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Losing weight and lost wheek

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TangentKid

TangentKid

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Hi All,

I have posted before about our little 4 1/2 year old Amy who is still sick. The full old thread is here: http://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=18029.msg355228#msg355228

We've been syringe feeding her for about 10 weeks now due to ongoing teeth problems. The chewing problem is being managed by regular trimming by Vedra at the CCT but this problem has now become secondary to her weight decline. At best she weighed 1100g. When she started to have difficulty eating she was down to 950g. She has been loosing weight gradually ever since then. Today she is 605g :( She looks like a tiny baby next to her hutch pal who is 1265g.

While trying to figure out what her underlying problem is over the last few weeks we have given her Baytril, Doxycycline, Metacam, Rimadyl and Nurofen (for children). She's also been on other less severe remedies such as Daktarin oral gel, crushed Dida tablets, Fibreplex and various probiotics. She's also has X-Rays and an endoscopic examination, both of which showed nothing.
Currently she's off all meds except Avipro-plus probiotic which also contains Vit A, B & C. We feed her ground up 'complete' Guinea Pig food mixed with water four times a day. We've tried: Gerty Guinea Pig, Waggs, Oxbow, Excel and Russel Rabbit. The only one that she likes however is Gerty. She takes this willingly from the syringe or spoon but all the others are a struggle to get in. We're currently giving her 60ml per day (i.e. 15 x 1ml syringes four times per day. In addition to this we give her water by syringe and extra pureed treats e.g. carrot, celery, cucumber, mixed salad leaves etc.

The problem seems to be that she just poos so much! Most poos are a reasonable consistency, just a bit softer than normal but these are interspersed with extremely mushy poo. My suspicion is that the mushy ones are just barely digested pureed veg. Everything just seems to pass through her too quickly. We've even tried chopping up hay into tiny pieces with scissors but this is very difficult to get into a syringe, even when mixed in with the other foods. Does anyone have any ideas how we can slow her 'transit time' down in order to give her more of a chance to digest and absorb her food?

Another recent development is that she's lost her 'wheek'. She still tries but now it comes out as a hoarse noise, just like a person who has lost their voice. She's also made some rasping noises while breathing over the last few days although this seems to have cleared up now.

Any thoughts or suggestions that anyone may have would be great.
 
Hi there! I've got a guinea pig who has survivied anesthetic 4 times and she is 7 1/2 years old. Touch wood each time she has her back teeth cut the space between having them cut grows bigger. I know exactly what you mean with the face pulling and yawning and it looks as if they have something stuck. I have to break down larger pieces of Gerty Guinea Pig like the carrots because otherwise she wont bother trying to eat them. I wouldn't worry too much about the face pulling (I know thatt's is easy to say) but I checked her teeth with the vet who say they are fine. What does help my guinea is if you syringe her water during her breaks when she has stopped eating. Maybe you could hand feed her small pieces and then syringe her some water so she doesn't get so much build up of feed stuck in her mouth and it might make her eating more comfortable. Hope this helps :)
 
Does she have veggies/fruit if so how much are you giving her ? :)

The rasping noises could be due to an upper respiratory infection which will need to be treated by the vets or Vendra may be able to help out but i dont really know what she does but she sounds like she knows what shes doing and does a great job with helping piggies ive heard O0 I'm sure your piggy is in the best of hands with her help and your willingness to help out and make her better

Good Luck :)
 
I feel for you so much. I went through all this with my darling Dr Atkins 0:) He enjoyed banana and strawberry smoothie.

Have you tried Metatone tonic or B12 injections?

Sending you love and healing. This is a horrid situation xx
 
rw3399 said:
Hi there! I've got a guinea pig who has survivied anesthetic 4 times and she is 7 1/2 years old. Touch wood each time she has her back teeth cut the space between having them cut grows bigger. I know exactly what you mean with the face pulling and yawning and it looks as if they have something stuck. I have to break down larger pieces of Gerty Guinea Pig like the carrots because otherwise she wont bother trying to eat them. I wouldn't worry too much about the face pulling (I know thatt's is easy to say) but I checked her teeth with the vet who say they are fine. What does help my guinea is if you syringe her water during her breaks when she has stopped eating. Maybe you could hand feed her small pieces and then syringe her some water so she doesn't get so much build up of feed stuck in her mouth and it might make her eating more comfortable. Hope this helps :)
Click to expand...

