Fergie's Medical Thread

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Wed Oct 25, 2017 9:33 pm


I am glad to hear she has gotten over this incident. I hope the Baytril helps clear her lungs and that she continues to improve.

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TheFerg

Post   » Tue Nov 07, 2017 6:11 pm


She has improved quite a bit from bloat, but is still slightly gassy. They think it's because of the labored breathing and perhaps a side effect of the rhinitis she was diagnosed with earlier this summer - the funky breathing drawing in extra gas, etc. She hasn't tootied on me much lately but she also hasn't swelled up.

She just kept deteriorating and her weight kept dropping. She fought really hard against critical care and would spit out as much as she could (~ half) of what little I could get in her mouth. So back to the vet we went. She spent all day hunched in a ball near the hay rack or in the corner of the cage, not in her usual spots, and her breathing kept having really scary patches. So 2 days before Baytril ended we saw the vet again.

New x-rays show her lungs are worse than before, not better. They think it's either pneumonia or lung cancer. She's too weak right now to be anesthetized for an aspiration to see if we can get a culture or determine if it's lung cancer. If it's cancer we could skip the antibiotics and any potential side effects and just keep her comfortable. But if it's an infection we can treat it more specifically.

So, given that wasn't an option for her in her current state, we settled on TMS instead of Baytrill and she's on a 3 week course to start with. We will re-check in 3 weeks unless she gets worse before then. Her right lunch is completely fully of gunk, her left is about half full. She just looks so miserable but then when I pet her or give veggies, she perks up, the lgiht comes back into her eyes, and she's totally "Fergie". So I don't know what to do...I feel bad she's so miserable for a significant chunk of each day but then she rebounds when I interact with her so I don't feel she's ready to say goodbye yet.

I don't know how we got here, and frankly I'm pretty upset. We've been to the vet weekly for the past months, thousands of dollars in vet bills (especially with her cage-mate Astrid also having some concerns lately and a small surgery), several x-rays. How could they not have found this sooner? I brought up my concerns about her breathing repeatedly. But I'm trying not to focus on that - people make mistakes, things can be missed, etc. But it's frustrating to feel we've let her down and not focus on what else could have been done to prevent getting to this level of deterioration.

Anyway here are her x-rays, I circled the lungs. The white cloudy part is all the infection/cancer (orange), and the black part is air. (green circled area). Obviously they should be primarily black and full of air but they aren't. I'll also link to a video of her labored breathing, because it was kinda hard for me to find examples of that when I was researching.

<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="" title="Fergie Lung 01"><img src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4537/264 ... 8506bf.jpg" width="492" height="500" alt="Fergie Lung 01"></a>

She continues cisopride to help with any potential tummy upset from the antibiotics and to help alleviate the remaining gas in her system, she has metacam 2x/day for 5 days then as needed, and TMS for 3 weeks with new chest x-rays to reevaluate then. Until then the doctor recommended avoiding syringe feeding to reduce the stress on her so she doesn't further tax her lungs, and to monitor her weight daily. She was maintaining at 835 for several days so I stopped weighing her daily. 4 days later when I weighed her during cage clean she'd drop to 755g.

I am just so exhausted fro mall of this, and so sad to watch her suffer, but I'm hoping she'll pull through...
Last edited by TheFerg on Tue Nov 07, 2017 6:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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TheFerg

Post   » Tue Nov 07, 2017 6:12 pm


PS how do I get rid of all that text around the photo? I clicked the 'embed' option on Flickr and pasted it here. It shows the photo but all the data around it. When I remove that extra data, it won't show the photo. When I use the "img" tag in the editor it just says Image and won't show the photo. So i don't know what I'm doing wrong to get the pic to show up with all the html stuff around it. Thanks!

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Tue Nov 07, 2017 11:07 pm


I am so sorry she is having all these issues. Regarding the "gunk" in her lungs, I don't know if gentle tapping by drumming your fingers on her chest might help loosen it but it could. I think that is what another member did in a similar circumstance.

And if you'd like the xray added permanently to your thread, I can do so and remove the miscellaneous text.

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Kimera

Post   » Wed Nov 08, 2017 2:03 am


Re inserting photo- you need to right-click on the picture and select "copy the image address" from the menu. Then put the address between image tags in the editor.

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TheFerg

Post   » Sun Nov 12, 2017 8:37 pm


Kimera wrote: Wed Nov 08, 2017 2:03 am Re inserting photo- you need to right-click on the picture and select "copy the image address" from the menu. Then put the address between image tags in the editor.
Excellent, thanks Kimera!

