Our girl Cherry has taken ill and has lost some of her appetite

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duskern

Post   » Fri Jan 15, 2021 3:52 am


So what you're saying here Lynx, is that we could probably give her as much as 20 mg/kg q12h? So close to twice of 25 mg/kg q24h.

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Fri Jan 15, 2021 7:46 pm


Since it was a direct pull from the Formulary, I think you have to stick with the 12h and should not double it and give it 24h.
Getting 20mg/kg q12h would mean a total 24h dose of 40mg/kg. I think it should still be split. Be very wary of complications (diarrhea and inappetence on Baytril are the most important ones).
https://www.guinealynx.info/antibiotic_advice.html

This is where having a veterinarian determine the appropriate dose is the best choice.

duskern

Post   » Sat Jan 16, 2021 9:10 am


I totally agree. We would never start giving her medication without first consulting our vet. The reason I'm asking is that we were giving her 25 mg/kg q24h, when she was on the medication. Since she isn't on anything right now, it doesn't really matter, but it's still nice to know if the need should arise at a later timer. 20 mg/kg q12h is still quite a bit more than 25 mg/kg q24h, so in case we needed to try something more aggressive at some point, that could be worth trying.

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Sat Jan 16, 2021 9:39 am


I believe the dose I cited is in the 5th edition of Carpenter's Exotic Animal Formulary. If your vet could get their hands on it, they would have some solid guidelines. Their listing also states:
Very high doses may cause arthropathies in young if given for a prolonged time;
limit SC, IM injections;
SC injections can be diluted in NaCl or lactated Ringer’s solution
Enrofloxacin in liquid form is very caustic and can damage skin - this is why there is a warning to limit SC, IM injections is given. Often treatment is started with a single injection and then the pet caretaker will continue the antibiotic using an oral suspension.

duskern

Post   » Mon Jan 25, 2021 9:47 am


The infection is still there. We could smell the pus yesterday, so we took her to the vet today. She examined her and the wound broke open. She got a cleaning so that's good. Our vet have prescribed her with Zitromax, which is Azithromycin. I hope it can penetrate bone good enough to help with the root cause of the infection.

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Mon Jan 25, 2021 10:46 am


I am glad she was seen by the vet and had the infection cleaned out. I so wish you could come up with a treatment that completely cleared the oral/bone infection (my primary recommendation was antibiotic beads, discussed in some of the topics above).

I am adding a link here to the issues you described over a month ago:
https://www.guinealynx.info/forums/viewt ... 7#p2314317

"Since I first started this thread she has been through more than 5 operations. Our vet is convinced that the problem is some kind of bacterial infection that remains in her bone, after removing a rotten lower front tooth way back. We have had several operations where she has been opened up and cleaned, but it's almost always the same story. We keep cleaning the wound and she slowly recovers. Everything is good until some point when she starts to get worse again, and the wound from the operation springs open, and pus starts to come out. Then we go back to cleaning the wound and trying to remove the pus."

duskern

Post   » Tue Jan 26, 2021 3:44 pm


Thx for your concert Lynx. I do remember the idea, and it's still something we are considering. A lot of things you have available in the US or other places are not that easy to come by in Denmark. I discussed it with the vet today actually. She is not against trying it out if we can get a hold of the beads or chloramphenicol. The problem with the beads are that some of the components you can't order as a vet. I might be able to get a hold of some of the stuff, but it wouldn't be entirely legal. Chloramphenicol is the same story. It's only available for human use, so if I were to try to acquire it, It wouldn't be legal, and I would have to get a hold of it somehow.

So, right now we are exploring other options before going down that road. We have not tried azithromycin before, so it's a first both for us and Cherry. We are hoping it will yield some good results before we try something else. Luckily Cherry is not that old, and is actually doing quite fine, besides not eating as a side effect of some of the antibiotics. We are following all advice regarding feeding her that we have from here. As long as we keep giving her 5ml CC/3 hours and FP a couple of times a day, she is pretty stable.

I will keep giving updates here.

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Tue Jan 26, 2021 10:13 pm


The beads can be handmade using a "kit" so they aren't necessarily something you could purchase somewhere. Only other thing I can think of is talk to human pharmacists to see if they can compound something like this.

Just hoping you can clear this up.

duskern

Post   » Thu Jan 28, 2021 3:51 am


I think one of the problems was getting some of the components you had to use for making the beads. I only watched the videos once, I have no real knowledge about such stuff, so I'm not sure what it is that's so hard to come by.

We are currently giving Cherry 5ml CC every three hours until around midnight. Then we let her rest until 8 am and start again. She is still not eating after starting with the Zitromax. I'm trying to encourage her by offering all sorts of foods, but she doesn't seem interested right now. I think it's the medication, since she was eating all right before we started giving it to her. There's not much we can do except keep giving her the medicine + CC and FP.

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Thu Jan 28, 2021 7:57 am


I wonder if pain medication might help. I so hope she can beat this.

duskern

Post   » Sat Jan 30, 2021 7:34 am


We ended up having to stop giving her the medication, as she simply didn't react well to it. She didn't really eat anything after we started giving her Zitromax. We called the vet yesterday with her weight, and she told us to stop it. She is not eating on her own yet, and we suspect that her molars have started to get too long.

It has been increasingly more difficult to get her to chew the CC we give her, so instead of giving her 5ml/3 hours, we now give her as much as we can every 1 or 2 hours. We also have to use the technique for the uncooperative pigs, since if we don't the CC will just be in her mouth without her chewing it. I tried giving her some pain medication, as that often helps when there's problems with the teeth, and she actually started eating a bit. We are hoping this will help her get through the weekend, until we can get her to the vet on Monday.

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Sat Jan 30, 2021 9:14 am


I hope clearing her of the antibiotic really helps with her appetite.

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