Furnacefairy
Member
Cavy Gazer
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2015
- Posts
- 4
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2015
- Messages
- 4
Hi! I know I'm new to this forum but I'm really at a loss for what to do so I figured posting here can't hurt anything.
So anyway, my guinea pig (named Pig lol) has been pretty sick for about the past 10 months that i've had him. Throughout this whole time I've taken him to a vet who put him on Bactrim for 2 weeks, which seemed to help for the most part but the symptoms came back fairly soon after the course was done. Because it seemed to help we tried having him on them for longer but it didn't help like at all.
I should mention that his symptoms were initially just congestion and sneezing. He's recently started to cough a lot more and his breathing is very heavy. He hasn't stopped eating or anything, hasn't really had any other symptoms besides those.
When the second round didn't work I took him back and she was pretty stumped and thought it might be allergies so she suggested some children's medicine for allergies (If i remember correctly it was Benadryl) I haven't really tried that yet because I gave him a couple doses and it didn't help, if anything made it worse, but I might have to try it again if all else fails.
I then took him to another vet, who never did guinea pigs but did his research, and he put him on a round of Baytril for 2 weeks. He said his heart sounded healthy it was just his lungs. The baytril did nothing though. He asked how he was doing, but he basically said he didn't know what else to do with him since it didn't work.
So here we are. Pig's a little trucker but his coughs are way more frequent which is very worrying obviously. I would take him to yet another vet, but unfortunately I live in a tiny town in Iowa so the closest competent vet from what I can find (basically the Guinea Lynx website) is about 21/2 -3 hours away and I don't have that kind of money or time to get him there. I doubt my car would even make the drive up there honestly lol.
I've changed his bedding to fleece to see if that could help but it was just way more work and didn't help anyway, so he's back to the Oxbow paper bedding stuff. I've been just using timothy hay, but I was thinking of changing it to orchard grass or oat hay depending on what i can find and see if that helps any? Typical food, I give him the veggies that I can which normally consists of broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and kale.
Oh and, I have been giving him vitamin c hay tab things, he never used to want to eat them but now he does for some reason. I'm almost out though so I'll have to get them whenever I can get new hay.
If theres any questions please ask, I just really want him to be healthy and it's seriously overwhelming having practically no clue what to do...
His symptoms seemed to lighten up whenever I would take him out of his cage but recently it doesn't seem to help as much. There were several minutes when he was on the baytril that his breathing was insanely clear out of seemingly no where and it stayed for a while, but then I brought up hay because I knew he'd be wanting some and he started getting stuffy again as soon as he started eating it! It could be a coincidence I suppose, but thats the main reason why I think it might be the hay.
He is, in fact, a petsmart pig. The only reason I didn't adopt one was because he was a Christmas present that my parents got for me on a whim, and I had never had a guinea pig so I didn't realize until it was way too late.
I'll try and shake as much dust out the hay I give him for now until I can get some better hay. I would get some sooner but again, small town Iowa, the closest pet store is a bit over and hour.
I don't know what to do and I'm afraid he's just going to keep getting worse and I won't be able to do anything about it! So I very much so appreciate any help you can offer me! Thanks for reading all this
So anyway, my guinea pig (named Pig lol) has been pretty sick for about the past 10 months that i've had him. Throughout this whole time I've taken him to a vet who put him on Bactrim for 2 weeks, which seemed to help for the most part but the symptoms came back fairly soon after the course was done. Because it seemed to help we tried having him on them for longer but it didn't help like at all.
I should mention that his symptoms were initially just congestion and sneezing. He's recently started to cough a lot more and his breathing is very heavy. He hasn't stopped eating or anything, hasn't really had any other symptoms besides those.
When the second round didn't work I took him back and she was pretty stumped and thought it might be allergies so she suggested some children's medicine for allergies (If i remember correctly it was Benadryl) I haven't really tried that yet because I gave him a couple doses and it didn't help, if anything made it worse, but I might have to try it again if all else fails.
I then took him to another vet, who never did guinea pigs but did his research, and he put him on a round of Baytril for 2 weeks. He said his heart sounded healthy it was just his lungs. The baytril did nothing though. He asked how he was doing, but he basically said he didn't know what else to do with him since it didn't work.
So here we are. Pig's a little trucker but his coughs are way more frequent which is very worrying obviously. I would take him to yet another vet, but unfortunately I live in a tiny town in Iowa so the closest competent vet from what I can find (basically the Guinea Lynx website) is about 21/2 -3 hours away and I don't have that kind of money or time to get him there. I doubt my car would even make the drive up there honestly lol.
I've changed his bedding to fleece to see if that could help but it was just way more work and didn't help anyway, so he's back to the Oxbow paper bedding stuff. I've been just using timothy hay, but I was thinking of changing it to orchard grass or oat hay depending on what i can find and see if that helps any? Typical food, I give him the veggies that I can which normally consists of broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and kale.
Oh and, I have been giving him vitamin c hay tab things, he never used to want to eat them but now he does for some reason. I'm almost out though so I'll have to get them whenever I can get new hay.
If theres any questions please ask, I just really want him to be healthy and it's seriously overwhelming having practically no clue what to do...
His symptoms seemed to lighten up whenever I would take him out of his cage but recently it doesn't seem to help as much. There were several minutes when he was on the baytril that his breathing was insanely clear out of seemingly no where and it stayed for a while, but then I brought up hay because I knew he'd be wanting some and he started getting stuffy again as soon as he started eating it! It could be a coincidence I suppose, but thats the main reason why I think it might be the hay.
He is, in fact, a petsmart pig. The only reason I didn't adopt one was because he was a Christmas present that my parents got for me on a whim, and I had never had a guinea pig so I didn't realize until it was way too late.
I'll try and shake as much dust out the hay I give him for now until I can get some better hay. I would get some sooner but again, small town Iowa, the closest pet store is a bit over and hour.
I don't know what to do and I'm afraid he's just going to keep getting worse and I won't be able to do anything about it! So I very much so appreciate any help you can offer me! Thanks for reading all this
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Oh and yeah, I try to mix them up and not give them all everyday. Especially not the kale, i just give him a little like every other day or so now that he's actually eating those vitamin tabs..I know it's really not the best variety so i'll definitely look into that as well and try to find some more things! I just don't have a ton of options since if i get too much of one thing it ends up going to waste since my family doesn't eat them too lol. I'll definitely try though. 
