[Gpdd] Health: Otto the Very Vocal Guinea Pig is ailing!

Guineapigfilms at aol.com Guineapigfilms at aol.com
Sat Aug 20 19:36:03 EDT 2011


We just got back from basically two weeks on the road. (We came home for 
less than 24 hours in between two separate trips.) My mom died this summer, 
and I've been working on getting her house in Texas ready to sell, etc.

Our flight was delayed by about two hours last night, so we didn't get back 
to our house (an hour-and-a-half drive from the airport) until early this 
morning. Our two dogs were fine, but Otto was definitely NOT doing well.

We had a petsitter (very good with animals) staying at our house while we 
were away. She is very good with our pets (but only about 16 years old). She 
has a good heart for animals. However, she started back to school last week 
so may not have been able to give the pets the attention the past few days 
that she normally does. I did call several times, and she assured me that 
everyone was fine.

Well, Otto was rescued from an animal shelter (by Alyssa) more than 8 years 
ago, and he was not a baby then, so he is a VERY senior citizen pig. He may 
be over 10 years old. All these years, he's been completely well and happy, 
always wheeking for treats. And we know that the people who turned him in 
to the shelter did not care for him properly, so it's a wonder that he has 
lasted this long without any health problems whatsoever.

Alyssa noticed a couple of weeks ago that he had stopped wheeking whenever 
he heard the fridge door open or when he heard us coming downstairs. She 
deduced (correctly) that he had gone deaf from old age. He also has a cataract 
in one eye, but he could still see well enough to begin wheeking whenever he 
noticed someone near his cage.

Anyway, when we got home, Otto's eyes looked sunken, and he was barely 
moving. When he did move, he moved very jerkily. He wasn't "talking" at all. 
This was very unusual. Plus, there was still a full bowl of food and a full 
water bottle in his pen. And, when I placed a baby carrot (usually his favorite 
treat) next to him, he totally ignored it.

We thought maybe he'd had a stroke or that he was having mini-seizures. (We 
had witnessed both of these in other guinea pigs we've had, just before 
they'd died.)

I was in a panic situation, as we only have one vet in our area who is at 
all knowledgeable about guinea pigs. (Once she had a subsitute vet at her 
clinic when one of our other guinea pigs got really sick, and the substitute 
was even less knowledgeable--insisted on anaesthesizing Waldo in order to 
X-ray him, then insisting that there was absolutely nothing wrong with him, even 
though he kept losing weight. Waldo died, and I hold that vet partly to 
blame.)

Anyway, thankfully, the vet was in the office this morning and agreed to 
see Otto on an emergency basis (for $80). We brought him in, swaddled in a 
towel. He actually seemed better this morning, moving a bit. His eyes looked 
better. He walked to his food dish, but seemingly couldn't eat. I noticed 
there were teeth marks (ridges) all over the baby carrot I had offered him the 
night before (but the carrot was not eaten), so I thought maybe the problem 
was with his teeth.

The vet did a thorough examination, and said his teeth looked "very, very 
old," but they weren't overly long. (She couldn't see the back teeth, 
though.) She noticed that his hair was coming out in handfuls whenever you touched 
his back. (I had noticed that earlier this morning--this had never happened 
before.) She said his heart was racing and that it was more of an effort for 
him to breathe in than to breathe out. She is afraid that he has heart 
failure. He weighs 2.2 pounds.

She refused to give me any pain meds, and said that Metacam and Rimadyl can 
both cause the kidneys to fail in very old piggies. She only gave me a 
package of Critical Care and a syringe to use this weekend. She is worried that 
he might not be able to swallow, since his teeth looked okay to her.

I am supposed to bring him back on Monday. I have been syringing the 
Critical Care into him and putting Hypo Tears drops in his eyes (she said his eyes 
were dry). 

I don't know how much of the Critical Care he is getting. He seems very e
ager, but a good deal of it comes right back out of his mouth. I'm not sure 
that he IS swallowing.

I asked her about giving Children's Ibuprofen or Tylenol or about whether I 
could help him to the Rainbow Bridge if he got worse again this weekend, 
and she vetoed all those measures. She said that he would definitely not die 
this weekend, and that she would see him on Monday.

Any advice? I don't want him to suffer (and neither does Alyssa), and she 
wouldn't give me anything for pain. What if he gets really bad again before 
the vet office opens back up on Monday morning? How can I help him to the 
Rainbow Bridge?

The vet thought maybe he was just wearing out, as he's probably over 100 in 
"human age"!

Love and Wheeeeps,

Nancy & the Very Vocal Otto the Guinea Pig
http://www.carrotwars.com




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