Hi all. We have a female (1yr old) guinea pig Roxy who is a live wire, super sociable piggy.
At the start of the year (January) she had an ear infection that caused her to have a head tilt (left side). A course of Baytrill seemingly resolved this, although it took a while to get her back to full health. We suspected that somehow her ear drum had burst due to the infection and that is why it took so long for her to recover.
Over 4 weeks ago we noticed a change in her behaviour again, becoming more sedentary and seemingly favouring softer food/hay. We took her to the vet (Ashgrove) and after looking at her teeth concluded malocclusion, put her under anaesthetic that day and filed her teeth.
Syringe feeding after went okay - refusing to eat anything hard though, but we also noticed she had a dent in her left eye (presumably from a hay poke when she was inside the cat carrier she is taken to/from the vet and at the vet waiting before and and after the operation. This also was accompanied with a fast twitch under the eye, which moved later to her cheek, and then later to the left side of her lip.
Anti-biotic eye drops and cornea gel was prescribed to cure the eye, but she still wasn't eating and the eye developed an ulcer.
A further series of x-rays and anaesthetics after 2 weeks - maloclussion was ruled out, and a middle ear infection was diagnosed (initially thought to be/looking for an abscess) but a swab test was taken and results came back 10 days later for Strep - which the vet said was not a smoking gun). By this point we were already treating for a middle ear infection with both Septrin and Metronidazole.
With all this, there is still a ~2 degree difference in ear temperatures (laser thermometer) - although down from ~6, two or so weeks ago.
We are now into our fourth week of constant syringe feeding (mashed pellets, pro fibre, fibreplex, oxbow vit c/multivit tablets, blendered veggies, oats), she is still refusing to eat anything on her own and are at a loss as to what to do. It is a struggle to maintain her weight (ranging from 680 to 720g). Her eye is stubbornly refusing to heal (a different gel and drops are used now), it appears her eye isn't producing tear drops so dries out if left alone. We are now speculating trigeminal nerve damage resulting from the infection to explain all the symptoms?
But more simply, when she eats (I finely chop up carrots and other veggies in the syringe), there is still an unnatural sound - a grating that has been present since the original operation. Our current vet has referred us to Edinburgh for a CT scan but we've been told it may take weeks to get an appointment.
Could it be that it was in fact a middle ear infection, that is just hard to reach with antibiotics but she is improving and now after 4 weeks of syringe feeding her teeth have grown out again due to almost no wear and she has just gotten used to not eating normally? She can mash herself into a soft strawberry or the middle of a cucumber but she's seemingly giving up even trying now... Would a CT scan confirm anything for us or is this just our vet trying to pass us on? We are in the process of getting a second opinion at other local vets but our vet has been faultless in the many years we've used them...
Has anyone experienced something like this or have any advice for us?
Thank you for reading this,
Richard
At the start of the year (January) she had an ear infection that caused her to have a head tilt (left side). A course of Baytrill seemingly resolved this, although it took a while to get her back to full health. We suspected that somehow her ear drum had burst due to the infection and that is why it took so long for her to recover.
Over 4 weeks ago we noticed a change in her behaviour again, becoming more sedentary and seemingly favouring softer food/hay. We took her to the vet (Ashgrove) and after looking at her teeth concluded malocclusion, put her under anaesthetic that day and filed her teeth.
Syringe feeding after went okay - refusing to eat anything hard though, but we also noticed she had a dent in her left eye (presumably from a hay poke when she was inside the cat carrier she is taken to/from the vet and at the vet waiting before and and after the operation. This also was accompanied with a fast twitch under the eye, which moved later to her cheek, and then later to the left side of her lip.
Anti-biotic eye drops and cornea gel was prescribed to cure the eye, but she still wasn't eating and the eye developed an ulcer.
A further series of x-rays and anaesthetics after 2 weeks - maloclussion was ruled out, and a middle ear infection was diagnosed (initially thought to be/looking for an abscess) but a swab test was taken and results came back 10 days later for Strep - which the vet said was not a smoking gun). By this point we were already treating for a middle ear infection with both Septrin and Metronidazole.
With all this, there is still a ~2 degree difference in ear temperatures (laser thermometer) - although down from ~6, two or so weeks ago.
We are now into our fourth week of constant syringe feeding (mashed pellets, pro fibre, fibreplex, oxbow vit c/multivit tablets, blendered veggies, oats), she is still refusing to eat anything on her own and are at a loss as to what to do. It is a struggle to maintain her weight (ranging from 680 to 720g). Her eye is stubbornly refusing to heal (a different gel and drops are used now), it appears her eye isn't producing tear drops so dries out if left alone. We are now speculating trigeminal nerve damage resulting from the infection to explain all the symptoms?
But more simply, when she eats (I finely chop up carrots and other veggies in the syringe), there is still an unnatural sound - a grating that has been present since the original operation. Our current vet has referred us to Edinburgh for a CT scan but we've been told it may take weeks to get an appointment.
Could it be that it was in fact a middle ear infection, that is just hard to reach with antibiotics but she is improving and now after 4 weeks of syringe feeding her teeth have grown out again due to almost no wear and she has just gotten used to not eating normally? She can mash herself into a soft strawberry or the middle of a cucumber but she's seemingly giving up even trying now... Would a CT scan confirm anything for us or is this just our vet trying to pass us on? We are in the process of getting a second opinion at other local vets but our vet has been faultless in the many years we've used them...
Has anyone experienced something like this or have any advice for us?
Thank you for reading this,
Richard
