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URI - Giving two antibiotics at once?

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mzhuk

Hi everyone. My guinea pig Coppy came down with a case of URI about a week ago. By the point that we had caught that she had labored breathing (as she sometimes has slightly labored breathing by herself) she had already stopping eating during the night. Over the past week we have been hand feeding her along with giving her 0.3ml baytril and metoclopramide for the first five days and have gotten her to eat by herself and improve. What concerns me now is that it seems that over the past day or two she has gotten worse, it seems like her wheezing has come back or increased and her nose is more crusted than we have ever seen. My regular vet who we saw yesterday will not be in until friday, but the other vet on duty has said we can just give her both baytril and tms (bactrim I believe) at the same time and said her dosage is .45ml tms along side the baytril. I have never heard of a vet saying that it is okay to use two antibiotics at once and am worried about how it would affect her system.

Extra info: during the time that coppy has been sick one of our very young guinea pigs also came down with uri and has been on tms. She has shown an improvement in only two days on tms while it was only on the begging of the fourth day that coppy showed signs of improvement (maybe due to her case being more sever).

Thank you very much for any information that you can give me.
 
I cannot say that I would use two antibiotics at the same time.

Could you have a chat with your vet about zithromax (azithromycin)?

It belongs to a family of antibiotics which are generally considered to be dangerous for rodents, however this special one does help in extreme cases of URI and really nasty abscesses in rabbits and guinea pigs. It is more in the way of a last ditch AB and should only be given together with lots of probiotics, as it's hard on the system and will affect the appetite. But it works where other ABs have failed.

I had it prescribed to me when four rounds of baytril failed with my Llewelyn this spring. Thankfully, he reacted to septrin, even though it took three weeks to clear.
Dosis: 1ml of zithromax suspension (200mg/5ml) once daily for 5 days, then every other day.
 
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Welcome to the forum, sorry to hear Coppy has a respiratory problem. How old is she?

You mention she has had breathing issues in the past on her own, could you expand on that a little bit? When does she seem to struggle with that? What bedding is she on?

In answer to your specific question, I have heard of guinea pigs being on two antibiotics at the same time, a couple of cases were Baytril + Doxycycline, but I'm not sure I have heard of Baytril + Bactrim being given together.

In any case, whether you dose with both ABs or just one, I would recommend giving a probiotic around 1-2 hours after you've dosed her with her meds. I see you are in the US, in which case there is a good one called Bene-bac for Mammals. It is a gel type probiotic, I find those ones easiest to administer, just a dab on the finger and wiped into piggies mouth.
 
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