Dilly's Piggies
Teenage Guinea Pig
This is going to be an incredibly long post, a lot has happened and I want to tell you all the entire story, apologies for this!
My poor sweet girl Lottie is 5 years old and has been through an extremely hard time over the past week. It started really suddenly on Wednesday when I noticed she hadn't moved from her spot all day, she didn't want her veggies either but still ate hay, she was lethargic and depressed with inflamed, watery eyes, seemed uncomfortable in her back end, she also wasn't urinating or pooping much, she also dropped 150g in weight. My immediate suspicions were a dental or bladder issue.
I made her a vet appointment for Thursday, they checked her over but couldn't find any obvious cause for her symptoms, her teeth were a little long but not enough to cause issues, her temperature was normal, so it was a mystery. They booked Lottie in for Monday to have xrays, ultrasound and bloods taken. They prescribed her cat Loxicom (0.17ml once per day), Cisapride (0.09ml twice per day) and injected fluids, she weighed 860g and I began syringe feeding.
The next day Lottie actually got much worse rather than better, she became quite floppy and stopped eating all together, I honestly thought I was going to lose her that day as she really didn't look good. I got her an emergency appointment that day where they admitted her and did all of her scans early, she was put under GA for these as they wanted multiple views for a thorough investigation.
Besides being mildly bloated, the only significant problem they found was that Lottie has severe arthritis in both back legs, the stifle joints to be exact. The vet is confident this is what's causing her to be so poorly, they think she's having an acute flare up and the pain is too overwhelming.
They sent Lottie home that night with 3 doses of Vetergesic (0.09ml applied to the gums 8 hours apart) and Emeprid (0.45ml twice per day), injected more fluids and told me to continue her Loxicom and Cisapride too. Lottie didn't look great when I picked her up but we put it down to the pain, GA and opiate painkillers making her drowsy, her vitals were all good.
Lottie had a pretty rough recovery, for 2 days she was completely out of it and unresponsive, she couldn't even lift her head up, let alone eat, syringe feeding was a real challenge as she kept falling asleep during feeds so most of it came back out, she wouldn't take water either. She just laid sleeping in the same position, stretched out with her legs all the way out behind her. It wasn't until Sunday night that I started to see a little improvement, she was more alert and interested in her surroundings, holding her head up to look around, began grooming herself again, her eyes weren't inflamed or watery anymore, she showed interest in and ate small amounts of normal food, attempted to move a little, showed sass and fought me with syringe feed but overall she was still tired and slept mostly.
On Monday Lottie went back to the vet for her post op check, she has lost another 20g however considering the situation and her solely relying on syringe feed, the vet said it's not awful, I thought she lost way more than that. Thankfully Lottie isn't dehydrated this time, which hopefully means I'm doing alright with syringe feeding. Lottie was still lethargic, wasn't eating and couldn't move much, she's also developing pressure sores on her back legs from laying with her feet out, despite being bedded on soft thick fleece.
The vet gave Lottie a new medication to try, now she has gabapentin (0.04ml every 8 hours) and her Loxicom dose has doubled to 0.17ml twice per day. Lottie also got laser treatment on her back legs to see if it helps. The vet warned me that if she is no better by Wednesday, we should have her put to sleep as her quality of life is in question, she's not eating and we're struggling to manage her pain.
Lottie improved significantly after this appointment, it's almost like she heard what the vet said. Immediately after getting home she started standing correctly on her back legs, I hadn't even got her out of the carrier yet and she was constantly moving and turning around in there with her legs underneath her for the first time in a week. She did get tired quickly though and her legs went back out behind her, but to see her use them correctly for the first time gave me so much hope, maybe it's coincidence but I think the laser treatment worked for her. She also began eating too and gobbled everything I offered her with great enthusiasm, something I hadn't seen since before she got poorly.
It's now Tuesday and mentally Lottie is back to the way she used to be, her attitude, sass, personality, appetite and energy are all back. She has continued to eat everything in sight, she now wheeks again for veggies like she used to, she's always fidgeting and interested in everything going on, she's not depressed or lethargic anymore at all, she wants to be on the go and drinks from the water bottle herself again too.
I am very happy with her mentally and appetite wise, but unfortunately she's still not there physically. Her back legs are still stuck out behind her, but she does use them much more now, her feet at least are in the correct position and she has mastered the art of pushing with her back feet to 'crawl' around whereas before she would pull with her front end and drag the back, so she does have some strength and movement there, the issue is getting her legs underneath and standing correctly.
