Help - Breathing issues keep returning after stopping antibiotics.

[olinimz445]

My sweet girl Peanut got sick a few days after I adopted her, that was near the end of March. She was struggling to breathe and we brought her to the emergency vet. They said she had severe pneumonia and possibly enlarged heart/heart failure. She stayed in the hospital for one night, that and all the meds and tests cost about 3k. I brought her home and she was getting furosemide, nebulize with gentamycin, enrofloxacin and metacam. She steadily improved and I thought she was cured. We stopped the antibiotic after 14 days and kept her on the furosemide, but her breathing noises came back. I went back to the vet and they gave us orbifloxacin.

She has been on it for over a month, improved a lot and the vet did xray and suggested to stop the antibiotic. Its been 4 days and now her breathing is labored and raspy again. Now its saturday and I can't call the vet. I just started the antibiotic again. What do I do? Can she just be on antibiotics for the rest of her life? If the antibiotic works, which clearly it does, how the infection come back immediately when she was on antibiotics for 2 months? Was the xray just a waste of money? The vet looked at it and decided to stop the antibiotics and now she is worse again.

 

[piggl]

Bump x I hope your sweet girl is ok

 

[weepweeps]

I hope she is ok.

 

[Wiebke]

My sweet girl Peanut got sick a few days after I adopted her, that was near the end of March. She was struggling to breathe and we brought her to the emergency vet. They said she had severe pneumonia and possibly enlarged heart/heart failure. She stayed in the hospital for one night, that and all the meds and tests cost about 3k. I brought her home and she was getting furosemide, nebulize with gentamycin, enrofloxacin and metacam. She steadily improved and I thought she was cured. We stopped the antibiotic after 14 days and kept her on the furosemide, but her breathing noises came back. I went back to the vet and they gave us orbifloxacin.

She has been on it for over a month, improved a lot and the vet did xray and suggested to stop the antibiotic. Its been 4 days and now her breathing is labored and raspy again. Now its saturday and I can't call the vet. I just started the antibiotic again. What do I do? Can she just be on antibiotics for the rest of her life? If the antibiotic works, which clearly it does, how the infection come back immediately when she was on antibiotics for 2 months? Was the xray just a waste of money? The vet looked at it and decided to stop the antibiotics and now she is worse again.

Hi

I hope that you can see a vet this week.

Your girl has either got a breathing issue with a different cause that is only suppressed but not cured by an antibiotic (like damage to the lungs) or she has a resistance problem due to antibiotic overuse. Only your vet can decide that or whether lab test as to which antibiotics your piggy is responsive to would be the next step forward. Lab tests are unfortunately not cheap.

What you can also discuss with your vet is whether regular nebulising might bring additional relief. Please be aware that it is not an all-heal; it does not heal any bacterial respiratory infection and it can in some cases make symptoms worse instead of better.

PS: The furosemide is a diuretic which is there to prevent a fluid-build up in th lungs.