Help! How can I make my bloated pig more comfortable?

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Thu May 24, 2018 9:11 am


You have the right to ask about cost at the time of service. This is very important to pet owners. If it is going to be expensive, I want to know ahead of time.

With what you describe I would have suggested looking for stones. I trust your vet looked closely at the xray that was taken.

I am sorry I can't answer your other questions.

bpatters
And got the T-shirt

Post   » Thu May 24, 2018 12:32 pm


My vet gives me a printed itemized estimate of costs before any procedure, and tells me which ones are absolutely necessary and which ones could be skipped if the cost is too much. He's also nice enough to give me both a multiple animal and a senior discount.

I wouldn't worry abut the metacam. We've seen pigs on it for years with no problems.

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JamesandClouseau

Post   » Tue Jun 05, 2018 5:01 pm


He seemed to be doing better, but then pulled a tag off of a syringe we were given that marked the spot to fill the syringe to (it was stupid to leave it on!!!). Since then his sides have become distended and hard, and he's been very slow passing poops (and usually eats them right afterwards). He won't eat hay but will eat mashed up bits of hay mixed with water, critical care, and pumpkin. We aren't sure how much pumpkin we can give him that's safe. We've been vibrating him a lot on our massage pad. Could the plastic have gotten stuck in his intestines? It's a small plastic tag. This happened roughly two days ago. Ugh!

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Tue Jun 05, 2018 8:57 pm


If he is bloated, this is an emergency. I do not know if the plastic is at fault or not.
www.guinealynx.info/emergency.html#bloat

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JamesandClouseau

Post   » Tue Jun 05, 2018 9:53 pm


He's had bloat before (he had an extremely bad case two years ago which almost took him out and since then will get these cases of extreme constipation off and on) so we're treating it like we usually do - Metacam so he's willing to eat, watery critical care and some pumpkin, plenty of time on the massage pad, rubbing his stomach and getting him to run some. He is passing poops and will eat some hay, so it doesn't seem like a true bloat, but passing stool seems to be painful for him. I guess we will see if it passes and if the plastic passes with it.

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JamesandClouseau

Post   » Wed Jun 06, 2018 10:26 am


Morning update: woke up and he looked a lot better! Sides are soft and no longer distended, fur is sleek, eyes are bright, and came screaming at me for food! Hoping he continues this upwards trend. Thank goodness for pumpkin!

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Wed Jun 06, 2018 10:53 am


Very encouraging! It sounds like you are over the worst. I hope he continues to improve and have good appetite.

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JamesandClouseau

Post   » Thu Jun 07, 2018 12:10 pm


James is not doing well again this morning. His sides are soft but he is refusing to eat so we have to force feed him. His stools are very light colored and few. He is puffed out again and stays in his house all day. Will nose through hay but won't eat it. He has only a few more days on the Baytril. Wondering if this could partly be causing it? He's been on it for over a week with a lot of ups and downs like this.

Honestly at a loss though, so here are a list of observations and I'd be grateful for any guesses as to what is going on.
  • His poops are lighter today and they vary in size. Some are quite long while others are very short and narrow.
  • He refuses to eat but while being syringe fed critical care he sometimes suddenly remembers he is quite hungry and keeps reaching for the syringe. After he will eat a few strands of hay when previously refusing.
  • He chews for a long time after eating critical care. The vet said he has no current teeth problems (in the past he has) and she did take X-rays.
  • Sometimes when eating hay he will drop the strand midway through it, finish chewing his current mouthful, and then pick it up and continue. He used to eat entire pieces at once.
  • He feels a lot thinner. I weighed him this morning and he was at 930 grams. Unfortunately we haven't weighed him in a long long time but his weight used to be just over 1000 grams and this was after not eating much this morning so it hasn't been a severely drastic weight loss (his brother Clouseau fluctuated a lot more when mildly ill).
  • He's had this thing for a while where on the left side of his stomach you could feel a long hard coil/tube on his side. We've always assumed that might be part of his large intestine when constipated? Has anyway else ever felt this on their pig? He squeaks in distress if more than a gentle stroke of pressure is put on it. Usually you can feel it when he is bloated but today his sides are quite soft and the coil is still very hard.
  • He did eat a plastic tag the day before his symptoms fired up again. Could it be stuck on the lining of one of his intestines causing pain?
At this point willing to try anything to get him better.

User avatar
Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Thu Jun 07, 2018 12:16 pm


I am sorry I don't have much in the way of advice to offer. Do look over www.guinealynx.info/antibiotic_advice.html (yes, the Baytril can disrupt things).
Do weigh daily right now. Do you have any pain medication in case it is affecting his appetite or ability to eat?

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JamesandClouseau

Post   » Thu Jun 07, 2018 12:44 pm


My mom has been handling the antibiotics - he's actually been on Baytril for 2.5 weeks. The vet had prescribed 3 weeks. We're taking him off of it now - it's certainly not helping him. We are trying to obtain his X-rays right now. We do have Metacam that we have him on.

User avatar
Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Thu Jun 07, 2018 2:42 pm


I would also consult with the vet and bring up stopping the antibiotic. You don't want to stop giving antibiotics without letting the vet know.

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JamesandClouseau

Post   » Thu Jun 07, 2018 10:18 pm


We called the vet and only the vet tech was still in. The vet tech thought that stopping the Baytril at this point would not make a difference. James did perk up today after his dose of Metacam. We are pulling him from the Baytril anyway; there are only a few days left and he's been weird since we put him on it. We are actually planning on leaving this vet's office; when we took him in for his most recent they did not disclose the costs of any exams they did on him nor told us if the exam would make a difference or not as to whether we would be able to help him recover. We agreed to them and should have definitely asked the cost before each exam but were frazzled - the bill ended up being just short of $1,000. The vet sent out blood work to another lab for additional analysis, and upon calling the vet today to ask about the antibiotic, I asked for the results of the tests. The vet tech checked and apparently our vet has not analyzed them yet - 2 weeks later! In addition, they carried out a prescription for a painkiller for James which we did not approve, and only sent one of the four X-rays they took when we asked for all of the X-rays to be sent to us. We will see how he does without the Baytril

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