sebastianT
New Born Pup
Hello everyone,
My wife and I's precious little girl (lovingly named Mouse), has developed a serious issue this past week. Starting two Sundays ago, we noticed that she had some pained vocalizing while peeing and pooping. She was also leaving behind an awful lot of bladder sludge out of nowhere. Mouse has a very fixed diet that she has been on since we got her around two years ago, due to some chronic bloating issues. We were really surprised to see such a large amount of sludge seemingly appear out of nowhere, when nothing about her diet had changed apart from critical care feedings and little to no veggies while her poop was still weird. Naturally, we decided to take her to our exotic specialist vet that Monday to see what the problem was. Because her chronic bloating is brought upon by the presence of bad gut bacteria, the vet and I came to the conclusion that this might be the cause of this flare up. For this reason, on Monday she was prescribed some metronidazole (for the gut bacteria) with a probiotic and meloxicam for pain management.
My wife and I monitored her behavior throughout the past week, while syringe feeding her critical care to make up for her slowing appetite, and she did not improve. On Friday morning, we returned to the vet for x-rays. We were prescribed gabapentin in addition to the meloxicam for pain management and were told to take her off the metronidazole while we waited to hear back from the radiologist looking at the images. Over the next day or so we found out that the vet said that her x-rays showed a possible inflammation or changes along the lumbar spine inside the belly, but could not say what was causing it. He listed potential lymph node, uterus, or colon issues as causes for this potential anomaly. He recommended further imaging with a high powered ultrasound or even potentially a CT scan (which we would have to be referred to a large scale animal hospital for) if the pain continued, to determine the cause. We returned on Sunday and had her given an ultrasound, it was confirmed that they could not see any bladder stones. They were, unfortunately, unable to get a urine sample from her bladder that day, so we could not determine if this was perhaps, caused by a UTI. We returned home on Sunday with an additional pain medicine, Tramadol (an opioid derivative) to use in combination with her other pain meds, as well as an antibiotic called TMP for the potential UTI (even though this could not be confirmed as the cause). The medicine seemed to have an initial positive effect, as she was in less pain on Monday and Tuesday, and was more like her old self. Unfortunately, today she has relapsed a bit. The pain medicine cocktail we have been giving her seems to be becoming less effective. And since it has been around 3 full days since starting the antibiotic, we are assuming it is not a UTI.
We are currently unsure of what to do. Her appetite has now greatly decreased, she barely nibbles on her timothy hay and kibble (a combination of Oxbow and Sherwood pellets that she normally adores), and we are afraid to give fresh veggies due to still having some weird poops from the antibiotic, despite our best efforts to support her with a probiotic as well. I imagine she would still eat some veggies, but I do not want to give them if they will make things worse. So right now we are giving her lots of critical care, but she seems to be tiring of all of the force feeding. My wife and I are dreading the fact that we might loose her without even knowing what is really going on.... as we can't even be seen for a CT scan for her until the 18th of this month.
Do these symptoms seem familiar to anyone, is there another possible disease this might be? My wife and I are familiar with something called internal cystisis that might cause these symptoms, but we aren't sure how to get this diagnosed or what treatment might look like. I suppose this may be some kind of cancer...but our Mouse is only 2 years old. We haven't tried getting her blood looked at yet...but unless this is kidney failure, I can't imagine that would help her.
Based on our options, is there anything you all would recommend for her? My wife and I love her very much, and we do not want to give up on her, but she seems to be continuing to go downhill. We are coming to terms with the possibility that she may need to be pts for her own comfort, but the thought of loosing her so early is incredibly painful for us. Is there anything we can change to make her more comfortable? I am considering making a vet appointment tomorrow if she does not improve, and I feel as though we may be faced with an awful decision.
Any comments or suggestions on this from the community would be so appreciated, thank you all.
My wife and I's precious little girl (lovingly named Mouse), has developed a serious issue this past week. Starting two Sundays ago, we noticed that she had some pained vocalizing while peeing and pooping. She was also leaving behind an awful lot of bladder sludge out of nowhere. Mouse has a very fixed diet that she has been on since we got her around two years ago, due to some chronic bloating issues. We were really surprised to see such a large amount of sludge seemingly appear out of nowhere, when nothing about her diet had changed apart from critical care feedings and little to no veggies while her poop was still weird. Naturally, we decided to take her to our exotic specialist vet that Monday to see what the problem was. Because her chronic bloating is brought upon by the presence of bad gut bacteria, the vet and I came to the conclusion that this might be the cause of this flare up. For this reason, on Monday she was prescribed some metronidazole (for the gut bacteria) with a probiotic and meloxicam for pain management.
My wife and I monitored her behavior throughout the past week, while syringe feeding her critical care to make up for her slowing appetite, and she did not improve. On Friday morning, we returned to the vet for x-rays. We were prescribed gabapentin in addition to the meloxicam for pain management and were told to take her off the metronidazole while we waited to hear back from the radiologist looking at the images. Over the next day or so we found out that the vet said that her x-rays showed a possible inflammation or changes along the lumbar spine inside the belly, but could not say what was causing it. He listed potential lymph node, uterus, or colon issues as causes for this potential anomaly. He recommended further imaging with a high powered ultrasound or even potentially a CT scan (which we would have to be referred to a large scale animal hospital for) if the pain continued, to determine the cause. We returned on Sunday and had her given an ultrasound, it was confirmed that they could not see any bladder stones. They were, unfortunately, unable to get a urine sample from her bladder that day, so we could not determine if this was perhaps, caused by a UTI. We returned home on Sunday with an additional pain medicine, Tramadol (an opioid derivative) to use in combination with her other pain meds, as well as an antibiotic called TMP for the potential UTI (even though this could not be confirmed as the cause). The medicine seemed to have an initial positive effect, as she was in less pain on Monday and Tuesday, and was more like her old self. Unfortunately, today she has relapsed a bit. The pain medicine cocktail we have been giving her seems to be becoming less effective. And since it has been around 3 full days since starting the antibiotic, we are assuming it is not a UTI.
We are currently unsure of what to do. Her appetite has now greatly decreased, she barely nibbles on her timothy hay and kibble (a combination of Oxbow and Sherwood pellets that she normally adores), and we are afraid to give fresh veggies due to still having some weird poops from the antibiotic, despite our best efforts to support her with a probiotic as well. I imagine she would still eat some veggies, but I do not want to give them if they will make things worse. So right now we are giving her lots of critical care, but she seems to be tiring of all of the force feeding. My wife and I are dreading the fact that we might loose her without even knowing what is really going on.... as we can't even be seen for a CT scan for her until the 18th of this month.
Do these symptoms seem familiar to anyone, is there another possible disease this might be? My wife and I are familiar with something called internal cystisis that might cause these symptoms, but we aren't sure how to get this diagnosed or what treatment might look like. I suppose this may be some kind of cancer...but our Mouse is only 2 years old. We haven't tried getting her blood looked at yet...but unless this is kidney failure, I can't imagine that would help her.
Based on our options, is there anything you all would recommend for her? My wife and I love her very much, and we do not want to give up on her, but she seems to be continuing to go downhill. We are coming to terms with the possibility that she may need to be pts for her own comfort, but the thought of loosing her so early is incredibly painful for us. Is there anything we can change to make her more comfortable? I am considering making a vet appointment tomorrow if she does not improve, and I feel as though we may be faced with an awful decision.
Any comments or suggestions on this from the community would be so appreciated, thank you all.
