Hello,
I was hoping for a big of advice. Out 5ish year old piggie has been quite poorly for a couple of months now with URIs. He's had a swab test, blood test, thyroid test and ultrasound. The ultrasound showed fluid around his heart and he's being treated for heart disease.
Meanwhile he's still struggling with his breathing. He was prescribed Zithromax as a last ditch attempt on Sunday. Unfortunately the vets weren't able to order it and didn't let us know until I rang them to check on the status of it on Tuesday. The vet then didn't ring back until late Tuesday to get him a prescription written for it, eventually managed to get it from boots on the Wednesday evening after they put it through as an urgent delivery.
He's been on it since Wednesday evening and so far no improvement. As of today he's stopped eating pellets and stopped drinking (unless he's sneaking if in whenever I pop out of the room). Still having an occasional nibble of hay and he was interested in some veggies at least.
We are wondering therefore if we should syringe feed at this point due to the lack of pellets and water. His vet isn't in until Sunday and whenever we've rang before, the other vets have been incredibly reluctant to get involved with it not being their case, hence posting here.
He's also on vetcal progel twice a day (so he's getting some nutrition from that still) metacam twice a day (both of these for 4 weeks this time) in addition to the heart disease medicine and now the zithromax.
We're aware that it's not looking good for him, especially with the delay with the vets not ordering the medicine in and the extra three days of deteriorating that that caused, but hoping to give him the best shot possible at having enough time for the Zithromax to take effect.
Can anyone direct me towards any resources on how to syringe feed/how much/how often etc?
Thanks in advance
I was hoping for a big of advice. Out 5ish year old piggie has been quite poorly for a couple of months now with URIs. He's had a swab test, blood test, thyroid test and ultrasound. The ultrasound showed fluid around his heart and he's being treated for heart disease.
Meanwhile he's still struggling with his breathing. He was prescribed Zithromax as a last ditch attempt on Sunday. Unfortunately the vets weren't able to order it and didn't let us know until I rang them to check on the status of it on Tuesday. The vet then didn't ring back until late Tuesday to get him a prescription written for it, eventually managed to get it from boots on the Wednesday evening after they put it through as an urgent delivery.
He's been on it since Wednesday evening and so far no improvement. As of today he's stopped eating pellets and stopped drinking (unless he's sneaking if in whenever I pop out of the room). Still having an occasional nibble of hay and he was interested in some veggies at least.
We are wondering therefore if we should syringe feed at this point due to the lack of pellets and water. His vet isn't in until Sunday and whenever we've rang before, the other vets have been incredibly reluctant to get involved with it not being their case, hence posting here.
He's also on vetcal progel twice a day (so he's getting some nutrition from that still) metacam twice a day (both of these for 4 weeks this time) in addition to the heart disease medicine and now the zithromax.
We're aware that it's not looking good for him, especially with the delay with the vets not ordering the medicine in and the extra three days of deteriorating that that caused, but hoping to give him the best shot possible at having enough time for the Zithromax to take effect.
Can anyone direct me towards any resources on how to syringe feed/how much/how often etc?
Thanks in advance