URGENT!!!! Sunny's having loads of serious health issues and I don't know what to do!

[KristinC1983]

So, I went away for 2 weeks to visit my aunt in Idaho. She was sick, and I planned on bringing Sunny, but she's allergic to hay and terrified of rodents, so I asked my friend to watch him. She loved Sunny, so I left her a checklist, this forum, and his vets number, and I called everday to see how he was doing. She always told me he was fine, eating good, drinking his water, running around like a nut when she let him out for playtime. Well, she is no longer my friend. When I got home early Thanksgiving morning, there were spots of blood on his shelves and Sunny was just laying in the litter box on the bottom of his cage, not even in his hidey house. He wouldn't move, but was breathing. I saw blood on his butt, and there were shavings stuck to his butt. His food dish was full, his hay was just thrown around-didn't look eaten, and she hadn't been there since the afternoon before. He didn't look like he'd drank anything either. I got him to move a little and his back legs looked like theey barely worked.

I brought him to the vet at about 9 in the morning. I had been afraid to pick him up, so when she did, I saw that his penis was all the way out and limp-also very pale, and his butt (I think she called it his rectum) was coming out and that's where the blood had come from. She said the tissue looked good, that it must have just happened, so it'd be okay to push it back in. He stayed over night and when i picked him up, she gave me pain meds, antibiotics, and critical care to force feed every 2-3 hours. He hadn't pooped so she'dd taken an x-ray. There was no blockage, but he has a bladder stone and it looked about the size of a dime. She said a hairring probably cut off his pee so he couldn't pee and when he kept trying, he probably pushed out his butt, and probably started picking around down there, too. So, I brought him back today and she said there is now blockage-he's only pooped 4 times and that was his first night home, but I called the next day and they said make an appointment for Monday. He's lost weight though I've been feeding him the critical care and he's been nibbling on hay a bunch and his food a tiny bit. He just sits there. When I take him out, he just cuddles against me annd doesn't move. I sit him in his dust bath and he climbs out and crawls back on my lap. I don't know what to do. She gave himn an enima and said if he doesn't poop by Wednesday, bring him back in. He's miserable obviously. He stretches sometimes and he ends up rolling onto his side. He just wants to cuddle on me, nothing else. He jumps up to the door (he's only on the bottom of his cage since I brought him home) when I open it and just sits on me.

I attached a pic of the estimate for the removal of the bladder stone.

This was what she charged me for-what she did Thanksgiving and the day after besides the exam, hospitilization, and all that:

Buprenex 0.3 mg/ml
Rectal Prolapse Repair
Fluids Subcutaneous Admin.-done twice during his stay
Anesthesia Gas Only
.04 Metacam 5mg/ml
Radiograph Routinee 1 view
Trimeth-Sulfa 240mg/5ml, done 20 times
Metacam .5mg/ml oral done 6 times

And then today she did the enema, but it didn't work yet. She said I should start feeding him more....

What should I do? Keep doing what I'm doing? Is there anything else there is? I trust you guys more than a vet. What would you do?

 

[alli713]

If he's stretching it sounds like he has gas. I would pick up Simethicone and give it to him to break up the gas.

Others will chime in with any other advice, as I don't have experience with this.

 

[KristinC1983]

I have gas drops I'll give him. I'm going to feed him again in a couple minutes, so I'll do it then. Thanks. My biggest problem right now is that when I go to the vet, she doesn't sound hopeful at all, like we're doing all this stuff and it probably won't work. He's so miserable and its so obvious he's in pain. Should all this work? Will he get better, or am I just torturing him by force feeding him horrible tasting crap and forcing him to keep living with pain?

 

[RDZCRanch]

First, I wouldn't blame your friend for this. If a stone caused a problem, it's something that was coming on for a long time. If he had prolapsed or had problems before you got home and your friend did nothing about it, you would have come home to a dead chinchilla. I know it's hard not to find someone to blame, but chinchillas like all animals can have health problems that we have no control over.

