Reba: Satin w/arthritis, bone loss, & teeth issues

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mammabear66
With a Touch of Insanity

Post   » Sun Sep 25, 2005 8:59 pm


I wonder if that would be useful for Momma - except that she definitely does NOT need to gain weight!

Any info on Glucosamine/Chondroitin with pigs? I have some liquid supplements and am interested in trying her on it if it is deemed safe. It has helped my 2 dogs tremendously. All I have found so far concerning the dose is pinta's comment "and a pinch of vet grade glucosamine". How much is a pinch?!

I am thinking maybe 50mg Glocosamine since for up to a 10 pound dog is 94mg on the bottle I have. Or shoule I try 25mg?

Also, pinta, what is Cartrophen?

pinta

Post   » Mon Sep 26, 2005 1:45 am


Also, pinta, what is Cartrophen?

It's an arthritis drug that is injected monthly by the vet. Commonly used for dogs, I think. We've had success with it but do have a caution. Two heart pigs had an adverse reaction. One after she had gotten several injections with no incident. We pulled them both out with oxygen and basic heart triaging but it was enough to make my vet think twice about continuing treatments. But if I had a pig severely crippled by arthritis, I would use it in a heartbeat.

The odd thing is there is no reason why this drug should have any effect on the heart. Certainly doesn't in other animals. I forget what's in it but it's apparently pretty much natural stuff.

Fortunately I don't have any severe arthritis pigs right now so it isn't a consideration.

A pinch is however much I can hold between my forefinger and thumb. Not exact but close enough. I didn't find glucosamine that useful. It was good at the beginning but the pigs appeared to become immune to it in time and I stopped using it when there were no noticeable results.

My best results for arthritis pigs have come from light laser treatments devised by an animal physio therapist and from ultrasound treatments. Rimadyl was also a Godsend.

mammabear66
With a Touch of Insanity

Post   » Mon Sep 26, 2005 2:57 am


I think I will skip the Cartrophen for now then. She is definitely not severely crippled yet. Good to know for future reference tho.

Do the little laser lights work, or do I need a special one?

Reba is still having difficulty maintaining her weight but she is better at it than she was. She is down to needing about 30ml CC per day. Hopefullu her appetite will come up as the ABs get further out of her system and the Metacam gets further into her.

pinta

Post   » Mon Sep 26, 2005 5:07 pm


YOU NEED A ANIMAL PHYSIO THERAPIST TO SHOW YOU WHERE TO APPLY THE LASER BEAMS caps lock, They look at the xrays and determine the best way to treat. If you search you'll find info on the laser beam used.

You can actually necrotize the tissue if you do it wrong.

mammabear66
With a Touch of Insanity

Post   » Mon Sep 26, 2005 5:23 pm


Hey, you don't have to yell! :)
I wasn't planning on trying use the laser myself without a PT showing me how. I just wanted to know what to look for so that if I found a good deal on one I could grab it and be ready.

pinta

Post   » Mon Sep 26, 2005 5:34 pm


note "caps lock". I type looking at the keyboard and it gets hit by accident and I don't feel like retyping.

Do a search - I've posted the details a couple of times, I think.

mammabear66
With a Touch of Insanity

Post   » Mon Sep 26, 2005 5:41 pm


Yeah, I saw the caps lock - just messing with you. I do the same thing sometimes.

I did a brief search last nite cuz I know I have seen it posted somewhere. So far haven't found it, so I will have to try later. I was hoping somebody would remember without looking and save me the time of the search. I am drowning in school stuff right now - mine, my husband's, and 2 of my 3 kids!

I am thinking I may need to take her in to check her molars. I am gonna watch her thru today and then decide, but she tosses her veggies and I can't figure out if she is just weird or having problems eating.

mammabear66
With a Touch of Insanity

Post   » Thu Sep 29, 2005 3:55 am


Update;

Reba weighed in on Tuesday morning at only about 5 grams less than Monday nite. Tuesday nite she was the same. I hadn't given her any CC yet during the day because I wanted to see what she did on her own. I fed her about 10-15cc before I went to bed Tuesday nite. Wednesday morning she was UP almost 10 rams from the nite before! Wednesday nite she was the same weight, without any CC again.

YAY!

I also saw her WALK across the cage this morning, without ANY hopping! She has been coming out of her hidey spots and going TO the pellets and hay, instead of me taking them to her. I have observed several more short walks and even running throughout the day, as well as several instances that Radar got sprayed in the face! He evidently is aware that she feels better and has been doing his sexy walk all day. He is doing so as I type!

Actually he is being a little TOO sexy right now. I think I might need to go in and rescue poor Reba for a bit. It is time to medicate 3 out of the 5 piggies anyways. I found liquid GLucosamine/Chondroitin and am giving her that along with the Metacam, vitamin C, and the occassional dribble of liquid B12.

