alicebear1908
Junior Guinea Pig
On the 28th of July, Muffin became disinterested in eating or leaving the fleece hidey. I started critical care and got her a vet appointment for the following day. At that point I didn't know what was wrong, but she had a bit of crust around her eyes, so I suspected URI.
She went to the vet, who upon examination claimed there was nothing visibly wrong with her, and said she was just "stressed", as the cage was moved to a new room a few days before. They gave her some subq fluids, and sent her home with instructions to keep feeding her critical care and give her 0.6 mL of Metacam every 24 hours.
She did not improve over the following days, and my original suspicion of a URI ended up being correct. She slowly got weaker and developed a terrible wheeze. She was put on 0.5 mL of sulfatrim twice a day, and that cleared up the wheezing after a few days, but her appetite and energy still didn't improve. After a two-week course of that finished with no improvements, the vet wanted her on 0.25 mL of Baytril.
That's where we are now. Two days on the Baytril and she's taken a turn for the worse. She's barely pooping, and I'm struggling to get any critical care in her because it seems to just build up in her mouth and fall out. While I was previously managing 10-15 mL every two hours, about six times a day, I've barely managed to get even 20 mL in six hours today. I just fought for an hour to get five syringes in her, and most of it kept coming out in globs. Before she took ten syringes quite easily in under an hour with no mess, but now if I just leave her alone to chew she stops after a few minutes and the food slowly builds up. She's definitely chewing and swallowing, but it's so slow that I have no idea how I'm supposed to get an adequate amount of food in her within 24 hours, without fighting her literally every second of the day. She spills so much that I honestly have no idea how much of that 20 mL actually got in her.
She's off the Baytril now, but I know without enough food moving through her gut she won't be able to recover from what I'm assuming is bad GI stasis. She's going to the vet tomorrow for fluids, but he doesn't even want to do that because she's very thin and he thinks it will stress her out too much. But I don't know how else to keep her moving. She's already on 0.2 mL of Metoclopramide and a probiotic, as the vet found some gas in an x-ray taken during her second appointment. She's spent nearly a month now just laying in her hidey and being completely handfed, so I'm considering putting her to sleep... but I keep seeing stories of stubborn URIs that take several courses of antibiotics to cure, so I really want to try to get her through this stasis and then try a different antibiotic if there's any infection still lingering... I don't know
The TLDR: Can't get enough food in piggie after bad reaction to Baytril, no idea how I'm supposed to as it's a massive fight to get in even 5 mL in an hour, and most of it seems to fall out of her mouth. Any advice on how to move forward is appreciated.
If it's important to anything, she weighs around 730 grams. Her healthy weight was 900... She lost about 100 within a week before she was discovered sick (I weigh weekly), and kept dropping as I struggled with critical care amounts quite a bit at first before finally landing on a schedule that seemed to keep her steadily on 730-750.
She went to the vet, who upon examination claimed there was nothing visibly wrong with her, and said she was just "stressed", as the cage was moved to a new room a few days before. They gave her some subq fluids, and sent her home with instructions to keep feeding her critical care and give her 0.6 mL of Metacam every 24 hours.
She did not improve over the following days, and my original suspicion of a URI ended up being correct. She slowly got weaker and developed a terrible wheeze. She was put on 0.5 mL of sulfatrim twice a day, and that cleared up the wheezing after a few days, but her appetite and energy still didn't improve. After a two-week course of that finished with no improvements, the vet wanted her on 0.25 mL of Baytril.
That's where we are now. Two days on the Baytril and she's taken a turn for the worse. She's barely pooping, and I'm struggling to get any critical care in her because it seems to just build up in her mouth and fall out. While I was previously managing 10-15 mL every two hours, about six times a day, I've barely managed to get even 20 mL in six hours today. I just fought for an hour to get five syringes in her, and most of it kept coming out in globs. Before she took ten syringes quite easily in under an hour with no mess, but now if I just leave her alone to chew she stops after a few minutes and the food slowly builds up. She's definitely chewing and swallowing, but it's so slow that I have no idea how I'm supposed to get an adequate amount of food in her within 24 hours, without fighting her literally every second of the day. She spills so much that I honestly have no idea how much of that 20 mL actually got in her.
She's off the Baytril now, but I know without enough food moving through her gut she won't be able to recover from what I'm assuming is bad GI stasis. She's going to the vet tomorrow for fluids, but he doesn't even want to do that because she's very thin and he thinks it will stress her out too much. But I don't know how else to keep her moving. She's already on 0.2 mL of Metoclopramide and a probiotic, as the vet found some gas in an x-ray taken during her second appointment. She's spent nearly a month now just laying in her hidey and being completely handfed, so I'm considering putting her to sleep... but I keep seeing stories of stubborn URIs that take several courses of antibiotics to cure, so I really want to try to get her through this stasis and then try a different antibiotic if there's any infection still lingering... I don't know
The TLDR: Can't get enough food in piggie after bad reaction to Baytril, no idea how I'm supposed to as it's a massive fight to get in even 5 mL in an hour, and most of it seems to fall out of her mouth. Any advice on how to move forward is appreciated.
If it's important to anything, she weighs around 730 grams. Her healthy weight was 900... She lost about 100 within a week before she was discovered sick (I weigh weekly), and kept dropping as I struggled with critical care amounts quite a bit at first before finally landing on a schedule that seemed to keep her steadily on 730-750.
, love