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URI/Upper Respiratory Infection How to mix Doxycycline in a carrier and determine dose

kapow

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I have Doxycycline tablets (100 mg each) that can be crushed and mixed into a carrier. My guinea pig has a URI. I know that the usual dose of Doxy is 5mg/kg.

What I need to know is how much carrier (watered down baby food peas) to mix it into, and how to find the dose (amount of this mix, in CCs, to give her).

This is common practice with rats and I have found a lot of information on how to do it for rats, but not much info on the mixing/dosing for guinea pigs.

Thanks!
 

bpatters

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I'd think that would be a hard thing to do. For starters, you want to give 1/20th of a tablet, and I don't know how you'd accurately sort out that small a portion of it.

The other way to do it is to mix the whole tablet into a carrier, but that's even more difficult to do. It's very hard to get a crushed pill evenly distributed throughout the carrier, so you risk either over- or under-dosing the pig.

Also, I don't know of anyway to know how long the doxycycline is good once mixed into a carrier. I doubt that it would be effective for very long, and almost certainly not for 20 doses. Maybe some formulation of it that is stable in a carrier is available, but I have no idea whether tablets are in that category.

I know you didn't ask this, but here's my $.02 anyway. Doxycycline for pigs isn't all that expensive, and it would certainly be safer and more accurate to get a prescription from the vet.
 

kapow

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I'd think that would be a hard thing to do. For starters, you want to give 1/20th of a tablet, and I don't know how you'd accurately sort out that small a portion of it.

The other way to do it is to mix the whole tablet into a carrier, but that's even more difficult to do. It's very hard to get a crushed pill evenly distributed throughout the carrier, so you risk either over- or under-dosing the pig.

Also, I don't know of anyway to know how long the doxycycline is good once mixed into a carrier. I doubt that it would be effective for very long, and almost certainly not for 20 doses. Maybe some formulation of it that is stable in a carrier is available, but I have no idea whether tablets are in that category.

I know you didn't ask this, but here's my $.02 anyway. Doxycycline for pigs isn't all that expensive, and it would certainly be safer and more accurate to get a prescription from the vet.

Thanks for your input. Avoiding the vet (for now) is the whole point. I'm not against going to the vet for more significant things of course. But, I am not going to pay a vet-visit just for them to tell me what I already know (she has an URI, duh) and I already know the first thing they will do is prescribe antibiotics and send us back home. I'd rather just pay the cost of the antibiotic up-front and treat her at home, than waste money on that initial visit.

I misspoke on my first post. It is not a hard pill to crush, it is a capsule that you can pop open and the powder is inside. That will be much easier to mix than crushing, thankfully.
 

Smileandnod

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Understandable that you want to avoid the vet fees for a condition you feel confident you already have diagnosed, but I would caution you in trying to create your own antibiotic suspension.

Guinea pig gut flora is sensitive...too much and you could end up with a very sick pig due to not eating, diarrhea, and dehydration or GI stasis. Too little or incorrect antibiotic for the bacterial infection causing the issue and you run the risk of the pig going downhill fast from the URI getting worse or antibiotic resistance.

I am assuming that you already have an exotic vet since you mention rats, so I would suggest you call the vet office and ask for a prescription to be called in. My vet is willing to sometimes save me the visit, especially during this time of Covid. Then you can get the correct dosage in a proper format by the professionals.

Good luck. Hope things go well.
 

TSLow

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I know this response is late but hopefully it can be beneficial to someone else seeking the same advice.
I had a similar issue administering and figuring out the dosage of doxycycline after my Guinea pig developed a URI. After researching and speaking with a Vet, this is what I found.

