Posts Tagged ‘gi stasis’

Winnie is Eating ..

November 6th, 2008

.. on his own! Yay!

Proof:

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Another Vet Visit

October 24th, 2008

Today, Winnie went to see the vet .. AGAIN! Good news though :-D

From the last vet visit, this is what we’ve noticed:

  • The papaya enzyme tables that were supposed to help Winnie break down any build-ups in his stomach didn’t work.
  • What seemed to work real well is the fresh pineapple juice. Winnie has been given 3 ml of freshly squeezed pineapple juice. Apparently, it’s a homemade remedy for rabbits to get rid of hairballs.
  • Winnie IS getting better: he’s been more jumpy, has been eating pellets on his own, & doesn’t refuse treats :-)

I didn’t take Winnie, but this is what I was told:

  • That Winnie is getting better & not as gassy. Yay!!!
  • He doesn’t need to go on any medications, except for the GasX which we’ll have to continue for the next 3-5 days.
  • Maybe with a little help of electrolytes, his poop will become better.
  • Winnie has lost quite a bit of weight, Winnie was 480 grams at his first vet visit & today he weighs 410 grams.

The vet is optimistic about Winnie’s outlook & I’m glad that we decided to wait it out before proceeding to surgeries. In the meantime, we’ll still have to keep an eye on Winnie for the next week & reduce his syringe-feeding to encourage more pellet-eating.

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We’ll See ..

October 10th, 2008

Another quick Barium x-ray this morning. The x-ray picture was more promising today than yesterday’s. The vet said that she could see nicely formed poops in the x-ray picture and the poops look bigger than the small hard bead-sized ones that have been coming out of Winnie. The vet also felt Winnie’s tummy this morning, which was much less gassy than how it was yesterday. So, we’ll see this weekend how Winnie is doing with the pineapple juice, which I have a feeling has something to do with the bigger poop & the less gassy tummy :-D

I really do hope that we won’t have to go ahead with the surgery .. not only that it’s dangerous for Winnie, but it’s also dangerous for my wallet T.T

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To Operate or Not ..

October 10th, 2008

Winnie was dropped off at the vet this morning for an upper GI Barium study. Winnie was at the vet for the whole day.

When I talked to the vet, she explained that during the first hour, everything was passing through normally through Winnie’s gut. It was only later that the Barium seemed to have slightly disappeared, but vet could still see a little bit of illumination. That’s why she suspects it’s more likely a case of hairball (rather than virus). She gave me 2 options: surgery to remove the hairball OR continue on the medications & just wait it out.

If we go ahead with the surgery, there’s a 50-50 chance of Winnie surviving the surgery cry.gif Even if Winnie makes it through the surgery, recovery is also a critical period. BUT, continuing on the meds (taking into consideration that Winnie has been sick for this long .. 1 month this week) can take a toll on the liver Faint.gif Seems like a catch-22 .. if operate, 50-50 chance .. if prolong medication, liver problem & maybe even death, too ..

I’m going to need the weekend to think about the option of undergoing surgery or not. Tomorrow, the vet will be doing another Barium study.

Right now, Winnie’s back on the Metoclopramide. She also suggested that Winnie takes some papaya tablets & given fresh pineapple juice, because those have enzymes can help break down & lubricate the hairball. So, I went to buy a fresh pineapple, pureed the pineapple, & strained it. Winnie seems to really like drinking the pineapple juice out of the syringe :)

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Winnie’s Oral X-Ray

October 8th, 2008

My vet still couldn’t figure out why Winnie’s stomach is so gassy & she wanted to rule out any teeth problems. So my vet referred me to a dental vet. Even though my vet has x-rayed Winnie’s teeth when she was x-raying his stomach, my vet doesn’t have a special oral x-ray machine, so she wasn’t able to take pictures of the roots. Also, Winnie hasn’t been eating on his own & he’s not a big chewer in general (compared to Tubby). As a result, his molars were overgrown a little & my vet managed to trim Winnie’s molars.

The dental vet explained to me the worse scenario: Winnie’s upper tooth root overgrown, to the point that it can protrude to the eye (can cause vision loss) or the brain.

Good news though!! The dental vet said that Winnie’s teeth are healthy & as trim as they can get.


Can’t remember what picture this is, even though the dental vet explained it to me 0_o


View of the top incisors. Check out the large vestibular system (the 2 whitish oval shapes on the right), which is responsible for chinchilla’s great sense of balance. The dental vet said that chinchilla’s vestibular system is very large for its small body.

Winnie’s mouth from the right side. Dental vet said that this is the trimmest teeth a chin can have.

Winnie xray4

Winnie’s mouth from the left side.

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Gassy Winnie

September 27th, 2008

Another trip to the vet this morning.

Winnie is not out of the woods yet. Since he’s been taken off the Bene-Bac on Monday, it seemed as if he was getting better: his poop was oval & black (like how normal chinchilla poop is supposed to look like), but still small. A couple of days later, his poop returned to how they were before: small, bead-sized, & very hard. I also noticed that during feeding time, I could feel and hear popping noises coming from his stomach!

From 2 weeks of not chewing pellets, the vet suspected that the molars were overgrown & needed trimming (maybe another reason why he doesn’t want to eat on his own). When Winnie was under sedation, the vet could see that the molars were overgrown, but not too bad.

