Legend's Medical Thread - Not Eating

Talishan
You can quote me

Post   » Thu Jun 22, 2017 7:39 pm


Believe it or not, Pedialyte has enough dextrose in it to be a mold factory, and there's no preservatives in it. I agree with you, though -- I tasted it once and it baffles me that the pigs love it. Glad they do, though.

Also glad to hear you got the x-ray; I was wrong on that one, and it was great they could get most of Little One's stones out.

Best to both of them. Keep pushing the CC and fluids, and please keep us posted.

groundbeef

Post   » Fri Jun 23, 2017 6:54 pm


Things today are pretty much status quo. Mopey and eating very little all day, nearly normal right after their 5 o'clock dinner. (Which takes around an hour or so in total for two pigs.)

We had an interesting observation, though. They are on Meloxidyl once daily (works out to about .5 mg/kg, if I did the math right: .38mL of 1.5mg/mL for 1150g pig). We've been giving it to them at 5:00 PM. How quickly does this stuff work? Could that be why the sudden burst of energy? I'm thinking of splitting it half morning/half evening tomorrow.

groundbeef

Post   » Fri Jun 23, 2017 8:33 pm


Further update - the vet just called with the results of Legend's blood test. Everything was normal except for some elevated protein levels, which they attributed to dehydration. So we're going to go for sub-q fluids once a day for 4 days.

She said to go ahead and try splitting the Meloxidyl and see what happens.

Talishan
You can quote me

Post   » Fri Jun 23, 2017 8:48 pm


I've almost always had better success giving pain meds twice a day. Meloxicam is supposed to stay "on board" for 24 hours but in my experience it's more like 18-21. A smaller dose twice a day has usually worked better for us, especially with low-grade, chronic conditions like arthritis.

It seems to take effect maybe 25-45 minutes post-administration, at least usually for ours. It's an NSAID, so that makes a certain amount of sense; it'll work about the same as if you take an Advil.

The after-dinner energy boost may simply be from the food, and from the fact that most like their greens and get excited about them. But that'd also be about when the meloxicam kicks in ... so yeah on that score; your observation makes sense.

groundbeef

Post   » Sat Jun 24, 2017 9:55 pm


Things have been better through the day but not as good in the evening with the split dose of Meloxidyl. We'll ask the vet about additional pain meds when we're in for fluids tomorrow.

We mixed in some canned pumpkin with their CC. Legend can't get enough. He bites at the syringe when you try to take it away, and he is volunteering to take nearly double what we've been forcing him to eat. He's also eating more on his own.

Unfortunately, Little One is not so impressed with the pumpkin. We tried a small amount of berries in hers, since she liked the berry flavored medicine, but I think she likes it less than the plain stuff. I asked at the pharmacy if I could buy some of their flavoring, but they wouldn't sell it to me.

Talishan
You can quote me

Post   » Sun Jun 25, 2017 2:26 am


Try experimenting with different mix-ins for Critical Care. Carrot baby food, squash baby food, some of the vegetable blends that come in squeeze packets may make the CC more palatable to Little One. In my experience (only), fruits and CC don't seem to mix too well.

If you have the original (anise) flavor CC, you can try the apple-banana flavor. Some pigs prefer it, and they're usually sows, interestingly enough, in my experience.

You may be able to go up a little on the meloxicam dose, too. Please let us know what the vet says.

Continuing well wishes to them and to you.

groundbeef

Post   » Mon Jun 26, 2017 2:44 pm


Not much change from yesterday, but I want to keep doing regular updates. I've looked at a lot of threads on here that just end with no resolution, good or bad, and I don't want to do that.

I spoke to the Dr. yesterday about upping their Meloxidyl. She said she had concerns about increasing their dose, since it cleared through the kidneys and they were looking a bit dehydrated. She did offer to add another pain med, and we'll be picking that up this evening. I'm hoping for good things.