Another contributing factor is muscle loss, Lottie has essentially zero muscle from her hips down, the left leg is worse than the right. I am doing lots of gentle physio and water therapy with her to try and build muscle and keep her legs flexible but it's hard. Her legs are very flexible going backwards, but are very stiff going forwards, when I try to move her leg straight underneath her in a normal standing position there's a lot of resistance, I think this is why she is constantly laid with her legs out behind her. Laying like this is putting pressure on her stifles even more though and causing pressure points/sores so I'm not sure what to do for this. Pain wise she does seem to be much better, I feel like the main issues right now are stiffness and weakness rather than pain, even though I'm sure she is still feeling some, but not at the level it was.
I've also been giving her some assisted exercise which is her new favourite activity atm, she gets to explore and run around, but I hold and support her back end. She still moves her legs as if she's doing it herself so I think it helps build muscle without her having to deal with the weight. It's actually hard work for me to keep up with her lol, she gets so excited, wheeks, popcorns and everything. She loves this so much and seems to really appreciate my help, she has so much energy afterwards, it seems good for her mental health. I almost feel like she'd do well with a little piggie wheelchair...
Even though she is showing good improvement, the concern is that she may never be able to walk normally again or have a good quality of life. It's insane to me that she literally went from perfectly fine one day, to basically paralysed the next, I had no idea arthritis could be this severe so suddenly and it's breaking my heart seeing her like this. I don't want to give up on her so soon, she seems to want to live and try despite everything, I feel that she deserves a chance and at least a little more time.
The vet did mention physio therapy, aqua therapy, Epsom salt baths and laser treatment as options, I want to give these things a try at least. Lottie is back at the vet today and I'm worried they will advise euthanasia since she still can't walk, but at the same time I feel like we haven't done everything we could. I did ask about tramadol as I see many arthritic piggies doing well on that, but as Vetergesic made her so drowsy and killed her appetite, we worry it will have the same effect, however Lottie was on that while recovering from GA too, so I wonder if she'd do better on it now she's back to normal...
Does anyone have any advice on what we could do to give Lottie the best chance? I know the arthritis will never get better, but since she could walk perfectly normally right up to this flare up I keep hoping she'll be able to again. I feel wrong putting her to sleep so soon when she's only just started making progress and we haven't done everything we could to give her a fair chance or given much time, but I also don't want her to suffer or have a bad quality of life if she's never able to walk again. If this was your piggie, what would you do? Any advice, suggestions or support is greatly appreciated. I'm not sure what's best, I love her so much.
Here's a picture of how she is laying all the time:
Here's a video of her tonight, as you can see she gets around by kinda crawling rather than walking, but she tries. She was very excited for veggies, you can hear her talking, bless her heart. ❤ (I hope the link works?) Lottie
My poor sweet girl Lottie is 5 years old and has been through an extremely hard time over the past week. It started really suddenly on Wednesday when I noticed she hadn't moved from her spot all day, she didn't want her veggies either but still ate hay, she was lethargic and depressed with inflamed, watery eyes, seemed uncomfortable in her back end, she also wasn't urinating or pooping much, she also dropped 150g in weight. My immediate suspicions were a dental or bladder issue.
I made her a vet appointment for Thursday, they checked her over but couldn't find any obvious cause for her symptoms, her teeth were a little long but not enough to cause issues, her temperature was normal, so it was a mystery. They booked Lottie in for Monday to have xrays, ultrasound and bloods taken. They prescribed her cat Loxicom (0.17ml once per day), Cisapride (0.09ml twice per day) and injected fluids, she weighed 860g and I began syringe feeding.
The next day Lottie actually got much worse rather than better, she became quite floppy and stopped eating all together, I honestly thought I was going to lose her that day as she really didn't look good. I got her an emergency appointment that day where they admitted her and did all of her scans early, she was put under GA for these as they wanted multiple views for a thorough investigation.
Besides being mildly bloated, the only significant problem they found was that Lottie has severe arthritis in both back legs, the stifle joints to be exact. The vet is confident this is what's causing her to be so poorly, they think she's having an acute flare up and the pain is too overwhelming.
They sent Lottie home that night with 3 doses of Vetergesic (0.09ml applied to the gums 8 hours apart) and Emeprid (0.45ml twice per day), injected more fluids and told me to continue her Loxicom and Cisapride too. Lottie didn't look great when I picked her up but we put it down to the pain, GA and opiate painkillers making her drowsy, her vitals were all good.
Lottie had a pretty rough recovery, for 2 days she was completely out of it and unresponsive, she couldn't even lift her head up, let alone eat, syringe feeding was a real challenge as she kept falling asleep during feeds so most of it came back out, she wouldn't take water either. She just laid sleeping in the same position, stretched out with her legs all the way out behind her. It wasn't until Sunday night that I started to see a little improvement, she was more alert and interested in her surroundings, holding her head up to look around, began grooming herself again, her eyes weren't inflamed or watery anymore, she showed interest in and ate small amounts of normal food, attempted to move a little, showed sass and fought me with syringe feed but overall she was still tired and slept mostly.