So far she refuses to eat anything that isn't completely mushy. Even tiny bits of Gerty or pieces of veg. When we grind up the Gerty in a coffee grinder and add water however she can easily take this in and swallow. She does chew at the same time as she's swallowing and we can hear the teeth grinding. We're hoping that, when her incisors start to occulde again, she'll get her confidence back and will start trying small bits of more solid food. Until that day however we're desperately trying to get her weight back up as it seems to just go down and down no matter how much she eats.

Thanks.
 
iloveanimals said:
Does she have veggies/fruit if so how much are you giving her ? :)

The rasping noises could be due to an upper respiratory infection which will need to be treated by the vets or Vendra may be able to help out but i dont really know what she does but she sounds like she knows what shes doing and does a great job with helping piggies ive heard O0 I'm sure your piggy is in the best of hands with her help and your willingness to help out and make her better

Good Luck :)
Click to expand...

We have been trying to give her something fresh with each feed. As she can't (or just won't) take anything solid into her mouth, we make smoothies of carrot/cucumber, celery/cucumber, spinach/rocket/watercress/cucumber etc. Cucumber aded to each to give some water contant as otherwise it just won't liquidise. However we have tried to keep her off all fresh mush (as we call it) today in case that's causing the poo problem.

Fingers crossed any resp infection has subsided by itself as the noises have now stopped. I think that Baytril is the usual treatment for this but we're reluctant to start that again in case it's killing off her gut flora and making her lose weight.

Thanks for your suggestions though.
 
Lucinda said:
I feel for you so much. I went through all this with my darling Dr Atkins 0:) He enjoyed banana and strawberry smoothie.

Have you tried Metatone tonic or B12 injections?

Sending you love and healing. This is a horrid situation xx
Click to expand...

Today Amy has gone mad for rice/apple/banana/orange baby food. So much so that she's no longer so keen on the staple Gerty GP mix though.
Metatone (as suggested by Peter Gurney) is another thing that we tried for a couple of weeks but it didn't seem to be helping. We haven't however tried B12 injections.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Must go and start the fourth feed of the day......
 
iloveanimals said:
Oh i see ~ Good Luck though :-* :smitten:
Click to expand...

Out of interest - were you asking about the fruit/veg as you thought we should give more or less? We've got no idea how much is ideal!

Thanks. O0
 
really hoping amy starts to improve. i read your whole post, did you go to the vet karen suggested? did they find out what her problem was? i think you have been amazing with all you have done with amy. O0 O0 O0 sending you all hugs and cuddles from me and the girls in oz :smitten: :smitten: :smitten: girls send :-* :-* :-* please keep us posted on poor amy :smitten: usually guinea pigs have 1-3 cups of fresh veg a day. :smitten:
 
TangentKid said:
iloveanimals said:
Oh i see ~ Good Luck though :-* :smitten:
Click to expand...

Out of interest - were you asking about the fruit/veg as you thought we should give more or less? We've got no idea how much is ideal!

Thanks. O0
Click to expand...
I was just curious as to how much you were giving her cause of her having diarrhea which made me think you may be giving her too much but maybe thats just me cause mine dont get alot as i fear of them having diarrea thats all O0 There is somewhere on this forum of how much is ok for them but i doubt ill find it but i only give mine a small handful every other day :)
 
When my guinea wasn't eating much my vet recommended baby food because it contains all the necessary vitamins and minerals so if that is being taken that is a good thing.
 
R.I.P. Amy: 25 August 2003 – 22 June 2008

Very sad news I'm afraid. Little Amy lost her long battle on Saturday night and passed away at some point before 6:30am on Sunday morning. :'(

After my last post in March we decided to take her off all her meds to see if that would help. It did and slowly she began to regain weight and even eating small bits of veg by herself. Things continued to progress through April and by early May she was eating veg, grass and dry mix all by herself. Throughout that time we had many visits to Vedra at the CCT for tooth trims to get her incisors occluding properly again.

