[Gpdd] HEALTH: Some type of paralysis / poisoning

[Julie]

Hi to everyone and their furry masters,
 
Our (my sister's) Hamish has been taken ill quite suddenly.   According
to my Peter Gurney piggy potions book, it sounds like Hamish has had
organic poisoning.  We have absolutely no idea how this happened.
Today was a very hot day in Brisbane; we kept the piggies upstairs in
the air conditioning until quite late in the afternoon, put them
downstairs into their cages on the grass and about 1.5 hours later
brought them up to their inside cages.   A few minutes later I noticed
Hamish was not moving very well, actually he was almost rolling around,
as if he was coming out of anaesthetic or drunk.     He can't keep his
head up and according to Piggy Potions that's a sure sign of organic
poisoning.  We rushed him to our local vet, who knows nothing about
piggies(!), all she did was take his temperature and report he had low
temperature, gave him a syringe of calcium and said there's a pig expert
vet just back from England starting tomorrow morning at another vet and
gave us phone details!    Yeh, sure... if Hamish makes it through the
night.
 
It was after Kathy came home from the vet that I started researching
through Peter Gurney books and Kathy and I finally worked out it must be
poisoning because all the symptoms are exactly the same as described by
Peter Gurney - tremors, fits, can't hold his head up, nor eat even
though he wants to, and he is rolling around from side to side, just
like he was drunk or coming out of anaesthetic.    We started syringe
feeding Hamish immediately with some critical care to keep vitamins up.
Then, based on Peter Gurney's recommendations, I spent over 2 hours
driving around Brisbane looking for a shop or chemist that was open and
that sold charcoal tablets.      We gave him 100mg of charcoal mixed
with little water through syringe; and 1 hour later we gave  him 1.5ml
of paraffin oil.    He's had syringe of vitamin C; and we bought some
gastrolyte to replace electrolytes in his system and have given him a
couple of mls of that after the paraffin.
 
I pray we still have our Hamish in the morning, when I'll take him to a
pig vet to get a vitamin B subcutaneous injection as recommended by
Peter Gurney.
 
I've come to the conclusion that most vets know absolutely nothing about
our furry masters, (and probably don't care enough to learn either!) and
that it is actual experienced owners or rescue centres for piggies that
have the valuable cavy knowledge.   I rang a lady who runs a rescue
centre in Brisbane (she has over 100 piggies) and she agreed it sounded
like poisoning and said we were doing everything correctly.   She says
there are two vets in Brisbane who have any cavy knowledge, and I
normally go to one of them!   How's that for a city of over 1million
people?
 
We've now put Hamish to bed, with some tempting food and will check on
him through the night and pray by morning he's still with us and slowly
on the road to recovery.     
 
Dearest Steve Irwin always said "Crocs rule" - well, in our lives -
"Piggies rule"!         My biggest dream is to have our piggies just
live out their normal lives happily, contentedly, enjoyably and in good
health with no suffering, and eventually cross that Bridge for no other
reason than old age.  
 
Best wishes to all piggies and their slaves,
Julie & Kathy and the fur clan.