@Lynx - thanks. I'll try that on her chest and see if it helps. It's been 6 days so far, so I don't expect big changes, but she still spends most of the day with her face pressed to the side of the cage and puffed out :( She did have a good day on Friday, sniffing around, sleeping in her usual cozy cave, and standing up on the edge of the cage begging for food even when it wasn't breakfast/dinner time. So it made me really happy and I hoped she was improving but today was a bad day. So, we'll see.

She keeps dropping weight, down to 709 today, so I started syringe feeding her again. Thankfully she didn't fight this time, so I am very grateful for that and will keep it up. It's so hard to balance "don't stress her out" and "don't let her lose weight" when they totally conflicted!

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Sun Nov 12, 2017 8:46 pm


Hoping she gets better!

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TheFerg

Post   » Tue Nov 14, 2017 7:59 pm


Thanks, Lynx

Emailed our vet, and recommended sticking with TMS and cisopride, and adding back in the metacam. Also going to pick up bene-bac to add to the mix, which he approved.

Question: He called this 'walking pneumonia' which from what I can gather via forum research and a bit of Google searching today is the Mycoplasma noted. I read through various threads for ~2 hours today and over and over it seems oral doxycycline or a g-named medicine administered by nebulizer are the only real solutions to true mycoplasma.

Fergie had a nasal culture this summer which was negative for anything (though, again, mycoplasma on the forums seems to indicate a false negative may be common). She had blood work done in the past couple of weeks and nothing came up - but I'm not sure if they tested for mycoplasma which it was noted by Lana is the only way to truly diagnose it in rats.

Also noted that myco is slow progressing; Fergie was a bit lethargic all summer and has coughed more, but we went to the vet repeatedly and were assured she was healthy. Kicking myself not for letting my fear of being "that mom" get in the way of pushing for more answers. After reading so much today I feel pretty convinced she had this all along and it's been festering and I could have done so much more to help her.

So I guess my questions are
1) Is it common to be on antibiotics for 7+ days with no discernible improvement?
2) Has anyone had success using TMS for myco? I saw plenty of references to bactirm/baytril, but didn't see TMS noted.
3) How was mcyo diagnosed for you? Our vet seems to have based it off of symptoms and lack of improvement after Baytril and her summer round of antibiotics when they initially diagnosed her with Rhinitus. [/list]

All of us are running a bit ragged over here from all of the care for Fergie, and cage mate Astrid (separate issue - lump on her face), on top of work demands and travel lately. I feel so bad for her, I just want to see her running around being a diva again.

User avatar
Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Wed Nov 15, 2017 8:52 am


Read over www.guinealynx.info/antibiotic_advice.html I think either on the antibiotic page or there, it is hoped you'd see improvement in maybe 2 or 3 days. It would be worth calling the vet and asking him these questions.

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TheFerg

Post   » Thu Nov 16, 2017 2:07 am


The email response I got was that we should wait longer to see improvement. I hadn't asked about TMS for myco in my email but did in the follow up; given Thursday is his surgery day he isn't likely to respond until Friday.

I think I'm going to go to another vet for a 2nd opinion. I called the rescue and got guidance on other good vets they've used, as I've only used Adobe Animal Hospital to date and want to go somewhere truly independent for a 2nd opinion.

Fergie also leans a lot to one side to alleviate the pressure from the bloating - one side of her tummy is more swollen than the other, and she doesn't lean on the foot on the swollen side. So now the foot she leans to looks weird and is also developing sores.

Image

I made an appt with Nakamura for Friday to look at her foot and get some wipes, and to ask more questions about the improvement and myco. My gut just keeps telling me we need to be doing something else but it's also hard to second guess someone who is so well known and respected, and I don't want to offend him. But I just feel like this isn't the right course so I need to get a second opinion to make myself feel better about either course of action - either pushing back harder on him, or feeling better about following the current guidance.

It's tough being a piggy servant!

User avatar
Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Thu Nov 16, 2017 9:00 am


Does it look like blood circulation to the foot is poor?

I don't know if gentle massage of the leg would help but could.

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TheFerg

Post   » Thu Nov 16, 2017 1:51 pm


Her foot seems normal, but I did note that she jerked 3 feet back when I applied an ointment last night, but she didn't pull in the fourth one with sores and I definitely expected it to be uncomfortable and her to react. So I'm wondering about the blood flow or nerve issues as well and have it on my list of questions.

The odd thing is her left foot was cold when I touched it, but her right foot with the sores was normal warmth. Given that she's OK with me touching it though, I'll try adding in some gentle massage to her ever growing list of special needs! Thanks for the advice, I hadn't thought of it but it makes sense.

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