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Quustions about ebony's ongoing noisy breathing

Nothing sounds daft @Julie M - i will ask about that tomorrow, thanks.

I even looked into a second opinion vet but the only guinea pig vet i could find in scotland was the royal dick vet school - and they only take referrals from other vets.

So i feel i need to exhaust all options with my current vet, even though it's costing me a couple of hundred quid a month . . . .
 
but they are worth it aren't they on a good day!
Oh, absolutely!


And the thing is - ebony has been an absolute star with all her meds. She stuffs her face into the nebuliser mask, practically pulls the syringe off me for anything tasty - and then she goes back into her cage and tells belle 'the news'

She is a really busy, lively pig. And she tweets on my knee! Everything about her is perfect. It's just these lungs of hers . . .
 
Its always worth asking for a referral if only to get a new perspective on things and a second opinion, after 8 months of seeing our local vet every 3 weeks or so Blodwen got a specialist referral and proper diagnosis and treatment and the specialist vet had extra diagnostics available and were also happier to prescribe off label, and Blodwen got doxycycline for chlamydia pneumonia... but it has left her still prone to wheezing a bit (or a lot) due to lung scarring, and prolonged respiratory infections do make piggies more prone to allergen sensitisation because they've had immune cells busy in their airways for so long... I would maybe ask for a referral, ours cost just over £300 in total but we havent had to go back since except for a check up, and we'd already spent £1800 at the local vets without getting anywhere- but now we have much more information about her lungs than we did before that we can take back to the local vet and ask for what she needs...
 
Back from vets - what a cutester wee Ebony is - she started twittering away very happily on the vet's table! She seems to thrive on all the attention!

Anyway, he said it seems to be a chronic rhinitis now. But as she is gaining weight, looking well etc, just to keep on with f10 nebs.

He also prescribed some loxicom for standby emergencies for if she has a poorly flare up and to bridge me over til i can get to see him.
 
Back from vets - what a cutester wee Ebony is - she started twittering away very happily on the vet's table! She seems to thrive on all the attention!

Anyway, he said it seems to be a chronic rhinitis now. But as she is gaining weight, looking well etc, just to keep on with f10 nebs.

He also prescribed some loxicom for standby emergencies for if she has a poorly flare up and to bridge me over til i can get to see him.
Well at least you have the diagnosis and a management plan. Glad to hear it was such a productive visit and she was such a star at the Vets x
 
Yes, no follow up needed (famous last words) I'm happy with that just now as she is bright and well. She still has this funny clicky noise and the vet talked about the sorts of things that could be done to investigate the root cause but it all sounded very expensive and invasive.

So i think this is a good way forward just now. Her chest has stayed clear and she's been off the anti biotics a good couple of weeks now.

My hope are that she will eventually get stronger and next summer maybe she can have a sleepover in her new outdoor hutch lol
 
Well, an up and down few days. There's no rhyme nor reason to it that i can fathom. And i still havent worked out whether it's the rheumicam or nebuliser that's helping most. I'm feeling it might be the nebuliser.

A few days ago she had the sucky in/out sides again. She had had a good day, then i noticed her struggling late on, about midnight so i got her on the nebuliser right away and gave her a 0.2 rheunicam.

Next day she was better but not totally easy breathing, moving about but not tip top. The breathing did ease up and her sides moved more easily after maybe 48 hrs.

The day before yesterday she was quite active but very rattly breathing. So monday, she had 2 shots on nebuliser, 2 lots of 0.1 rheumicam and i really thought she'd be in good form tuesday (yesterday)


But she stayed under the ramp most of the morning and didnt hurry out for veg or anything.

Anyway, during the afternoon she had come out and was eating hay etc (hadnt had any med/nebs at all)

I nebulised her about 5pm. She was very, very rattly later on at 11pm so i nebulised again and gave her the dregs of the rhemicam. Less than 0.1 i think.


This morning, she is tip top. Flew right up the ramp for veg, wheeking away, looking great.



I have got my unopened bottle of loxicom now for emergencies but i dont want to open it unless she really, really needs it so i think i will keep going with the nebuliser alone and see if that really is enough to keep her stable.

She hasnt been out in the garden or anything so why she has these ups and downs i really dont know.

She is certainly very labour intensive! I'm going to try to make a nebulisation chamber as it is very time consuming with her on my knee.
 
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