During a tooth trim visit to Vedra in May we noticed puss coming out of the gum around one of her lower incisors. The following week there was loads more puss then the following week the tooth came out – it was rotten well below the gum-line. We then started the long process of expressing the puss every day. At first we were no good at this and by the following week Amy had two huge lumps full of puss under her jaw. Vedra syringed one with some success then made an incision in her neck to drain the other. For the next few weeks we were expressing puss every day out of the incision and gum. Meanwhile she was on Baytril 0.3ml once per day.

During this time we took Amy to see Jenny at Tilehurst surgery in Reading . She sent a swab for testing. When the results of the swab returned it was deemed a bacteria that was sensitive to Baytril so we increased the dose to 0.3ml twice daily.

Over the last couple of weeks she has been doing really well. Eating on her own very well and the puss in the jaw seemed to be getting less & less. She was very bright and trotted around the lounge just like she used to. Even after the nasty business of wrapping her and squeezing out the puss, which must have been very painful as she squealed al lot, she immediately wanted fed and more attention.

Last week we noticed that she had a watery discharge from one nostril and was a bit wheezy. She also sneezed a fair bit while eating. We took her to the local vet (we needed more Baytril anyway) and he said that there was nothing more to do other than give the Baytril. The wheezing seemed to come and go but it only seemed to be the right nostril that was runny. On Saturday evening, for the first time in months, she wouldn’t eat anything. We gave her her meds and put her to bed. By morning she had passed away.

It was an amazingly fast deterioration. We don’t know what actually happened, whether it was the breathing or something else that finished her off. Maybe she just suddenly succumbed to the combined pressure of the last 5 months of treatments. We really hope so much that it was a quick and pain free death. We opted not to have a post mortem as we didn’t want her cut open. We put her in a little box with a few of her favourite things and buried her in the garden last night.

Amy is an amazing and beautiful little guinea pig. So interactive and always looking for attention. We’ll always remember her dashing around the lounge like a crazy thing, she just loved to run. We’ll also remember her climbing up on our feet when we were sitting on the sofa asking us for food. Over the last 5 months she developed an amazing wheek which kept us on our toes – running to the fridge or lawn whenever she was hungry. She has been such a brave little fella since the beginning of this year, we’ve put her through so much and she’s kept fighting all the way. We are missing her terribly already and I’m sure that her best pal and hutch-mate Trudy is also missing her with nobody to snuggle up to. We loved her from the day we adopted her in October 2003 and will keep on loving her forever. She lives on in our fond memories.

R.I.P. Amy: 25 August 2003 – 22 June 2008

amy1.jpg
amy2.jpg
amy3.jpg
 
sorry to hear she has passed to rainbow bridge, she was gorgeous xx :smitten:
 
I'm so sorry to hear this. She was gorgous. Love the last pic they both look sad on it...awww lovely. :smitten:
 
AAWWW I am so sorry about your cute little one! So sad that she has passed but hopefulyl she is in a much better place now! :smitten: Lots of hugs sent your way!

Leslie
 
Thanks to all for your kind words. It helps to know that there are other people out there thinking about our little angel.

We're now a bit worried about Trudy and whether she'll get lonely on her own. We adopted both girls on the same day in October 2003 when they were about 8 weeks old. They've never been apart for more than a few hours ever since and have never met any other piggies. We were wondering what the best thing to do would be. We're worried that a new baby might be too active for our old girl and that another adult might be too dominant - Trudy is a gentle soul. To be honest, were it not for Trudy's sake we probably wouldn't get another piggie as we'd be in again for another few years which might not fit with our life plans (moving abroad). However we'll do whatever is best for Trudy.

So far she seems OK. She's had a bit of a gurgly tummy and runny bottom for a few days, since before Amy died, but it has firmed up again today. Her eating and weight also seem fine but we're monitoring closely just to be sure. We'd appreciate any suggestions and details of what other people have done under similar circumstances.

