Toffee's Pneumonia Thread (guinea pig)

[chesca_27]

Hi everyone!

So I think this is gonna be a long post but this will be a thread all about my guinea pig, Toffee. I'll give you a little bit of background information on Toffee.

Toffee is a 5 year 1 month and 2 week old guinea pig (approx). We adopted him at 14 weeks old from my local Pets at Home with my other piggy, Oreo. They were adopted on Sunday 17th September 2011. I have dealt with numerous health issues for both of them (a result of bad genetics and breeding probably) over the past (nearly) 5 years. They have always lived outside during the warmer months and inside during winter. Both of my piggies love being handled and are very tame.

Fast forward to last April. Toffee randomly started making this crackling noise. I looked up on Guinea Lynx symptoms of illness. Immediately, I found results and that crackling noises were usually a sign of a URI (Upper Respiratory Infection). We phoned our vet for advice and they told us to bring him straight in. I'm lucky my vets are on our local high street and it only takes a few minutes to get there.

My mum and I get to the vets and the vets efficiently take him out to the back when they have emergency appointments. We wait for what feels like forever and finally one of the veterinary nurses emerge to inform me that Toffee has caught pneumonia. I was honestly shocked because I did not understand how he caught it. Also, I was really worried because all I knew about pneumonia was that it is associated with being cold and bad stuff.

He was put on antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory along with an anti-inflammatory shot. It worked, for a bit. I was also told that we had caught his pneumonia very early (within eight hours).

But then the relapses started.

Toffee had quite a few relapses last summer up until about September. I think it was three. They each got better then got worse again. He would constantly have a runny nose.

In December 2015 (approx), we took Toffee to the vet again with Oreo for a nail trim. I had a very long chat with the vet about his constant runny nose. The vet explained that the pneumonia had most likely damaged his respiratory system (or something like that) and that the runny nose was a result of this. As well as this, he would probably always have a runny nose.

I accepted that his nose would always be runny, but steadily after the last few months, it got worse.

A couple of weeks ago, he started crackling again and his nose became constantly extremely runny.. He was put on 0.5 ml septrin paediatric twice a day for 5 days. The pneumonia got better very quickly. I was told that, again I had caught it very early, maybe almost too early.

Last night though, he started crackling worse than ever. My mum and I decided to take him to the vets today.

After speaking to the vets and having Toffee examined (he weighed 1.135 kilos I think) this afternoon, the vet decided the best thing to do was monitor him for 48 hours and then decide if it needed treating with antibiotics. I believe we were given Baytril. She came to this decision because he only seems to get worse in summer/spring and thinks it could be an allergy like hayfever. I will be closely monitoring him. I did enquire about it being a heart condition, but the vet said it was unlikely as his heart sounded fine. She said there didn't seem to be any fluid in his lungs, though which is good. Edit: I forgot to mention in this part that I haven't see any crackling today.

After, Toffee was lovingly fed plenty of flaked peas and is now sitting beside me, in his Bunny Snug (from PiggiePigPigs) with Oreo.

I think that's everything that I can remember in as much detail as possible. Well done if you made it this far lol. I hope it all makes sense as well.

Does anyone else have any experience with guinea pig pneumonia or any suggestions on treating it? I will add another post later on getting my piggy to take antibiotics and some cute piggy photos.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

[Piebald]

Hi chesca, I don't have that kind of guinea pig experience but my Mum had a cat with allergies. She would get wheezie with asthma and need a tablet. Seems weird but it happens. Who knew there was kitty antihistamine. Maybe it works for guinea pigs? Good luck.