Milktea peuomonia thread

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alex117

Post   » Tue Oct 19, 2021 11:31 pm


Hello everyone,

About 8 days ago, after i finished my volunteer work at an animal shelter and went back home, i found milktea was very stressed for no reason (she lived with 3 other piggies) and i am pretty sure there was no fight among them, anyways, i leave her untouched but she was still very stressed (dont want to get pet, run away and hide on the same spot). i used a stethoscope to listen to her lung and heart, checked her teeth, did a urine check with the test kit, things looks very normal to me. So based on my experience, it could be an early stage of bloat, so i gave her some simethicone to her just to prevent further gas development and started antibiotics on Wednesday just to be safe (but i did a lower dosage due to the fact that i am running out of smz tmp at home and the vet appointment was scheduled yesterday (1 day ago), the situation was kinda on and off. Overall, the weight is very steady and she is willing to eat hay and green, but she does show a significant decrease in terms of activity (compare to her normal day), she is still summonable and still run for food but once she grabbed the food she just want to eat it in her hidey which is weird for her.

Anyways, i got her to vet yesterday and though the physical examination, my vet cant find anything weird (things are actually quite perfect, she checked her teeth ran though her GI and bladder, everything was looking just fine), but i am sure that something is off, so i ask her to take an x-ray to hunt for the root cause. And yes, there is something going on, on the x-ray, we see that she has a quite some gas in her stomach, but her GI looks normal. Also we do see some congestion in her lung but the vet isnt sure if it is peuomonia because it isnt that obvious. So we passed the x-ray to the radiologist for second opinion.

Today the radiologist got back to us, he said the gas in her stomach is fine, but there is a mediocre concern on the congestion, it can be a peuomonia but we cant be very sure about it. My vet said, it can be a peuomonia but if it is a peuomonia, it is an early stage of peuomonia. So, we are going to treat it with the lightest antibotic bactrim, pain relief agent metacam, and simethicone, which is the exact same combination that i offered to milktea a week ago but this time i have the supply and a high dose of antibiotics. (So yea, i guess i done the right judgement).

With the recent deaths of Elisee, i really dont want to lose her and it kinda stressed me out in a way. On one hand, the metrics looks fine, no weight decrease, has an average appetite, poops and pee looks normal to me. On the other hand, she is hiding in the spot for almost all of the time. My vet said that properly she is conserving her energy due to a change on her respiratory system.

Do you guys has similar experience? And what and i do to make her feel better (my o2 concentrator is going to be delivered on next Wednesday :( ).

alex117

Post   » Tue Oct 19, 2021 11:32 pm


Oh forget to add, vet said no need to isolate her, because she has been living with all other pigs with this symptom for almost a week and if it is contagious, everyone should have got it at this point.

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Wed Oct 20, 2021 10:57 pm


I am with you on feeling that this change in her behavior (hiding in a spot most of the time) is concerning. What would happen if you put her in a different cage with lots of food and no one to bother her? Is there any chance one of the guinea pigs is making her life difficult?

To help you monitor, I'd weigh once a day while she is hiding. Also watch for any signs of pain. Maybe take her out of the cage every once and a while to see if she will explore a space that you have hidden favorite food items in.

It is difficult when you suspect something is wrong but it is not obvious what it is. I hope she gets better.

alex117

Post   » Fri Oct 22, 2021 4:39 am


Hi lynx,
She will be more stressful if i put her alone. Right now, she prefers to stick to her companion mopmop.

In terms of weight, i have been monitoring her before green and 2 hours after green, i can tell you that her weight is extremely stable. There is no trend of weight loss, she is hovering at 1135g +/-5g in day time, in the morning she will go down to around 1127g.

She still very shy compare to her baseline, which is very abnormal to me. And she has been on SMZ-TMP for almost 1 week now and i dont think there is any significant improvement on her behavior.

To be honest, i really hope this is a peuomonia, from the xray we only see a mild congestion on her lung. And if it is not an early stage of peuomonia, then it, i guess it is gonna be something that is really bad like fibrosis, or even lung cancer 😢

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Fri Oct 22, 2021 8:40 am


It sounds like you are doing everything right for her (what I suspected). I take it you are familiar with the heart page? There is a remote possibility heart could be involved too.
https://www.guinealynx.info/heart.html

I wish I knew more and could better advise you.

alex117

Post   » Fri Oct 22, 2021 10:58 am


No worried at all, you are already helping me out by checking my thought process 😊!

Fortunately or unfortunately enough, Elisee had taught me well on their heart problem 😂. CHF is one of the cause that i ruled out early, milktea is a 2.5 year old female pig, the chance of having CHF is low, plus radiologist and vet doesnt find an enlarged heart. Also, there is no sign of weight decrease, no hooting sound, so i ruled this out early.

alex117

Post   » Fri Oct 22, 2021 7:08 pm


Another update, it is weird but here me out.

Today I went to an animal shelter to volunteer for 2 hours, and when i came back, milktea became very stressed again. In this 1.5 week, i have been out for 4 times, and everytime when i came back she is gonna be very stressed. The 3 other piggies does not exhibit this behavior change. And i can be very sure about there is no fight among them.

I dont have any other pet in my apartment, there is no noise in my neighborhood, and the room temperature is constant.

I know it sounds silly (and even me think this is silly).... but can the entire drama caused by she is scared when i am not in the apartment?

alex117

Post   » Sat Oct 23, 2021 12:57 am


More update... She still remains stressed

This time with some weight drop (-10g, down to 1125g). So, i fed her critical care... And I successfully feed her the entire spoon of critical care without any struggles or spill (thats more than 30g of critical care). And when i put her back to a cage(alone), she still grabs some lettuce and hay to eat.... For me, a sick pig will not have this appetite....

However, when during the syringe feeding, i sense her body vibrates sometimes... (I believe that means she is scared).

With the xray, i started to think it may really be the stress causing everything....

bpatters
And got the T-shirt

Post   » Sat Oct 23, 2021 10:24 am


Ten grams is not a significant weight drop. That's about the weight of one good poop or pee, so it can be completely due to whatever she's had to eat or drink or has excreted since the last time you weighed her.

The best time to weigh a pig is first thing in the morning, before breakfast. You'll be weighing more pig and less food. Track the weights over time, and keep a record of them. Small fluctuations are nothing to worry about.

Are you considering that she's stressed because she ran away and didn't want to be petted? Sounds like normal guinea pig behavior to me.

alex117

Post   » Sat Oct 23, 2021 1:20 pm


@bpatters agree, 10g isnt a weight drop and i am not too worried about this.

The reason i measure it more than 2 times a day is i am trying to get the trend of her weight. By constantly acquiring data points for like a week or so, you will see a trend (at least i can), because you can get a range of her weight and a normalized weight fluctuation. The way i see or i use those "weight" data is i only treat it like a supplemental metric and never rely on this trend as an alert, meaning if i see a pig drops a lot (her lowest point) with no other clinical symptoms of illness, i wouldn't be worry about it and tune her weight fluctuation model (get the diff and divided by time [the actual computation that i do involve more variable, such as food consumption on X hour(depends on food type) and the rate of the decrease over time).

Going back to Milktea's case, she was hiding on one single place, which is very different than her personality, smaller poop, and sign of distress, that 10g drop become somewhat a relevant signal.

Also, she likes getting petted and sort of an explorer in the herd.

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