Zyrtec's skin problem

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Wed Feb 27, 2019 10:59 am


I am so sorry he is getting worse. I know how hard this can be on you both.

annelie

Post   » Thu Feb 28, 2019 2:29 am


Lynx wrote: Wed Feb 27, 2019 10:59 am I am so sorry he is getting worse. I know how hard this can be on you both.
Thank you.. Yea it has been way too long now. On a bright note, the steroids is helping a lot. He is much happier, poop improved drastically and he is starting to gain some weight (from 770g to now 812g in 3 days, before illness many months ago he was 950g). This morning I even found him under a blanket that he rearranged into a tunnel to sleep in. That is something that he would never have the energy to do even few days ago so I am excited to see what each new day will bring from now on

annelie

Post   » Mon Mar 11, 2019 3:34 pm


Little update:
The pododermatitis is halted and basically fully treated with many epsom salt paw soaks for both of them. It also helped that Zyrtecs stool is better so they are not having poop-paws anymore :)
He is currently on Brit guinea pig pellets (alfalfa based unfortunately, but whatever works!) and for the first time he is slowly improving for over a week, instead of the normal 2 days of being ok followed by a decline. He is not getting any veggies as for now :( and therefore getting vitamin supplement.
He is on 1mg Encorton (prednisolone) that will be tapered down from tomorrow.

The one reason why I think this improvement is more stable than the short term ones before is that he is slowly but steadily gaining weight and he also trying to claim back the dominance over his buddy that he had before getting sick.

User avatar
Sef
I dissent.

Post   » Mon Mar 11, 2019 8:25 pm


Glad to hear there is some improvement!

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Tue Mar 12, 2019 1:43 pm


Thanks for the update.

So glad to hear things are going better!

annelie

Post   » Thu Mar 28, 2019 4:44 pm


Zyrtec is doing great, he is now ca 930grams (that's 100g in a month!) and doing well on steroids. We have a checkup tomorrow to evaluate the current 0.5mg/day dose (prednisone). It seems that this dose is his lower limit at the moment as he started to feel a bit itchy when we went from 0.75 to 0.5mg. As soon as we settle on a dose I can start messing around with his diet (i.e try to introduce veggies).

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Thu Mar 28, 2019 5:12 pm


Glad to hear he is doing well!

annelie

Post   » Fri Mar 29, 2019 6:16 am


I thought I would post the blood tests from today in case anyone is interested for reference. This is from a clinic that only treats rodents and values are after a month on prednisone (1mg stepwise decreased to 0.5mg). Z has very slight increase in hematocrit and Hb but nothing worrying (Its just a hydration issue but he drinks freely and plenty).
In parenthesis I listed given reference values that has same unit as value preceding parenthesis.

Hematology
  • WBC 11*10^9/L (7-14)
  • RBC 6.97 *10^12/L (3.2-8)
  • Hb 17.5 g/dL (10-17.2)
  • MCHC 30.7 g/L (28-39)
  • MCV 82.6fL (60-100)
  • MCH 25.3pg (22-28)
  • Hematocrit 52.5% (32-50)
  • PLT 352*10^9/L (260-740)
Biochemistry (Liver and kidney)
  • ALT 25.4 U/L (10-59)
  • AST 26.1 U/L (26-68)
  • Glucose 72.3 mg/dl (60-125)
  • Creatinine 0.5mg/dl (0.5-2.2)
  • Urea 20mg/dl (9-32)

annelie

Post   » Fri Sep 11, 2020 5:48 am


Hi everyone. i thought I would post an update now that it is known what the problem was.

Zyrtec died during surgery for suspected lymphoma. His heart stopped as the vet was stitching him up and resuscitation failed.
The vet thinks it was hereditary lymphoma and it probably progressed slowly during his whole life. In the end he had serious problems with gas and diarrhoea which in hindsight was due to small bowel obstruction.
In november 2019 all lab tests were normal and we were still treating his bowel problems as idiopathic. This monday a vet felt a palpable mass in the abdomen (not easily palpable for untrained hands) and he was admitted to the clinic and taken for ultrasound which showed 8cm affected lymph node with bowel, liver and spleen involvement. The surgery lasted several hours but it was too extensive for poor Zyrtec.

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Sef
I dissent.

Post   » Fri Sep 11, 2020 7:50 am


I'm so sorry that you lost him.

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Fri Sep 11, 2020 8:51 am


I am so very sorry you lost him, annelie. It sounds like the vet did a necropsy on Zyrtec. It was very helpful to me to know more about my guinea pig Kitten when she failed and that there was little I could have done. She had an internal tumor that had spread to several organs.

You have our sympathy.

bpatters
And got the T-shirt

Post   » Fri Sep 11, 2020 9:19 am


I''m so very sorry he's gone.

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