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Specialist Sprain/limp - No Recovery

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Hi everyone, please can someone help me.

Pig is slowly gaining weight which is great, but still not walking. His appetite is ok, loves his fresh food. Giving his mushed up pellets and vit c, water and hay and veggies.

I've started stretching out his legs and moving them in the hope that a form of physiotherapy will help? Haven't seen any improvement.

He had a wee baldie bit on his leg which I thought was just from lying on his side all the time but when I checked last night he has mites (well I think so). So will have him back to the vet tonight cuz he must be sore and uncomfortable.

I just really don't know what to do. There's no end in sight and I can't maintain the level of care forever. The worst feeling is that he might be in real pain and I'm just dragging it out because I don't want to put him down... If there's any hope for him I can get him through this but his life at the minute is just lying around on his own, I can't keep pushing him on if his wee life is always gonna be this way, it's not fair. The vets really are clueless and I feel if I had a cat or dog I would be getting a different level of care and reassurance but at the minute it feels like to them it's "just" a guinea pig. He's still my wee furbaby and I want his life to be pain free and happy and not stuck on his own not doing anything.

Sigh.

Sorry this is an incoherent mess but I'm stressed out and worried.
 
Ok, so an update for anyone following this.

Pig is still in the land of the living. I have been syringe feeding him for weeks and now finally getting him back into pellets - weight fairly stable - but he refuses to use his water bottle so have to keep giving him water via syringe because I freak out thinking he'll be dehydrated. I realise I can't keep this up forever but will do for now. Poops and peepees are normal.

Positive news - he has started hobbling about. Just out of nowhere he set off, only does very short bursts. This he been over the last couple of weeks. So, I've been trying to get him to move as much as possible but don't know if I've pushed him too much, because this last day or so he seems to be losing stability in his front legs now too. He seems to find it really hard to get himself to stand up or to roll himself over. He didn't have that before.

Pig had been on loxicom for weeks and I gradually weaned him off it. He hasn't had any for several days but I think he is worse for it so gave him a wee drop tonight. I'm not sure if this is why he seems to have deteriorated, since he's been off that?

I noticed when petting him he was doing wee sore squeaks when I pressed his tummy. No other symptoms though, well apart from not walking like normal. He does hobble about but drags the one back leg behind him. I also had him on osteocare for a few weeks but I'm stopping that now as I'm worried it's too much calcium, but I'm not sure if the osteocare was what helped him back to walking in the first place.

The fur thing I mentioned before, seems to be fixed, took him to the vet again and he got mite treatment plus a skin treatment which seems to have worked.

A lot of different things there, any ideas to help me help him? I'm kinda done with the vet, really haven't offered me much guidance and the vet locator on here doesn't have any vets in northern Ireland or Ireland.

Any help would be much appreciated. still a long way to go for him to get him back to his piggy self.
 
Not a specialist, but two suggestions - vitamins, C/B/D, etc. And probiotics - you didn't mention anything about them, but they're good for recovery from antibiotics. Water with diluted poop from a healthy pig will do in a pinch. Maybe his gut flora can't quite process the food after being hit with the antibacterial medicals (he did take them bady, I gather).

Good luck!
 
What a long illness you and your piggie have had to cope with :(. Sorry if I have missed it in earlier posts but was arthritis ruled in or out when you saw the specialist vet and had exam and xray? Or was the diagnosis a bad sprain only? The fact he has started walking a bit is a good sign but not good that he is still dragging one leg and you think the front legs are unstable now.
I know you are fed up with your vet but you obviously still have some meds - did the vet say to stop the loxicom or did you decide that?
@Abi_nurse
 
GreenCavy said:
Not a specialist, but two suggestions - vitamins, C/B/D, etc. And probiotics - you didn't mention anything about them, but they're good for recovery from antibiotics. Water with diluted poop from a healthy pig will do in a pinch. Maybe his gut flora can't quite process the food after being hit with the antibacterial medicals (he did take them bady, I gather).

Good luck!
Click to expand...

Thank you for your response.

I didn't think of that, the original antibiotics he was on was about 2 months ago... The squeaking seemed to have stopped and noticed again recently... It could have been on going the whole time I guess which would be awful. Another member has pointed me in the direction of probiotics so I will pick some up tomorrow. He is on baytril now for uti.

I'm actually appalled the vet didn't tell me about this. So that's the vet who prescribed the antibiotics for the suspected spine infection and the other vet who has given me baytril for uti. I mean... I feel like I can't win. I go to a trained vet and yet still need to spend hours online researching and I find out so much stuff the vet doesn't seem to either know or care?! And I'm just a normal person who barely passed GCSE science! Eurgh!

Sorry this has turned into a rant - thank you for your suggestions and support :)
 
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lauraboara said:
What a long illness you and your piggie have had to cope with :(. Sorry if I have missed it in earlier posts but was arthritis ruled in or out when you saw the specialist vet and had exam and xray? Or was the diagnosis a bad sprain only? The fact he has started walking a bit is a good sign but not good that he is still dragging one leg and you think the front legs are unstable now.
I know you are fed up with your vet but you obviously still have some meds - did the vet say to stop the loxicom or did you decide that?
@Abi_nurse
Click to expand...

Diagnosis was nothing! He said he couldn't see anything wrong but gave antibiotics on the chance there was an abscess on his spine that was too tiny to be picked up in be xray. The vet said there was no harm in giving the antibiotics... Except of course poor Pig lost so much weight I could feel his rib cage which was horrifying!

So I have been to a new vet and posted more on link that's above.

But yea, no arthritis on original xray. Most recent diagnosis is that it is in fact arthritis (not walking) and a UTI (sore tum) and to manage arthritis with loxicom and UTI with baytril. That was only on Thursday so will see how that goes. But even yesterday he was a bit perkier and much noisier than be has been. Good signs! Not sure if it's the loxicom giving him relief or the UTI settling.

The loxicom I weaned him off it originally as vet said to gradually cut down and stop it - I cut it off completely when he started hobbling about. But even before that he was only getting the tiniest wee drop of it.

As you know pigs are good at hiding pain so looking back I don't think it was the right thing to do.

Sigh.

Have any of you had similar vet experiences? If I do ever go back I think I'm going to Google everything he says while I'm standing in front of him!

"oh really, you said antibiotics won't have any negative effects, it says here they can cause severe loss of appetite and drastic weight loss... Can you tell me some more about that?!".
 
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