I would order lifeline from chocolatechinchillas.com. Critical care is good for weight MAINTENANCE, not weight gain. When a chinchilla is very ill, lifeline is the supplement to turn to for hand feeding. Critical care works for keeping a chinchilla's weight steady. How many milliliters are you feeding him a day? A sick chinchilla should be getting close to 60ml a day.

I also agree with the simethicone. It might help ease any gas he has in there and if there isn't gas, it won't hurt him to have it.

If he has a stone in his bladder, he needs surgery to remove it ASAP to prevent the stone from lodging in the urethra which is not fixable in chinchillas.

 

[tunes]

I would order lifeline from chocolatechinchillas.com. Critical care is good for weight MAINTENANCE, not weight gain. When a chinchilla is very ill, lifeline is the supplement to turn to for hand feeding. Critical care works for keeping a chinchilla's weight steady. How many milliliters are you feeding him a day? A sick chinchilla should be getting close to 60ml a day.

I disagree with that. I have both, I use both, but Lifeline is not a nutritional substitute. I love Lifeline and I give it to ill chins all the time, but if they had to rely on Lifeline as their only dietary intake, I don't believe they would thrive. Chins can and do gain weight on Critical Care, I have used it time and time again with great success. I also like Tanya's Essentials for Life, which is much like Critical Care and the chins seem to like it better.

I absolutely would give the Lifeline because of all the vitamins and nutrients in it that would benefit your guy, but I would get Critical Care or Essentials for Life (sold by Tanya) as a food replacement. I personally mix the two together so I get the best of both worlds.

 

[menagerie]

I would order lifeline from chocolatechinchillas.com. Critical care is good for weight MAINTENANCE, not weight gain. When a chinchilla is very ill, lifeline is the supplement to turn to for hand feeding. Critical care works for keeping a chinchilla's weight steady. How many milliliters are you feeding him a day? A sick chinchilla should be getting close to 60ml a day.

I disagree with that. I have both, I use both, but Lifeline is not a nutritional substitute. I love Lifeline and I give it to ill chins all the time, but if they had to rely on Lifeline as their only dietary intake, I don't believe they would thrive. Chins can and do gain weight on Critical Care, I have used it time and time again with great success. I also like Tanya's Essentials for Life, which is much like Critical Care and the chins seem to like it better.

I absolutely would give the Lifeline because of all the vitamins and nutrients in it that would benefit your guy, but I would get Critical Care or Essentials for Life (sold by Tanya) as a food replacement. I personally mix the two together so I get the best of both worlds.

I agree with Tunes here. Lifeline is a supplemental boost, not a food replacement. There is very little nutritional value in Lifeline, it is NOT a food replacer.

 

[KristinC1983]

She wants to make sure all is going well down there before she removes the stone. I'll look into lifeline-thanks

And I'm not sure how long the blood was there for, but were a couple drops up on the very top shelf under the hay he'd dug in and along with almost all other shelves, and when I got home, he was down on the bottem, and didn't look capable of climbing his entire cage-it's taller than me. I think she may have neglected to actually check his cage. There was also diarehea dried onto one of his shelves in quite a few spots. I'm not sure if all that was from the night before I got home, but she didn't look like she cared much about his condition. I now believe she's one of those people who think animals-especially small ones-are expendable.

I'm going to feed him again in a few minutes so I'll check how much those bigger syringes are-they're plastic from the vet-I give him about 3/4 of a big one every 2 hours minus 6 hours about for my sleeping-I'll do the math when I know how much they are. I'll also give him a little more of the gas drops!

 

[KristinC1983]

Oh, and it looks like he did 3 poops after we got home. I had cleaned the others out, so they must have come out of him today after the vet.

 

[RDZCRanch]

I honestly don't see where you guys got me saying that lifeline is a replacement for food? I guess I should clarify more. I think you should buy lifeline and combine it with critical care to give your chinchilla more of everything. My personal experience has shown chinchillas that are very ill gaining weight on lifeline or a mix of lifeline and cc and not cc alone. I also don't pull pellets or hay from a sick chinchilla. I leave the food in the cage in hopes of encouraging them to continue to eat on their own. I'd hope anyone that was handfeeding didn't completely take away that chinchilla's source of food.