Yes, creating suspension and administering it to your pet is doable when a vet isn’t feasible. Just answer.com/veterinarian was a great resource in figuring this out. This is a link to a Vet answering just that question.
https://www.justanswer.com/veterinary/b3fm6-crush-doxycycline-tabs-add-saline.html

My experience:
I have created a suspension and added it to food but if your piggy doesn’t eat ALL the food due to the taste the proper dosage may not be received and doxy is said to be bitter. So, straight syringe feeding works best.
With a 100mg pill I use a liquid suspension of 10ml to dissolve it in (Doxy will fully dissolve). 10ml is about 2 teaspoons. Let the pill sit for about 5 minutes for it to soften then smash it and mix it until it’s fully dissolve. This will create a suspension of 10mg/ml. With this suspension, a 1kg pig at 5mg/kg would need a syringe of .5cc. Guinea lynx has a great dosage calculator found here.
https://www.guinealynx.info/dose_calculator.html
For every 100mg pill add 10ml of liquid to maintain 10mg/ml. For the liquid you can use water but because it is bitter my vet suggested unsweetened apple juice to make it more palatable.

Since using doxycycline is necessary in a public health emergency i.e. anthrax, creating a doxy suspension is available via the FDA. Use this to guide you through the process just in case my explanation wasn’t clear. This websites dosage does not apply as it’s for humans.
https://www.fda.gov/media/75538/download

Now when using this suspension it only lasts about 24 hours. I have invested in a product called ORA-SWEET. This helps it to last for 7 days. I use this to compound meds for my kids who hate swallowing pills as well as my pets. I first soften and crush two 100mg pills in 10ml of water then add 10ml of the ORA-SWEET. That gives me 20ml of the 10mg/ml suspension for the week. You can buy this or a compounding product like it on Amazon.

A great resource for using this product and doxycycline suspension can be found here at the
University of Wisconsin – School of Veterinary Medicine
https://www.sheltermedicine.com/library/resources/?r=doxycycline-suspension


I hope this helps.
 

Guinea Pig Papa

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I know this response is late but hopefully it can be beneficial to someone else seeking the same advice.
I had a similar issue administering and figuring out the dosage of doxycycline after my Guinea pig developed a URI. After researching and speaking with a Vet, this is what I found.

Yes, creating suspension and administering it to your pet is doable when a vet isn’t feasible. Just answer.com/veterinarian was a great resource in figuring this out. This is a link to a Vet answering just that question.
https://www.justanswer.com/veterinary/b3fm6-crush-doxycycline-tabs-add-saline.html

My experience:
I have created a suspension and added it to food but if your piggy doesn’t eat ALL the food due to the taste the proper dosage may not be received and doxy is said to be bitter. So, straight syringe feeding works best.
With a 100mg pill I use a liquid suspension of 10ml to dissolve it in (Doxy will fully dissolve). 10ml is about 2 teaspoons. Let the pill sit for about 5 minutes for it to soften then smash it and mix it until it’s fully dissolve. This will create a suspension of 10mg/ml. With this suspension, a 1kg pig at 5mg/kg would need a syringe of .5cc. Guinea lynx has a great dosage calculator found here.
https://www.guinealynx.info/dose_calculator.html
For every 100mg pill add 10ml of liquid to maintain 10mg/ml. For the liquid you can use water but because it is bitter my vet suggested unsweetened apple juice to make it more palatable.

Since using doxycycline is necessary in a public health emergency i.e. anthrax, creating a doxy suspension is available via the FDA. Use this to guide you through the process just in case my explanation wasn’t clear. This websites dosage does not apply as it’s for humans.
https://www.fda.gov/media/75538/download

Now when using this suspension it only lasts about 24 hours. I have invested in a product called ORA-SWEET. This helps it to last for 7 days. I use this to compound meds for my kids who hate swallowing pills as well as my pets. I first soften and crush two 100mg pills in 10ml of water then add 10ml of the ORA-SWEET. That gives me 20ml of the 10mg/ml suspension for the week. You can buy this or a compounding product like it on Amazon.

A great resource for using this product and doxycycline suspension can be found here at the
University of Wisconsin – School of Veterinary Medicine
https://www.sheltermedicine.com/library/resources/?r=doxycycline-suspension


I hope this helps.


Thank you very much for your reply, and your information. If the information you provided is accurate (I'm not saying it isn't. There are others much more knowledgeable than I am. I just don't know if it is or not and have no reason to doubt) It will be very beneficial to those who may need it in the future!

Thank you again for your information, and welcome to the forum!
 
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