As for the popping noises, the vet said that the noises are gas moving around in Winnie’s digestive system. Vet doesn’t know what’s causing so much gas build-up. The reasons could range from: bacteria producing the excess gas, to air that was trapped in the food syringe. With all the gas in Winnie’s tummy, it just makes him feel bloated & full, hence another reason why he doesn’t feel like eating on his own. I’m still syringe-feeding him, because he wouldn’t touch his pellets! The strange thing is, he eats hay & grapes.

Now, he’s back on the Bene-bac, he’s still on the motility medicine, and on GasX (medicines for human infants to get rid of gas). I’m also reducing the amount of food I give him, hoping that he’ll get a little hungry to encourage him to eat on his own.

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Day Hospitalization

September 12th, 2008

Another appointment with the vet this morning, because I noticed that Winnie’s droppings are even smaller & less. His stomach feels real tight & bloated, vet said it’s most likely because the food he took in yesterday (from me force-feeding me) isn’t moving & pooped out properly.


At the animal clinic

X-ray with Iodine shows no irregular gas pattern or anything solid in his digestive tract. However, soft things like fur won’t show up on the x-ray. So, there could be a possibility that there are soft things stuck in his digestive tract. If there was something stuck in his digestive system, gas would build up in a certain area, causing him to bloat. Vet recommended that I hospitalize him for the day, so the vet could gas him & take his blood, give him some fluids, and gut motility medicine to stimulate the body to excrete on its own. I decided to go ahead with some blood works, because the weekend is coming & I want to be able to pinpoint his illness as soon as possible for my own peace of mind. The blood test will show any abnormal count of white blood cell (hints of parasitic or viral infection). Worse comes to worse, it’s some of kind of internal organ failure, like the kidney. The vet is very apprehensive about surgically figuring out what’s wrong with him. So, at this point she’s trying the best she can to use non-invasive methods.

I continually called the vet to check up on him. Even with the help of medication, Winnie still isn’t pooping normally. The vet doesn’t want Winnie to go into shock because of gut stasis.

Let’s hope for the best.

**UPDATE**


In the car, Winnie rides shotgun

Winnie came back home with more medications: pain medication (to ease pain from any gut stasis) & gut motility medicine (to get his digestive system moving again). Vet wasn’t able to extract any blood out of him. She tried the ear & the leg, & decided that’s enough poking around. Besides, it’s dangerous to put a chinchilla under sedation for too long. Everyone at the animal clinic seemed to be getting attached to Winnie (after only a day of hospitalization). What can I say? He is a cutie & I’m a proud owner :-D

I wasn’t able to buy the Alfalfa King brand of timothy hay (what I normally buy for the chinnies) & had to settle with Kaytee. Good news is that Winnie is nibbling on some of the timothy hay :-)

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Force-Feeding

September 11th, 2008

I called the vet this morning, because I noticed that Winnie hasn’t been eating & his droppings are getting smaller. Vet told me to come in & pick up Oxbow Critical Care, because it’s important that Winnie eats something. Oxbow Critical Care is basically the powder form of hay & pellets mix, normally given to baby & sick animals. I had to mix it with water & feed to Winnie using a syringe.

It’s real messy force-feeding Winnie with that stuff; it gets everywhere around his mouth & he just looks like a dirty chinchilla who has been eating mud.

I do hope he’ll get better soon. Another trip to the vet tomorrow.

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Trip to the Vet

September 9th, 2008

Last Friday, I let Winnie out for about 30 minutes, then I put him back into his cage. Half an hour later, he started barking non-stop. I got worried & picked him up to see if he happened to be injured from his time outside of the cage. I didn’t see anything wrong, so I put him back. I noticed that his white fur had shed a little on my black shirt. So I thought he was probably spooked by something.

When I put him back, he continued barking. He continued doing this throughout the night & I suspected something else was wrong.

I noticed from that day onwards that his poop has gotten smaller & harder. He’s been eating less & he’s more high strung than usual. I couldn’t see what’s wrong with him physically. Afraid that it might be something internal, I decided to take him to the vet.

This was my first time taking a chinnie to the vet. When vet examined Winnie physically & felt his colon, he said that it’s empty. A healthy chinchilla should have a colon full of poops (chinchillas poop non-stop hehe). On a good note, vet said that Winnie’s heart beats calm for a chinchilla :-D

The next thing the vet did was to take some stool samples to see whether there’s anything wrong with his digestive system. Result showed that there’s an abnormally high number of ‘bad’ bacteria (he explained to me in great details, but I sort of blanked out) found in his poop. Everything comes down to poop & now we know that Winnie’s problem isn’t from teeth deformity (which is very common in chinchillas). He said that the ‘bad’ bacteria has always been in his system, but was in small numbers & kept under control by healthy immune system. But for some reason, maybe due to stress (which can compromise the immune system) or just dirty food (we don’t know how pellets & timothy hay were processed etc), the ‘bad’ bacteria’s number multiplied.

Winnie’s been prescribed 2 oral medications: an antibiotic (to kill the ‘bad’ bacteria) for 1 week & some yellow gooey stuff (Bene-Bac Pet .. which is the ‘good’ bacteria to be added into his system) for 2 weeks. In the meantime, I have to keep an eye on him & make sure that he’s eating normally. If he doesn’t want to eat for the next 24-36 hours, vet said I might have to force-feed him. This was my first time taking a chin to the vet & I’m glad I got to see a vet who seems to know what he’s talking about.

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