misshapen kidney (possibly normal for her) no heart murmurs, cystic ovaries (possibly causing her pain) and potential fibrosis on her lungs (he could hear a strain in her breath. I decided against spaying and x rays and invasive testing as I am concerned about how she would handle the anaesthetic.
So we decided to put her on a nebuliser (twice a day) with 5 minutes of ventolin and 5 minutes of f10. She has now been on this for 4 days and I really don’t see any improvement. I am going to book an appointment next week to get her re checked if the vets hear any improvement that I can’t hear.
We also increased her pain relief to 0.3mg twice a day instead of once.
If we see no improvement with the nebuliser we are going to try an injection to stop her ovaries working and see if that reduces the cysts and possible pain she is feeling from this.
In herself she seems okay, still getting about, eating and drinking. But not as squeaky as she used to be
What I’m asking is 1. Does anyone have any experience with using a nebuliser and if so when did you see improvement with this?
2. Has anyone ever had there piggie with the injection to stop their ovaries working?
3. Am I right to make the decision to not put her through anaesthetic at her age?
4. Has anyone had anything similar with the deep breathing?
All I want is for her to have a good quality of life in her old age and to not be in pain. Vets have deemed her to still have a good quality of life but I just don’t want her suffering!
Last year she was very poorly with a urine infection and gut stasis (luckily she fully recovered). She has always been a small piggie but due to this illness she did drop about 100g of weight that she hasn’t put back on.
After this she had a run of 3-4 urine infections every few months, whenever she was put on pain relief (arthrocam), this would clear up and she would have a dry bum! After previously having issues in her hind leg over the past couple of years, we came to the conclusion she has arthiritis so the decision was made to keep her on long term pain relief which seems to be working wonders for her - no more uti’s!
This brings us to the latest issue, bless her! She recently has lost a little bit of weight (in the past couple months I’d say around 30g). A few weeks ago we noticed that her breathing pattern was unusual. Her breaths appeared to be very deep and she was using her side muscles to breath. Her breath rate has never exceeded 80brpm though. We monitored her for a few days and decided to book a vets appointment. The vets could not find anything abnormal, no heart murmurs and her lungs sounded clear. We decided to keep her on her arthrocam and monitor her for improvement. The vet didn’t want to give her antibiotics yet as she had only been on them a couple months ago. A couple weeks later, she hadn’t gotten worse but also not any better. We found that when outside in her run she would happily munch away on grass for a couple of hours then when we bring her back inside she seemed exhausted and still breathing deeply. I booked another vets appointment to see if they could find anything else - still the same answer.
So 1 week ago I took her to an exotic specialist. From just 1 examination he told me she has 1 misshapen kidney (possibly normal for her) no heart murmurs, cystic ovaries (possibly causing her pain) and potential fibrosis on her lungs (he could hear a strain in her breath. I decided against spaying and x rays and invasive testing as I am concerned about how she would handle the anaesthetic.
So we decided to put her on a nebuliser (twice a day) with 5 minutes of ventolin and 5 minutes of f10. She has now been on this for 4 days and I really don’t see any improvement. I am going to book an appointment next week to get her re checked if the vets hear any improvement that I can’t hear.
We also increased her pain relief to 0.3mg twice a day instead of once.
If we see no improvement with the nebuliser we are going to try an injection to stop her ovaries working and see if that reduces the cysts and possible pain she is feeling from this.
In herself she seems okay, still getting about, eating and drinking. But not as squeaky as she used to be
What I’m asking is 1. Does anyone have any experience with using a nebuliser and if so when did you see improvement with this?
2. Has anyone ever had there piggie with the injection to stop their ovaries working?
3. Am I right to make the decision to not put her through anaesthetic at her age?
4. Has anyone had anything similar with the deep breathing?
All I want is for her to have a good quality of life in her old age and to not be in pain. Vets have deemed her to still have a good quality of life but I just don’t want her suffering!