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Thu Sep 29, 2005 9:20 am


Good news. Was she at all incontinent during her ill time?

mammabear66
With a Touch of Insanity

Post   » Thu Sep 29, 2005 3:26 pm


There wasn't any incontinence that I noticed. She tended to pee where she was sleeping and get herself wet, but if we were holding her she would get squirmy and chatter at us when she had to pee, just like she always has.

Her weight was the same as it was last night - actually a couple grams higher. She had no CC at all yesterday, so she seems to be holding her own now. I stopped the CC long enough to see if she could eat enough on her own to maintain. I may still supplement some CC to try to bring her weight back up to normal tho. She lost almost 200 grams total.

Radar is still trying to be a sexy piggy stud. The girls look like they are ready to duct tape him to the roof.

mammabear66
With a Touch of Insanity

Post   » Mon Apr 03, 2006 6:03 pm


This is going to be long, but it is a LOT of info so PLEASE read! . I have been procrastinating posting this all weekend because it just makes it more, well ... real. And I don’t need any more reality. I just got Radar to the point that he has gone 1 month with no sign of abscess or infection and I thought I might be in the clear for a while. I had been dealing with Radar continually since last June (on and off since February 2005)and really thought I was going to lose him. Now I can breathe easier with him but am faced with this.

At the end of February Reba came down with a URI. It cleared up quickly with meds, but then I noticed possible teeth issues. She was having difficulty eating and her weight began dropping. The vet trimmed/filed her molars on 3/14 and all looked fairly good at that point. She wouldn’t eat pellets but has never really done so anyways. She tried to eat veggies, which was a slow process but she managed to get some down. The same with hay. I was told it may take a couple weeks for her to be able to eat on her own.

Things went OK for the first week or so, and then I noticed she was trying less and less to eat on her own. Over the next several days she got to the point that she stopped trying her veggies and hay at all and only wanted the syringe. She will eagerly eat 30 to 50 grams (minus what hits the towel) of CC/mash at each meal, along with several syringes of water.

I can get 4 or 5 meals into her each day. It is slow – it takes 1 to 2 hours each meal – but she is very willing to eat it. I try not to add up the total hours a day that I am spending with a syringe of CC in my hand, but even that does not seem to be enough. It has to be fairly runny for her to be able to eat it. I need to figure out how to add calories to the amount I am giving her. She was down to 650 grams on Saturday. I basically spent the weekend doing almost nothing but feeding her and feeding her and feeding her. I didn’t even spend any quality time with my daughter for her birthday Saturday. I sang Happy Birthday and watched her blow out candles whole feeding a pig. This morning her weight was 670 grams! YAY! This was also after going 11 hours without a feeding due to the migraine that hit me last nite. The fact that she maintained this much is fantastic to me!

Friday we went back to the vet. I asked for x-rays to look for elongated roots or anything that may have been missed. The vet said it was hard to tell but the roots looked like they curled at the end and were possibly overgrown. She also took some body shots. She said her spine is full of arthritis. She showed me where you could see individual vertebrae up by her shoulders but then it all kinda turns to looking like mush. She also remarked that her bones looked funny – thin and mottled. We discussed the possible calcium issues and dug up her x-ray from September. The vet thought that there was a pretty severe difference for only 6 months. What makes it worse is that Reba has already been getting calcium supplements since September!

The vet didn’t have a way of scanning the x-rays so she sent them home with me to post on here. She is open to any input. She doubled Reba’s Metacam to .1cc per day. I just saw the Cartrophen post from September. We had decided it wasn’t needed yet before, but I am going to bring it up again. I forgot about it. The vet also has no clue as to how much calcium we can increase to. She realizes there are kidney stone issues with high doses but at this point that is a minor issue here. She asked me to find out what the highest dose of calcium is that has been used here.

Reba has tried to eat lettuce again over the last couple days. She stands on it and tries to rip it with her teeth. She will also try apples and oranges with some success. Everything takes forever for her to eat tho. She also tried out my hamburger bun last nite while I was feeding her and I both. She got so excited at actually successfully getting a bite of it that I let her go ahead and eat some. I know it isn’t good for her but at this point I am grasping at straws and figure that maybe it will encourage her to try other foods without fear of failure.

I am going to go ahead and get this posted even tho x-rays are not ready to post. I will try to add them in a bit, after I feed Reba again!

User avatar
Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Mon Apr 03, 2006 8:04 pm


Is Reba a satin? Is there any thickening of the jaw? Man, it sounds like you are having a difficult time trying to get food into her. I know Pinta will have some suggestions for you.

If you have copies of both xrays, that would be great. I think you can photograph them. aqh88 on an adjacent thread just put up some xrays.

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