Thanks.
 
So sorry to read about little Amy ... you obviously loved her very much! She was a brave little sweetie - God bless :smitten:

It is a difficult decision about whether to find another friend for Trudy. As you say you don't want upset her and if she is placid, you would not want a dominant female to live with her. I have had two adult Coronet females who had never met before and they bonded straightaway ... not even any teeth chattering! But then another time, I have had war break out and injuries inflicted immediately when putting two adult females together. I am sure you could go to a rescue and see if she gels with any females and they will know who is bossy and who is placid for Trudy.

But what about a older neutered boar from a rescue?
 
am so sorry for your lost :'( :'( :'( RIP sweet amy, run free, popcorn amongst the clouds 0:) 0:) 0:) watch over your family and friend trudy :smitten: :smitten: :smitten:
i would wait a while and let trudy grieve her friend, then perhaps get some young piggies and maybe trudy's maternal instincts will take over. O0 sending you big hugs
:smitten: :smitten: :smitten: RIP little darling, find eternal peace 0:) 0:) 0:)
 
I have just caught with this post and I'm sorry that you have lost little Amy.
 
Tangentkid, I am so sorry you lost Amy,you tried very hard with her.The pics of your piggies are lovely.

However, it does sound like Amy was overdosed.Piggy renal system is not overstrong and a cocktail of drugs like that would do more harm than good.I am not blaming you,it is the fault of the vet that prescribed these drugs.I cannot belei9ve that any qualified vet would prescribe both Rimydal and Metacam/,neither of these drugs is particularly good for gps,but Metacam is the best of the 2.
 
I forgot to say in the last post that Nurafen should not be given to ANY ANIMAL.Nsaids cause liver failure.

Again I am sorry for your loss,she was a beautiful looking piggy.
 
Hi Maryh,

I probably didn't explain very well but Amy was never on more than one painkiller at any one time. We had tried Nurofen, Metacam and Rimadyl over the space of a couple of months between Jan and March. Recently she was on 1/4 tab Rimadyl twice daily to reduce the inflammation and Baytril, both to try and fight the tooth root abscess.

We suspect that it was the breathing problem that was the final problem. It appeared very quickly and, although she was on Baytril already, it might have proved fatal. Since last weekend we have realised that the CCT recommend giving diuretic for URIs but we read that too late. Alternatively it might have been something else, caused by the daily massaging of her chin/throat to express the puss. We'll never know.

Thanks for your kind words.

Now we need to decide whether to get a friend for Trudy. She seems to be perky enough but it's difficult to tell as she always did sit and sleep much more than Amy. Also, now that she doesn't have Amy to snuggle up to, she sits in the doorway to her bedroom with her chin on the ground, rather than in the bedroom squeezed up next to each other.
 
hi, i'm very sorry to heare of your loss, i lost my sweet Saffy on friday - its heartbreaking.
 
Hi Wendy,

I'm so sorry to hear about Saffy. We have a good idea how you must feel. Amy was the first piggie that we've lost and we really don't know if we can get another and go through it all again :(
 
wendy and TK, give yourselves time to grieve for your losses 0:) 0:) 0:) as time goes by you will know if you wish to get another, you can NEVER replace amy and saffy but if your heart is big enough and you have plenty of love to give then you may want to get more further down the line. let you heart guide you O0 only you will know, when we lost petal we hated the thought of getting more piggies we still had rosie( 0:)) but we got choloe( 0:)) and zoe and whilst we loved them and still love zoe it is a different kind of love to what we had for petal ( 0:)) hoping i have made sense. 98) sending hugs to you both :smitten: :smitten: :smitten: and know that amy and saffy are playing together amongst the clouds watching over you both with smiles and love in their hearts 0:) 0:) 0:)
 
very sorry to hear about your loss, rip amy :smitten: as for trudy I would probably get her a friend, even if it is so painful for you (and believe me I know how it feels too :( ) because it is helpful for trudy to pull her out of her sadness.
 
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