Broken leg?

[Nannub]

I wanted to UPDATE you all on Victoria.
After a little bit over 9 months since the symptoms started, several months of treatment and everything that we went through with her, I'm happy to tell you guys that even though the joints in her back legs are stiff because the bones fused together, she's able to run across the cage again. She started getting up and learning to balance again with her legs and became stronger and stronger over the past few months and now she walks/runs across the cage, stands up when she sees us bringing veggies and it's always alert and happy. We're still giving her .04ml of metacam a day but some days it looks like she doesn't even need it. She's also back to her normal weight and we can see she's develop a lot of muscle again. We can no longer see her bones and she doesn't cry when picked up. Thanks everyone for keeping us in your thoughts during this time and for all the advice!

[Lynx]

What great news! I am so happy to hear she is doing so well. I hope she continues to do so for years.

[Nannub]

Thanks @Lynx !!! Me too!

[mmeadow]

Glad she is doing better!

I wanted to point out that new guidelines for meloxicam (Metacam) dosage give cavies much larger amounts of medication.

[Nannub]

Our vet gave us Meloxidyl (Meloxicam 1.5mg/mL Oral Suspension)
1 pound dose (0.04mL q24hs)
Does this sound correct?

[mmeadow]

No, it sounds very low. I would check that your vet is using up-to-date guidelines.

Someone check my math? but 0.04ml of meloxicam at 1.5ml/ml is only 0.06mg of the drug.

(Also, it's unusual to see a 1 pound dose; it's usually by kilogram.)

More discussion here.

[Clint The Cuy]

Your math is very correct mmeadow. And yes that is an extremely low dose.

[Nannub]

When she was sick she was taking .2mL q24hs by another vet (and that vet failed to diagnose her and we lost precious time trying to figure out what was wrong and why she was getting worse and worse).
We changed vets and she treated her and thanks to her she made a recovery. Now she's only getting that amount because it's only to make her comfortable in days where she's a little bit sore because of her arthritis. Vet explained to us that prolonged used of Metacam can cause, if I remember correctly, kidney damage (correct me if I'm wrong). Since she's so young (she just turned 2) and she doesn't seem uncomfortable most of the time vet believed this was a good plan and also told us to call her or take her in if it seemed like this dose wasn't enough or she was in pain.

Our main priority was always to make her as comfortable as possible and we put her quality of life over quantity. I really appreciate your input on this guys!

[Nannub]

We'll talk to our vet about it.
Forgot to mention that when Victoria started improving she was only at 600grams, she lost almost 200 grams during the months she was very very sick. So she based the dose on the current weight she was at that point I'm guessing!

I'm just glad that she's still with us and improving every day!!! We thought we'd lose our sweet potato!

[mmeadow]

I can't evaluate the risk of kidney damage, but I do know that my certified exotics vet explained to me that the guidelines changed a few years ago. Here's recent example of guidelines that suggest 0.5/kg. I have a sow on long-term hospice care who is receiving that dose. (Unfortunately, most of the references I could find quickly were from university-based animal research labs.)

[Lynx]

I should update the analgesics page. I use two different computers and the one that has the files I need to edit I don't usually use so I sometimes forget! The most recent Carpenter's Exotic Animal Formulary mentions >= (up-to/equal-to) 0.5mg/kg PO, SC q24h for guinea pigs. Splitting the dose and giving every 12 hours works well for guinea pigs too (while not listed, several vets have done this for member's guinea pigs).