 

[tunes]

When a chinchilla is very ill, lifeline is the supplement to turn to for hand feeding.

From that comment someone who didn't know better would assume that Lifeline is an acceptable replacement for hand feeding. You stated that it should be used FOR hand feeding. No, it shouldn't. Critical care or EFL should be used for hand feeding, Lifeline should be used as a supplement TO the hand feeding, not in place of.

 

[KristinC1983]

His food and hay are still in there. He's actually nibbled on the food-I see little chunks in the bottom of his dish that weren't there before. And he's been eating a lot of the brown pieces of hay, so I've put more of them in than the green-I'd think the green would be sweeter and better tasting! He hasn't been drinking much though, so I give him a little water in a syringe in between squirts of Critical Care.

I did think she meant lifeline instead of CC, but just a typo-I've done that too many time on Yahoo answers and had to go back and fix it! I hate when I say do instead of don't by accident cause that can really cause issues, like do give a chin fresh veggies or do give yoour dog cooked chicken bones-serious issues!!! So I reread a bunch before submitting, lol!

 

[starleomach]

If he is passing any poop at all that is a good sign, when king prolapsed he did not poop at all for several weeks. The big thing is to also keep him well hydrated, without fluids he will not be able to get anything through his intestines. If he doesn't poop he will need aome motility drugs

 

[RDZCRanch]

When I give lifeline to chins that are sick, I hand feed it. I don't add it onto the pellets or just expect them to eat it on their own. To me...giving it by hand IS hand feeding. I don't know any other way to phrase that.

lifeline is the supplement to turn to for hand feeding.

Either way, I didn't intend for people to think of lifeline as a dietary replacement. If anyone thought that from what I said before, it's been clarified.

 

[KristinC1983]

If he is passing any poop at all that is a good sign, when king prolapsed he did not poop at all for several weeks. The big thing is to also keep him well hydrated, without fluids he will not be able to get anything through his intestines. If he doesn't poop he will need aome motility drugs

Do you know why King prolapsed? Does it make sense that a hair ring would stop up his pee, so by pushing to get it out, he'd push out his butt instead, becaause the other vet said it could've been caused by him messing around down there because of the bladder stone

Yes, I've been giving him a 1/4 of a dropper of water everytime I feed him-the big dropper-I forgot to check what size it is again. And I gave him gas drops. I was afraid he was gassy, but I wasn't sure if the drops were okay with the constipation and the drugs he's on, but hopefully he feels a bit better soon-no more gas!

 

[KristinC1983]

When I give lifeline to chins that are sick, I hand feed it. I don't add it onto the pellets or just expect them to eat it on their own. To me...giving it by hand IS hand feeding. I don't know any other way to phrase that.



Either way, I didn't intend for people to think of lifeline as a dietary replacement. If anyone thought that from what I said before, it's been clarified.

And I understand now-no harm done Thanks for mentioning lifeline to me-I don't recall hearing about it before you-I'm surprised the vet didn't say something about that and gas drops to me-that's why I trust you all more than vets! And you've all reassured me. She wasn't helpful with that at all!!!

 

[starleomach]

I have a thread on here about King..he had been given like a 10% chance of survival by the vet. It was due to loose stool but once he prolapsed honestly me and the vet werent as worried about the cause as treating him. it was likely a virus. But in the thread I do go into exact treatment. IV fluids are really a must in a prolapse case with a chinchilla not pooping

http://chins-n-hedgies.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13436&highlight=King+prolapsed

 

[caiti]

Does it make sense that a hair ring would stop up his pee, so by pushing to get it out, he'd push out his butt instead, becaause the other vet said it could've been caused by him messing around down there because of the bladder stone

Could the hair ring have caused the stone? I have no idea if the pressure from him trying to pee or having a full bladder could cause his rectum to prolapse.

Have you noticed him peeing lately? A dime seems extremely big. Isn't that like the size of their bladder? I'm not sure, but it seems it wouldn't be a lot larger than that. If it is that big I wouldn't think there's be a risk of it lodging in his urethra unless it was weird shaped or something (<--bright side??).

