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When To Stop

Pig

Pig

Junior Guinea Pig
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Sep 27, 2015
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Hello all

I need some advice re one of my piggies. 2 weeks ago his brother passed away after a quick decline following dental surgery (suspected gutstatis cause of death). I then rushed his brother who was also going downhill to a specialist (over an hour away) and he was hospitalized for a few days. Turns out he has an ear infection which makes it very painful for him to eat and therefor needs to be syrince fed. He is on cysapride, tramodole and an antibiotic (not baytril), it has been 1.5 weeks and he still cannot eat alone. He makes a lot clicking noises with his teeth. Occasionally he will eat a bit of coriander and tried have a blueberry however mainly we just have to syringe feed him with oxbow twice a day. His last vet visit was 600 pounds not including the car hire to get him there etc. I am at wits end I dont know what to do. He sometimes squeaks when I open the fridge and greets me in the morning but otherwise is v still and looks at corners. My mother has advised it may be time to let him go but I dont want to do wrong by him if there is hope but I cant spend much more money :( any advice is appreciated xx
 
HI @Pig , didn't want to read and run. What a difficult situation for you. I'm not sure of the answer unfortunately. None of us have unlimited funds no matter how much we love our animals, and you have spent a significant amount already with no clear progress. Do you think your piggy has a good quality of life at the moment? I am sure someone with more experience of the medical side of things will come along in a moment and provide some advice on the best way forward :)
 
Hi @Pig, sorry to hear about your problems. Your situation actually sounds very similar to my current situation (see my post '
Eating Problems Following Tooth Infection - Running Out Of Ideas...' from yesterday). Our piggy had a tooth abscess and an incisor removed. But he hasn't been eating by himself for 3 weeks now, except for very occasionally managing to tear some small pieces of leaf. It's upsetting because he still has an interest in food but just can't seem to eat it. His weight is dropping and sometimes he seems in pain (but otherwise seems quite chirpy).
One suggestion for you might be to consider a vetergesic pain killer in addition to metacam; our piggy is currently on 0.10ml every 6 hours and it seems to help a lot with the pain management. It might buy you some time to give the antibiotics a chance of working. (And the vetergesic is actually quite cheap, cheaper than metacam).
 
Sending you hugs and my very best wishes, this is a horrible situation to be in. I'm not qualified to help with the medical side of things but hopefully help will be along soon. X
 
Sorry to hear your having a bad time.

These kind of decisions and situations are really very hard. How old if your little one?

I think there are many things you need to have a good think about. Firstly take into account your piggies age and current state of health. Ear infections are painful (the clicking teeth may actually be a sign of pain). So make sure he's on a good amount of pain relief, tramadol is good but may not be working, so consider some gabapentin potentially? And also ensure he's on metacam (meloxicam). Ensuring he is painfree is the first and foremost in these cases. You also need to have a good long chat with your vet about prognosis. If they believe there is a chance your little one could rally and feel better then it may be worth persisting, but if they think at this stage he may never eat for himself then it may be kinder to say goodbye. Sadly also finances do play a role in some of these decisions, and do not feel bad about it. None of us as made of money and even with a small amount of staff discount in the veterinary industry I struggle to pay my piggies vet bills constantly.

Another good way to look at this is to consider your piggies five freedoms to assess his quality of life.

1- free from pain - if he's on adequate pain relief
2 - free from hunger and thirst - if you are feeding him then this should be ok
3 - freedom from discomfort by providing correct environment - ensure he is housed warm and comfortably
4 - freedoms from fear or distress - trying to ensure he is able to be as stress free as possible, vet visits and medications are stressful but in the long run worth it if they recover
5 - freedom to express normal behaviour - is he able to do normal guinea pig things despite not eating for himself?

Sadly I tend to find piggies get very unwell when they do and sometimes it is kinder to call it a day. Other times I persist if I believe there is a chance. I would say personally I have euthanised around 50% of my lost ones and 50% have passed either before i could put to sleep or suddenly.

It's a very hard decision to be making. I hope the above helps a little to help you choose what you honk is best.
 
Thank you all for your replies and kind words. I appreciate the advice greatly. I called the vet who said they cannot be on tramadol and metacam at the same time as both are painkillers. Is this the case? I really don't know what to do. Also our usual pet care service can't look after him when we are away this weekend due to the feeding and meds. We took him away with us for Easter as we stayed with family however sadly this weekend we won't be able to. If anyone can recommend anything in South London that cares for pigs and has experience I would appreciate. I jist don't want to give up hope :(
 
Metacam and tramadol can be given at the same time, they are different types of pain relief one a non steroidal anti inflammatory (metacam) the other more opioid based (tramadol), they can safely be used together with no ill effects.

I'm north of London and would offer to look after your little one but may be away this weekend unfortunately. I don't know anyone except crumpets small animal boarding in the area. Or potentially Sarah at hazelcroft guinea pig rescue out on St Albans?
 
Thank you Abi. He is on 0.1 of tramadol twice a day. How much metacam would you advise? Also thank you so much for your offer. I contacted the airbnb owber and have been granted pernission to bring him :)
 
Can’t add to the advice given but wanted to add support for you in a difficult situation.
 
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Thank you so much x
 
I am so pleased you are able to take your piggy away with you. I hope you will be able to enjoy your break.
 
Nothing to add, but just wanted to say how sorry I am for your difficult situation. You obviously want to do the right thing by your piggy, and I would say follow your gut instincts.
 
Hi, there are a few of us in similar boats on here at the moment. My boy is 5 and hasn't been able to eat properly/himself for about 3 weeks now. We are in a similar position, we have probably spent at least £1000 on him so far in vets bills, medication, feed and transport to and from vets (neither of us drive so we have to get taxis everywhere and the specialist vets that we now take him to is £15 each way in a taxi). In fact it might actually be more than that but I can't bring myself to sit down and work it out! I don't even earn a living wage and that is all our income for me, my partner, and our two pigs, and about half my take-home pay goes on rent each month, so we are very financially stressed right now.

Your vet is wrong about the meloxicam and tramadol. My vet was going to put our boy on tramadol with the meloxicam but he didn't have any in stock at the time. He is now on vetergesic + meloxicam and oh my God the vetergesic is making a huge difference. He is eating much better now and is much perkier and more active. It's not a long-term solution I know but for the meantime while we are still investigating whether we can treat his issues successfully or not, it means he is not in pain and has a better quality of life at least, so I would definitely recommend discussing vetergesic with the vet.

I think it's really hard to know what to do and you just need to keep an ongoing dialogue with the vet really. We take most our guidance from them as we are not experts and these are our first guinea pigs too. However our normal vet was off last week and a different one stood in for him, she was still really good but did raise the possibility of putting him to sleep now, we are still awaiting lab results from his abcess so we decided that it is too early to be calling it quits as there is still a reasonable chance of recovering him enough for a good quality of life and as we have already spent so much money investigating it won't kill us to continue for the meantime as costs will lower over time - or they will be gone entirely if we end up putting to sleep. But I appreciate not everyone can do that.
 
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