OneandToodle
Member
Cavy Slave
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2014
- Posts
- 7
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2014
- Messages
- 7
Hi all,
This is my first post on this forum, I am an experienced piggie owner but have got to the point where I'm running out of options with one of my piggies and would appreciate any additional advice.
One of my girls, Toodle, started showing URI symptoms on Sunday 30 March, she was sneezing and had had a slight nose bleed. We took her straight into the vets who checked her temp (normal), lungs (clear), agreed with us that it was a URI in a relatively early stage and gave us Baytril at a dosage of 0.2m twice daily for 10 days (piggie weighed 980g). Having had piggies on baytril several times before, I stocked up on Critical Care and biolapis.
For the next 3 or 4 days she had horrendous nosebleeds, her face turned into a bloody mask and she was sneezing up blood every few minutes. I kept on with the antibiotics, plus syringed in Critical care, biolapis and extra vit C at least twice a day. Throughout all this though she had been relatively bright - eating her vegetables, picking through her hay and drinking from her bottle.
On day 5 the bleeding showed definite signs of slowing, and by day 6 it had stopped. She was still sneezing out clear or whitish fluid occasionally but nothing like the nightmare we'd had before. She carried on acting reasonably normally - a bit quiet (not surprising IME for pigs on Baytril) but eating/drinking etc. I was still syringing her twice a day.
We finished the 10 day course of Baytril, and although she was sneezing very occasionally she seemed so much better that it seemed as if the best idea is to stop the antib's as planned, let her regain her appetite and hopefully just go back to normal. She was off the antibiotics for about 4 days (still being syringed the critical care concoction twice a day) when I noticed she was getting worse again - the nasal discharge was back and getting thicker and she was sneezing more regularly. Back to the vets for more Baytril. Another 3 days of not much change/possibly getting slightly worse and we took her back to the vets. Her temp was still normal, her lungs were still clear and thanks to the force-feeding she'd only lost a tiny bit of weight. They took a swab of the mucus to culture and said to carry on with what we were doing.
3 days later the results came back as a staphylococcus infection that the Baytril should treat, so we kept going with our routine of syringing/antibiotics. The vets at this point said that other than taking her in for chest scans, there's nothing else they could do.
3 days ago she got worse. She is now looking really poorly, got that horrible 'floppy' feeling, stopped eating and is having trouble breathing, but she still hasn't stopped fighting in herself so I'm not going to give up on her.
She's too weak IMO to go through the sedation etc to have her chest scanned, and it is unlikely to come back as showing anything that would alter the course of treatment other than to find something that would mean PTS immediately. We know that there could be some underlying cause of this infection (a deep-seated abscess, tumour or similar) that we couldn't do anything about, but if she has just got a really nasty staph infection, is there anything stronger than Baytril that is still piggie-safe? Otherwise, is my only option to try and keep fluids, probiotics, fibre and glucose going into her to see if I can keep her going until the Baytril works (although it's been almost a month now that she's been on it)? What is the maximum safe dose for a piggie per kg of bodyweight?
Sorry that was so long, any thoughts or advice much appreciated.
This is my first post on this forum, I am an experienced piggie owner but have got to the point where I'm running out of options with one of my piggies and would appreciate any additional advice.
One of my girls, Toodle, started showing URI symptoms on Sunday 30 March, she was sneezing and had had a slight nose bleed. We took her straight into the vets who checked her temp (normal), lungs (clear), agreed with us that it was a URI in a relatively early stage and gave us Baytril at a dosage of 0.2m twice daily for 10 days (piggie weighed 980g). Having had piggies on baytril several times before, I stocked up on Critical Care and biolapis.
For the next 3 or 4 days she had horrendous nosebleeds, her face turned into a bloody mask and she was sneezing up blood every few minutes. I kept on with the antibiotics, plus syringed in Critical care, biolapis and extra vit C at least twice a day. Throughout all this though she had been relatively bright - eating her vegetables, picking through her hay and drinking from her bottle.
On day 5 the bleeding showed definite signs of slowing, and by day 6 it had stopped. She was still sneezing out clear or whitish fluid occasionally but nothing like the nightmare we'd had before. She carried on acting reasonably normally - a bit quiet (not surprising IME for pigs on Baytril) but eating/drinking etc. I was still syringing her twice a day.
We finished the 10 day course of Baytril, and although she was sneezing very occasionally she seemed so much better that it seemed as if the best idea is to stop the antib's as planned, let her regain her appetite and hopefully just go back to normal. She was off the antibiotics for about 4 days (still being syringed the critical care concoction twice a day) when I noticed she was getting worse again - the nasal discharge was back and getting thicker and she was sneezing more regularly. Back to the vets for more Baytril. Another 3 days of not much change/possibly getting slightly worse and we took her back to the vets. Her temp was still normal, her lungs were still clear and thanks to the force-feeding she'd only lost a tiny bit of weight. They took a swab of the mucus to culture and said to carry on with what we were doing.
3 days later the results came back as a staphylococcus infection that the Baytril should treat, so we kept going with our routine of syringing/antibiotics. The vets at this point said that other than taking her in for chest scans, there's nothing else they could do.
3 days ago she got worse. She is now looking really poorly, got that horrible 'floppy' feeling, stopped eating and is having trouble breathing, but she still hasn't stopped fighting in herself so I'm not going to give up on her.
She's too weak IMO to go through the sedation etc to have her chest scanned, and it is unlikely to come back as showing anything that would alter the course of treatment other than to find something that would mean PTS immediately. We know that there could be some underlying cause of this infection (a deep-seated abscess, tumour or similar) that we couldn't do anything about, but if she has just got a really nasty staph infection, is there anything stronger than Baytril that is still piggie-safe? Otherwise, is my only option to try and keep fluids, probiotics, fibre and glucose going into her to see if I can keep her going until the Baytril works (although it's been almost a month now that she's been on it)? What is the maximum safe dose for a piggie per kg of bodyweight?
Sorry that was so long, any thoughts or advice much appreciated.
But then again, just my opinion. 
