RachelW
Adult Guinea Pig
Hello, I am Rachel from Germany and I am new here. I have read some of the posts already while I have not been a member (I am member of several guinea pig forums in Germany), but today I registered because I wanted to give you some important information.
I have two guinea pigs: Ben, 3 years old, and Pauline, maybe 6 years old (nobody really knows, since she had several owners before I adopted her in October). Pauline is not very well and suffers from advanced arthrosis.
My vet gave her Metacam for dogs against her pain. As you will know, Metacam is normally for cats or dogs, since there is no real painkiller for guinea pigs at the moment. Pauline was ok when she took the Metacam. I did not see any side effects.
I heard, and it is mentioned in this forum as well several times, that guinea pigs can also have Nurofen for babies as painkiller, so I switched to that (Pauline preferred it because of the taste, I guess). The first couple of days, everything seemed normal. Then, after 10 days, Pauline started to have very frightening seizures, looked like epileptc seizures. They took only a couple of seconds, but they got more and more frequently, she had one seizure every 10 minutes. I got the idea that those seizures could be related to the Nurofen, but have not found anything in the forums about side effects, and on the leaflet, they only state diarrhoea and so on as side effects (well, it is for human babies, after all). I was suspicious anyway and stopped giving her Nurofen. She is on Metacam instead.
After 5 days without Nurofen, those seizures suddenly stopped as if nothing had happened. So now I am convinced that it was indeed a side effect, and I wanted to warn you about that.
I was afraid that the seizures were related to the arthritis, and that her nervous system got damaged, but now I am quite sure that this is not the case. Her general condition also seems a lot better now, she seems less tired and in less pain.
Just a good idea that I related her cramps to the painkiller, otherwise I would have gone to the vet this week to put her to sleep! (The vet, by the way, had no idea either).
Hope this helped you and your piggies when choosing the right painkiller.
Many greetings from Frankfurt, Rachel
I have two guinea pigs: Ben, 3 years old, and Pauline, maybe 6 years old (nobody really knows, since she had several owners before I adopted her in October). Pauline is not very well and suffers from advanced arthrosis.
My vet gave her Metacam for dogs against her pain. As you will know, Metacam is normally for cats or dogs, since there is no real painkiller for guinea pigs at the moment. Pauline was ok when she took the Metacam. I did not see any side effects.
I heard, and it is mentioned in this forum as well several times, that guinea pigs can also have Nurofen for babies as painkiller, so I switched to that (Pauline preferred it because of the taste, I guess). The first couple of days, everything seemed normal. Then, after 10 days, Pauline started to have very frightening seizures, looked like epileptc seizures. They took only a couple of seconds, but they got more and more frequently, she had one seizure every 10 minutes. I got the idea that those seizures could be related to the Nurofen, but have not found anything in the forums about side effects, and on the leaflet, they only state diarrhoea and so on as side effects (well, it is for human babies, after all). I was suspicious anyway and stopped giving her Nurofen. She is on Metacam instead.
After 5 days without Nurofen, those seizures suddenly stopped as if nothing had happened. So now I am convinced that it was indeed a side effect, and I wanted to warn you about that.
I was afraid that the seizures were related to the arthritis, and that her nervous system got damaged, but now I am quite sure that this is not the case. Her general condition also seems a lot better now, she seems less tired and in less pain.
Just a good idea that I related her cramps to the painkiller, otherwise I would have gone to the vet this week to put her to sleep! (The vet, by the way, had no idea either).
Hope this helped you and your piggies when choosing the right painkiller.
Many greetings from Frankfurt, Rachel
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