Hey guys, just want to preface this by saying that my guinea pig Pluto was sick a year ago with URI and managed to recover.
Pluto has been sick again for over 2 months now and has seen 2 vets so far. When it first started, he wasn't eating and all that jazz, like a typical sick guinea pig. He was given Baytril and had been on it for 2 weeks with no results. I took him to another vet, who prescribed him with more Baytril, and Sufomet (sp?) as well, for 2 more weeks. He started looking better and was moving around and eating occassionally, but I noticed he wasn't a 100%, and still looked like he had labored breathing and wasn't moving much, with the occasion bad days where he needed to be force fed. My vet then took him off Baytril and had him continue the Sufomet with Clorophenicol this time, and he's been on them for about a month now.
While he does seem to be doing better than when this first started, he is clearly not 100% and it doesn't seem like the medication is making a difference. My vet told me he might have some sort of lung disease and that he wanted to recommend me another vet to try Nebulising him. I have spent a lot of money so far and unfortunately I can't continue to keep spending with no end in sight so I would like some directions as to what to do. I feel like the vets near me (I'm in Hawaii) are not very knowledgeable about guinea pigs in general.
So here are my questions-
1) Should I follow his advice and see this other vet? I care a lot about my guinea pig and want the best for him, but I just don't want to keep sending him to all these vets who don't know much about guinea pigs, and wasting the funds I have.
2) Could it be a heart problem? His only symptoms that I can notice is that he has very obvious labored breathing, makes a clicking noise with his breathing if you bring him up to your ear, and he sleeps a lot. I asked my vet this but he told me that heart medicine has a high chance to cause kidney failure so it's risky? Is there a medication I should ask my vet to put him on even though he's been on 3 different antibodies at this point with no real results?
3) Anyone know any good guinea pig vets on the island of Oahu? I have been to many places and I don't know what else to do.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, every day it scares me that it might be his last and I want to do as much as I can to help him, but I don't know what to do. Thank you.
Pluto has been sick again for over 2 months now and has seen 2 vets so far. When it first started, he wasn't eating and all that jazz, like a typical sick guinea pig. He was given Baytril and had been on it for 2 weeks with no results. I took him to another vet, who prescribed him with more Baytril, and Sufomet (sp?) as well, for 2 more weeks. He started looking better and was moving around and eating occassionally, but I noticed he wasn't a 100%, and still looked like he had labored breathing and wasn't moving much, with the occasion bad days where he needed to be force fed. My vet then took him off Baytril and had him continue the Sufomet with Clorophenicol this time, and he's been on them for about a month now.
While he does seem to be doing better than when this first started, he is clearly not 100% and it doesn't seem like the medication is making a difference. My vet told me he might have some sort of lung disease and that he wanted to recommend me another vet to try Nebulising him. I have spent a lot of money so far and unfortunately I can't continue to keep spending with no end in sight so I would like some directions as to what to do. I feel like the vets near me (I'm in Hawaii) are not very knowledgeable about guinea pigs in general.
So here are my questions-
1) Should I follow his advice and see this other vet? I care a lot about my guinea pig and want the best for him, but I just don't want to keep sending him to all these vets who don't know much about guinea pigs, and wasting the funds I have.
2) Could it be a heart problem? His only symptoms that I can notice is that he has very obvious labored breathing, makes a clicking noise with his breathing if you bring him up to your ear, and he sleeps a lot. I asked my vet this but he told me that heart medicine has a high chance to cause kidney failure so it's risky? Is there a medication I should ask my vet to put him on even though he's been on 3 different antibodies at this point with no real results?
3) Anyone know any good guinea pig vets on the island of Oahu? I have been to many places and I don't know what else to do.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, every day it scares me that it might be his last and I want to do as much as I can to help him, but I don't know what to do. Thank you.