We tried squash and carrot baby food. Nothing as dramatic as Legend with the pumpkin (although, he's less excited about that now), but Little One did seem to like the squash a little more than anything else we've tried. I ate some of the left over berries, since the pigs didn't want them. Yuck. Apparently something happens to the sweetness when they're frozen.

We do have the apple-banana flavor. I'm wondering if it makes some bad combinations with things they otherwise would like. We debated getting the other kind, since we were running low, but decided not to rock the boat.

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Mon Jun 26, 2017 10:55 pm


Yes, frozen fruits don't always work well.

Hoping for improvement!

Talishan
You can quote me

Post   » Tue Jun 27, 2017 3:58 am


Keep going. Sometimes they recover just when your energy is about to give out for good. :-p

And thank you for the updates. I too wonder about the little ones we never hear back about. It's nice for us to see followups.

What's the other pain med?

groundbeef

Post   » Tue Jun 27, 2017 2:27 pm


Gabapentin. It's a controlled substance, so you know it's good. If we can teach them to smoke, they'll have the munchies in no time.

Seriously, they said it might make them sleepy, so we did a dose at bed time last night, and noon today. This morning they were quite perky and eating some on their own. After breakfast with Meloxidyl, they kept on munching away to the point that I didn't give them quite so much CC for lunch. After lunch, they crawled in their hidey hole and went to sleep. I have very high hopes for this evening.




On another note, I'm going to throw in a mini-review of syringes. The real reason they're feeling better is because we just received a huge box of 3ml syringes from Amazon. We've been filling 5 or 6ml syringes from the top with a spoon, and using those to fill 3ml ones that we feed to them. We also have some 1ml syringes for medication. I had trouble drawing the CC into the syringes at first, but I tried it again today and it went pretty smoothly, so maybe the 5ml thing is redundant now. I think I'm mixing the CC a little thinner.

We've been grabbing a handful of syringes anytime we were at the vets office. The 3's and 5's they had were Monoject brand, and the 1's had been Baxter ExactaMed. They all worked very smoothly until they had been washed a few times. We threw them away when they got sticky. The new ones we ordered are 6cc Monojects, which are the same what we got from the vet, just bigger.

The new 3cc ones are Care Touch brand. They aren't quite as smooth as the Monoject, but it's not different enough to complain about. The important difference, though, is that the Care Touch has a little ring molded into the top that keeps you from accidentally pulling the plunger out. If you're drawing up meds, that's probably a nice addition. If you fill them from the top, like I had been, it's hard to get the plunger back in without making a mess. It snaps in place abruptly and squirts a half cc of CC out the tip. I'm getting the technique down of leaving some air at the end and putting my finger over it, but it's a little bit of a nuisance.

The last few 1cc syringes the vet gave us were Monoject brand. Our Meloxidyl and Lactulose come in these awesome little containers that have a little cone shaped opening in the top. You stick the tip of the syringe in, turn it upside down, and pull out what you want. Quick and easy. However...The tips on the Monoject syringes are slightly smaller than the Baxters, and don't fit in the cone too well. It works, if a bit inconveniently, if you hold some pressure, but I'm going to keep our stash of Baxters for those two meds and use the Monojects for the stuff that comes in the regular bottles.

piggledy

Post   » Tue Jun 27, 2017 7:05 pm


I tried 1ml, 3ml, 5ml and baby feeding syringes and settled on using a "catheter-tipped" 15ml syringe which food never gets stuck in and seems to suit my guinea pigs' mouths just fine, which I found much better than anything else. Then a nice vet gave me 2 60ml catheter tipped syringes, which I haven't tried yet, but the tip is the same size and shape as the 15ml syringe. It's big enough to fit in a whole meal. It's similar to one on Amazon under "60ml (2 oz) Catherer Tip Syringe, Single Pack". Sorry, I didn't know I couldn't post links to them.

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Tue Jun 27, 2017 10:31 pm


I always used to use a 1cc syringe with the restrictive tip cut off. I was able to pretty easily fill it with one hand while the other held/restrained my guinea pig.

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