wheekly
Junior Guinea Pig
Hi everyone,
I’m feeling a little down about my guinea pig today.
I posted about her a little bit ago. She is 7 years old (which I’m very proud of — I adopted her in 2016 when she was about 4 months old). She has never had an issue other than the recent onset of arthritis. Before that, she’s never had to go on medicine for anything!
I got her at the end of 8th grade. So I had her my entire high school career (9th, 10th, 11th, 12th) and the entirety of college (I’m now a fourth year student). It’s insane to think about the fact that she’s been with me throughout so many huge changes in my life![smile :) :)](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60a.png)
She started on dog metacam a little over a month ago, at a dose of 0.6 mL twice a day (she is approximately 2.1 pounds consistently when she gets weighed) hence the higher dose. My vet says that her maximum safe dose for her weight would be 0.95 mL.
It has made a difference for sure. Before she started on the medicine, she was falling over and was noticeably wobbly. It has helped a lot with her quality of life.
I’m just feeling a bit down today because she started wobbling again yesterday, and today she improved and then it got bad again to the point where she was basically laying on her leg. My vet had advised me to give her 0.75 mL in the event that I felt it was absolutely necessary - so I did, because she was clearly in a lot of pain.
Now, it’s just a waiting game of seeing how she responds to the 0.75 mL dosage and then consulting my vet again.
I know there’s not much more I can do other than keep her comfortable on top of giving her the medicine, but I can’t help but feel really bad. I find it really hard just knowing she’s in pain. I wish there was a quick fix but I know that that doesn’t exist for arthritis, and I just have to keep working with my vet to adjust the dosage until she’s comfortable.
I just feel so bad for her. I’m sure a lot of piggy parents on here can relate. It’s not a nice feeling knowing your pigs are in pain. Especially when you know they don’t understand why. I wish they could talk to us and let us know what’s working and what’s not.![sad :( :(](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f622.png)
Anyways, sorry for the long post. Any replies are welcome — I’m kind of just getting this off my chest. I worry for her and I’ve had her for so long that I can’t even imagine my life without her. I would appreciate any words of advice or even your own personal experiences battling guinea pig arthritis (it seems to be and up-and-down battle)![sad :( :(](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f622.png)
Thanks everyone![smile :) :)](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60a.png)
I’m feeling a little down about my guinea pig today.
I posted about her a little bit ago. She is 7 years old (which I’m very proud of — I adopted her in 2016 when she was about 4 months old). She has never had an issue other than the recent onset of arthritis. Before that, she’s never had to go on medicine for anything!
I got her at the end of 8th grade. So I had her my entire high school career (9th, 10th, 11th, 12th) and the entirety of college (I’m now a fourth year student). It’s insane to think about the fact that she’s been with me throughout so many huge changes in my life
![smile :) :)](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60a.png)
She started on dog metacam a little over a month ago, at a dose of 0.6 mL twice a day (she is approximately 2.1 pounds consistently when she gets weighed) hence the higher dose. My vet says that her maximum safe dose for her weight would be 0.95 mL.
It has made a difference for sure. Before she started on the medicine, she was falling over and was noticeably wobbly. It has helped a lot with her quality of life.
I’m just feeling a bit down today because she started wobbling again yesterday, and today she improved and then it got bad again to the point where she was basically laying on her leg. My vet had advised me to give her 0.75 mL in the event that I felt it was absolutely necessary - so I did, because she was clearly in a lot of pain.
Now, it’s just a waiting game of seeing how she responds to the 0.75 mL dosage and then consulting my vet again.
I know there’s not much more I can do other than keep her comfortable on top of giving her the medicine, but I can’t help but feel really bad. I find it really hard just knowing she’s in pain. I wish there was a quick fix but I know that that doesn’t exist for arthritis, and I just have to keep working with my vet to adjust the dosage until she’s comfortable.
I just feel so bad for her. I’m sure a lot of piggy parents on here can relate. It’s not a nice feeling knowing your pigs are in pain. Especially when you know they don’t understand why. I wish they could talk to us and let us know what’s working and what’s not.
![sad :( :(](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f622.png)
Anyways, sorry for the long post. Any replies are welcome — I’m kind of just getting this off my chest. I worry for her and I’ve had her for so long that I can’t even imagine my life without her. I would appreciate any words of advice or even your own personal experiences battling guinea pig arthritis (it seems to be and up-and-down battle)
![sad :( :(](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f622.png)
Thanks everyone
![smile :) :)](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60a.png)