hannahs26
Junior Guinea Pig
Hi everyone, I'm wondering about whether our vet's advice is good or not. I feel unhappy with it.
I took Lola (6yrs old) to the out of ours vet on Saturday night, with bloat. She'd refused to eat or drink for the part 6 hours. The vet on the phone said " well, this can happen sometimes... you just need to massage and tap on her stomach." So I pushed for him to see her, and asked for gut mobilisation meds. He reluctantly agreed to come and meet me at the surgery, where after 10 mins returned her to me with a sachet of Science Selective recovery food and the advice to try to get these 'probiotocs' into her over the next 24 hours' and keep tapping her tummy.
As he didn't give anything else, I started her on Metacam which I had left over from a previous visit, and tried getting food into every couple of hours through the night. By 4am she was interested in food a little, and had 6 pellets and a sip of water before going back to hide in the dark. By morning she was a lot better in terms of behaviour, but still a bit swollen.
Anyway, my question, after reading from a vetinerary reference book for small animals, is that shouldn't the vet have prescribed pain relief if nothing else? I read that pain from the swelling is the reason they refuse food, which then leads to gut stasis. So shouldn't we at the least have been given pain relief? I feel that the Metacam saved her life in this instance by reducing pain so she felt like eating again.
I called the vet to pay today, and asked about speaking with a vet to discuss this, but at the charge of another 15 quid and the chance I'd speak to the same vet, I decided not to. The receptionist was nice though, and spoke with the same vet and called me back to tell me that he'd said to prevent further bouts of bloat I could get more of the recovery sachets and give once a month. I can't see how that could help bloat?!
Considering a change of vets in case I have the same vet deal with another emergency in the future. :-/
I took Lola (6yrs old) to the out of ours vet on Saturday night, with bloat. She'd refused to eat or drink for the part 6 hours. The vet on the phone said " well, this can happen sometimes... you just need to massage and tap on her stomach." So I pushed for him to see her, and asked for gut mobilisation meds. He reluctantly agreed to come and meet me at the surgery, where after 10 mins returned her to me with a sachet of Science Selective recovery food and the advice to try to get these 'probiotocs' into her over the next 24 hours' and keep tapping her tummy.
As he didn't give anything else, I started her on Metacam which I had left over from a previous visit, and tried getting food into every couple of hours through the night. By 4am she was interested in food a little, and had 6 pellets and a sip of water before going back to hide in the dark. By morning she was a lot better in terms of behaviour, but still a bit swollen.
Anyway, my question, after reading from a vetinerary reference book for small animals, is that shouldn't the vet have prescribed pain relief if nothing else? I read that pain from the swelling is the reason they refuse food, which then leads to gut stasis. So shouldn't we at the least have been given pain relief? I feel that the Metacam saved her life in this instance by reducing pain so she felt like eating again.
I called the vet to pay today, and asked about speaking with a vet to discuss this, but at the charge of another 15 quid and the chance I'd speak to the same vet, I decided not to. The receptionist was nice though, and spoke with the same vet and called me back to tell me that he'd said to prevent further bouts of bloat I could get more of the recovery sachets and give once a month. I can't see how that could help bloat?!
Considering a change of vets in case I have the same vet deal with another emergency in the future. :-/
