Big mistake, need advice asap

[Wetherill]

I made a big mistake.

I feel like a fool and I am beside myself. I have had guinea pigs for 5 years straight and have always taken great pride in the care I take of my boys. My baby Marcel (9mo) has struggled with respiratory problems since I got him. He has been through around five different rounds of antibiotics.
He was recently prescribed pills. I have been crushing them up in grapes to give him, but as of last night, he stopped falling for my tricks. I was extremely exhausted tonight (around 1h ago) and sat him in my lap and gave him a particularly large syringe of the pill crushed in water. It was a lot of water. I did not do it all at once, obviously, but since he was clearly stressed, I was too busy trying to talk him through it and get it over with quickly so he would not struggle for too long. He is extremely familiar with syringes as he has seen a lot of prescriptions.

When I put him back in his home, he immediately started coughing up a storm. I stopped in my tracks and immediately burst out crying. I feel so stupid. My sweet angel, Wesley, passed in 2020 from aspiration pneumonia and I still wonder if it was my fault. Did I just give marcel aspiration pneumonia? He was coughing pretty frequently once he took the water but now he has stopped. He is always slightly sniffly. I am so terrified that if I go to bed, I will wake up and it will be too late. I have college classes early in the morning and I’m unsure if I can bring him to the emergency vet, as my only local one rounds out to about $600 per visit, and takes a minimum of 4-5 hours for a piggy. I am willing to do it, but am I overthinking it? It was a lot of water, but he spat most of it out. Didn’t make a peep when I gave it to him like he was choking or anything, but I am so panicked from the coughing nonetheless. I will never forgive myself if something goes wrong. He’s happily eating now, no signs of distress, but I’m staying up with him to keep an eye out… will he be ok?

 

[Claire W]

If he has stopped coughing now and is acting normal, he should be ok but please do have him seen if he starts coughing again and begins to wheeze / crackle

Try not to feel bad, these things happen x

 

[weepweeps]

Is your piggy ok now? Don’t blame yourself these thing happen. Hope he's ok. Keep an eye on him and take him to the vets if you are worried.

 

[Brooke03]

I’ve done something similar on accident as well and asked about it Here .

 

[Wiebke]

I made a big mistake.

I feel like a fool and I am beside myself. I have had guinea pigs for 5 years straight and have always taken great pride in the care I take of my boys. My baby Marcel (9mo) has struggled with respiratory problems since I got him. He has been through around five different rounds of antibiotics.
He was recently prescribed pills. I have been crushing them up in grapes to give him, but as of last night, he stopped falling for my tricks. I was extremely exhausted tonight (around 1h ago) and sat him in my lap and gave him a particularly large syringe of the pill crushed in water. It was a lot of water. I did not do it all at once, obviously, but since he was clearly stressed, I was too busy trying to talk him through it and get it over with quickly so he would not struggle for too long. He is extremely familiar with syringes as he has seen a lot of prescriptions.

When I put him back in his home, he immediately started coughing up a storm. I stopped in my tracks and immediately burst out crying. I feel so stupid. My sweet angel, Wesley, passed in 2020 from aspiration pneumonia and I still wonder if it was my fault. Did I just give marcel aspiration pneumonia? He was coughing pretty frequently once he took the water but now he has stopped. He is always slightly sniffly. I am so terrified that if I go to bed, I will wake up and it will be too late. I have college classes early in the morning and I’m unsure if I can bring him to the emergency vet, as my only local one rounds out to about $600 per visit, and takes a minimum of 4-5 hours for a piggy. I am willing to do it, but am I overthinking it? It was a lot of water, but he spat most of it out. Didn’t make a peep when I gave it to him like he was choking or anything, but I am so panicked from the coughing nonetheless. I will never forgive myself if something goes wrong. He’s happily eating now, no signs of distress, but I’m staying up with him to keep an eye out… will he be ok?

Hi

Please take a deep breath.

Hopefully your boy has coughed it all up now. See a vet promptly if you notice changes in the breathing/breathing noises coming from the chest in the coming 2-3 weeks. Unfortunately, it is going to be a bit of an anxious wait for you, made worse by a bad previous experience. Most of us longer term owners have had a situation where something has gone wrong, so you are not the only one.

Please only use 1-2 ml of water when mixing a ground down pill in a little medicine bottle - the ideal amount of water depends on the absorbance qualities of the carrier substance used in the pill into which the tiny amount of medication has been mixed into. You do not want it too thick or too thin.

An adult piggy can hold about 0.5 ml max of water in their mouth at any moment. I prefer to not give more than 0.3 ml at once and only slowly to prevent things from going down the wrong way or up into the nose, and to give a piggy time to swallow before giving more. In weak piggies it can be as little as 0.1 ml of medication, water or support feed; and then always waiting until it has gone down. Patience is really key.

A good trick is to never overfill your syringe so you cannot squirt too much into the mouth if a plunger suddenly comes unstuck and gushes into the mouth. For that reason I prefer 1 ml syringes and rather refill them at need when dealing with a more fractious or fragile piggy. You can still end up with some water backing up into the nose but aspiration is much less of a risk.

You can also consider splitting the daily dosage into two and give half every 12 hours instead of all at once every 24 hours if that is an option so there is less volume for your boy to cope with, especially if he is on a time consuming medication cocktail.

Fingers crossed that it was only a scare.

 

[furryfriends (TEAS)]

When I need to give a tablet to a piggy, I find that you lose too much, if you crush it and try mixing it with water, unless it is a disolvable tablet. I prefer to make up some syringe food and then, you draw up the syringe food, into a syringe with the end cut off and then pop the tablet, or part of the tablet, into the end of the syringe and give it that way. You can see how I do it, on this video:

Medicating your guinea pig - Instructional video on Facebook