I think the simethicone is a good idea too.

 

[feistychins]

Keeping him hydrated is VERY important. That will help with the constipation so he won't strain to try to poop.

Bladder stones are very painful, so the pain meds should help to ease it a little. He will need the surgery to have it removed as soon as possible though before it moves to a location they can't remove it. Critical Care will give him the fiber he needs to help get his intestinal tract back to regular, but it may take some time.

Simethicone is very important to give him relief from the bloat. You can give it every 4-6 hours if needed and it will not interfere with any of the other meds you are giving him.

 

[KristinC1983]

...

Okay, I believe the big plastic syringes are about 4cc so he gets between 16-24cc of Critical Care a day depending how often I can do it and how much misses his mouth. The vet said to start feeding him more aggressively though to get his weight up cause he's lost since his hospitilazation-he lost before that as well.

I give him maybe a 1/2 a cc of water every feeding-is that too much or not enough? That's about 2-3cc a day, but, not all gets in his mouth of course-most doesn't-or when he feels like being a pain, he just lets it drip out. The vet didn't tell me to do that, but when I was giving him the pink antibiotics, they'd just sit in his mouth (think he's tired of them though he loved them when he had his bladder infection a few months ago), so I thought a little water would help it go down, plus he hadn't been drinking much water....

And he's peeing constantly. I guess since he had a penis prolapse as well from the hairring, he doesn't have much control over that right now, so it's just coming out whenever, wherever. And he just sits in one spot, so it just soaks into his fleece and he's wet all down there.

Kristy, thanks for showing me your thread about King. I'm very happy things worked out for him! It did scare me, though. It sounds like King was very active pretty soon after his prolapse, but Sunny is not active at all. The vet said to confine him to his cage until things start looking better, but when I take him out to feed him, I would give him a minute to wander, but he doesn't. It's either curled up in a ball on my lap, or curled up in a ball in the corner of his cage, not even in his hidey house I put on the very bottem. He did try to run for his cage just now during his last feeding, but he went so slow and couldn't even make the full jump up to hiis door, which is almost a foot-nothing at all for a chinchilla of 1 year old.

Is the bladder stone doing that to him?! I gave him gas drops a few hours ago so they should've started working by now, the pain killers twice a day as the vet said to, but he's acting like every move hurts him! He squeaks if i jostle him on my lap. He sat on my daughter's lap earlier while I changed the dust in his bath and he was doing little squeaks every second-the dust gets nasty fast cause of the meds that drip on him and the pee thats all over his lower belly area. He barely even takes a bath. I actually had to rub him down with his dust because he kept trying to get back to my lap. And his eyes are always shut. He only opens them 1/2 way and only for a few seconds. Nothing has come back out-no red tissue down there like I was told to watch out for. And he's done 3 poops since the enema at 2 this afternoon, which I'm happy about, but not at all about his energy level. I could never hold him for more than a minute at a time without him fighting to get away and run around again, but today I held him for over an hour and I put him back in his cage-he didn't want to go back in, just sit on me.

Oh, I also have another question-sorry this is so long! How much of the gas drops should I give and exactly how often? I gave him about 1 cc at like 8. I don't know when to do it again though. And is that too much? I swear I read on here a while back that 1 cc is good, but it'd take me forever to find that post again

Thanks for everything! Now I need sleep!

 

[caiti]

I remember giving my chin a dropper full (1 cc) of simethicone a few times a day when she had gas, so I think you can't really practically overdo it. He may not have gas now but in case he gets it from not eating and moving enough, it's always good.

I would call and ask the vet if you can up his pain med dosage. Seems he might appreciate more pain relief. I don't know anything about appropriate dosing for pain meds so I don't know if he can get more but it would be worth it to ask.

It's good he's peeing and his urethra is not blocked. You can try a damp paper towel with warm water to try to clean him or unscented baby wipes but I would worry more about getting him to eat more (unless he gets urine scald or something on his skin).

I hope he gets better!!! Keep doing what you can.