On Monday Lottie went back to the vet for her post op check, she has lost another 20g however considering the situation and her solely relying on syringe feed, the vet said it's not awful, I thought she lost way more than that. Thankfully Lottie isn't dehydrated this time, which hopefully means I'm doing alright with syringe feeding. Lottie was still lethargic, wasn't eating and couldn't move much, she's also developing pressure sores on her back legs from laying with her feet out, despite being bedded on soft thick fleece.
The vet gave Lottie a new medication to try, now she has gabapentin (0.04ml every 8 hours) and her Loxicom dose has doubled to 0.17ml twice per day. Lottie also got laser treatment on her back legs to see if it helps. The vet warned me that if she is no better by Wednesday, we should have her put to sleep as her quality of life is in question, she's not eating and we're struggling to manage her pain.
Lottie improved significantly after this appointment, it's almost like she heard what the vet said. Immediately after getting home she started standing correctly on her back legs, I hadn't even got her out of the carrier yet and she was constantly moving and turning around in there with her legs underneath her for the first time in a week. She did get tired quickly though and her legs went back out behind her, but to see her use them correctly for the first time gave me so much hope, maybe it's coincidence but I think the laser treatment worked for her. She also began eating too and gobbled everything I offered her with great enthusiasm, something I hadn't seen since before she got poorly.
It's now Tuesday and mentally Lottie is back to the way she used to be, her attitude, sass, personality, appetite and energy are all back. She has continued to eat everything in sight, she now wheeks again for veggies like she used to, she's always fidgeting and interested in everything going on, she's not depressed or lethargic anymore at all, she wants to be on the go and drinks from the water bottle herself again too.
I am very happy with her mentally and appetite wise, but unfortunately she's still not there physically. Her back legs are still stuck out behind her, but she does use them much more now, her feet at least are in the correct position and she has mastered the art of pushing with her back feet to 'crawl' around whereas before she would pull with her front end and drag the back, so she does have some strength and movement there, the issue is getting her legs underneath and standing correctly.
Another contributing factor is muscle loss, Lottie has essentially zero muscle from her hips down, the left leg is worse than the right. I am doing lots of gentle physio and water therapy with her to try and build muscle and keep her legs flexible but it's hard. Her legs are very flexible going backwards, but are very stiff going forwards, when I try to move her leg straight underneath her in a normal standing position there's a lot of resistance, I think this is why she is constantly laid with her legs out behind her. Laying like this is putting pressure on her stifles even more though and causing pressure points/sores so I'm not sure what to do for this. Pain wise she does seem to be much better, I feel like the main issues right now are stiffness and weakness rather than pain, even though I'm sure she is still feeling some, but not at the level it was.
I've also been giving her some assisted exercise which is her new favourite activity atm, she gets to explore and run around, but I hold and support her back end. She still moves her legs as if she's doing it herself so I think it helps build muscle without her having to deal with the weight. It's actually hard work for me to keep up with her lol, she gets so excited, wheeks, popcorns and everything. She loves this so much and seems to really appreciate my help, she has so much energy afterwards, it seems good for her mental health. I almost feel like she'd do well with a little piggie wheelchair...
Even though she is showing good improvement, the concern is that she may never be able to walk normally again or have a good quality of life. It's insane to me that she literally went from perfectly fine one day, to basically paralysed the next, I had no idea arthritis could be this severe so suddenly and it's breaking my heart seeing her like this. I don't want to give up on her so soon, she seems to want to live and try despite everything, I feel that she deserves a chance and at least a little more time.
The vet did mention physio therapy, aqua therapy, Epsom salt baths and laser treatment as options, I want to give these things a try at least. Lottie is back at the vet today and I'm worried they will advise euthanasia since she still can't walk, but at the same time I feel like we haven't done everything we could. I did ask about tramadol as I see many arthritic piggies doing well on that, but as Vetergesic made her so drowsy and killed her appetite, we worry it will have the same effect, however Lottie was on that while recovering from GA too, so I wonder if she'd do better on it now she's back to normal...
Does anyone have any advice on what we could do to give Lottie the best chance? I know the arthritis will never get better, but since she could walk perfectly normally right up to this flare up I keep hoping she'll be able to again. I feel wrong putting her to sleep so soon when she's only just started making progress and we haven't done everything we could to give her a fair chance or given much time, but I also don't want her to suffer or have a bad quality of life if she's never able to walk again. If this was your piggie, what would you do? Any advice, suggestions or support is greatly appreciated. I'm not sure what's best, I love her so much.
Here's a picture of how she is laying all the time:
Here's a video of her tonight, as you can see she gets around by kinda crawling rather than walking, but she tries. She was very excited for veggies, you can hear her talking, bless her heart. ❤ (I hope the link works?) Lottie
❤
thank you ❤