wheezing chinchilla badly needs help.

[chinmax]

Hi guys,
About a week ago, one of my female chinchillas started to slightly wheeze so I brought her to the vet. Other than the slight wheeze, the chin was acting normal (running around, eating, passing stool, etc). The vet listened to her lungs and said that while she noticed some stressed breathing, the lungs still sounded pretty good. The vet then gave some baytril to be given twice a day (0.3 ml) and oxbow critical care.

Almost immediately after giving the first dose of baytril, my chin lost her appetite and stopped passing stool. Each day I would mix one tablespoon of CC with 2 tablespoons of water and feed it to her. A couple days then passed, and the chin was still acting the same. (not better, not worse) Then one night, she rapidly deteriorated. Her wheezing became louder and her breathing appeared more labored. I brought her to the vet immediately where she had an xray taken. According to the vet, the xray showed one of her lungs being completely swollen (one looked very white while the other looked black) and she noticed the swollen lung was pushing on the chin's airway. She also said that it's intestines contained stool and stomach filled with food. The vet then said my chin either has pneumonia or a tumor and that I should bring her back the next day so she can be treated and observed. The next day came, and the vet gave my chin a shot of lasix, bactrim, cortisone and a painkiller and put her in an oxygen chamber. Later that day when I picked her up, I noticed no real improvement. The vet gave me bactrim to take home and said to try giving it to her twice a day with the CC.

Now here I am almost 48 additional hours later and my poor chin looks like shes about to die. She has not passed stool in days, she is still wheezing (but not as loud), and her head is laying down on the cage floor. She no longer makes any attempts to resist or run away and makes a whimpering sound every so often. While I noticed her wheezing is no longer as loud, and her chest not pulsating as much, I'm assuming this is because her body is finally giving up? I tried giving her some mylicon/simethicone drops and massaged her abdomen in an attempt to make her pass stool. Does anyone have any idea what is really wrong with my chin and know of anything more I can do to help save her?

 

[caiti]

How long has she not been passing stool? If her digestive tract isn't moving properly, that can be very painful for a chin. If she wasn't eating anything else but the CC you were giving her, she was not eating nearly as much as she should have been. One tablespoon is not much, probably made about 10-15 mLs? They should eat about 60-80 mLs a day. I might ask for a pain reliever from your vet if you want to try to see if she can pull through. But I would also wait until more experienced members chime in and give you suggestions as well. I don't know anything about the respiratory disease.

 

[Ash]

If you can get back to the vet tomorrow (or have an e-vet in the area tonight that can give it which would be your BEST option) your girl needs motility drugs to get her digestive tract moving again. I'm not quite sure why the vet didn't give these upon noticing the food just sitting in her stomach. Other than that, I honestly don't know... Hopefully someone else will have suggestions for you. Good luck with her, it sounds like you've been doing all you can on the directions you were given from the vet.

 

[Laurie]

Your chinchilla is about to die and this is not to be taken lightly. She needs immediate vet care. one tablespoon of critical was definitely not enough food for her rule of thumb is 10cc's of Critical Care every 4 hours to help her add and maintain weight. If she is still wheezing she could have pneumonia, I cannot stress enough your chin needs to see a vet NOW. If you cannot do this, hold her, keep her warm and love her until she passes.

 

[Andrea]

I see you are no longer online, but it would be helpful if you told us your location because there might be an E-Vet to take your chin to. In this condition, it sounds like she will not make it through the night. Good luck...I hope she makes it!

 

[chinmax]

The main reason I was giving 1 tablespoon of CC (3 tablespoons of substance total once mixed or about 18ml) was because that was what the vet had recommended. Initially, I was being cautious about doing anything I had read online, as you see posts from some people saying some pretty outrageous (and unsafe) stuff and a vet is supposed to be a subject matter expert. (Obviously in this case that doesn't appear to be true)

The unfortunate truth is that I have already taken off two days from work to take care of my sick chinchilla and to go to an emergency vet now (when I need to be asleep and up at 5:30 am) would realistically require a third. (Something my boss would not happily tolerate and puts me at risk for losing my job) Additionally, the only close emergency vet (which is really not so close) is not properly trained for small animals and the last time I had gone there (with a friend for their rabbit), their only solution was to put the animal down.

I don't know why my vet didn't give any motility drugs. (I definitely would have asked had I known such a thing existed for them) I managed to get a few ml's of CC down my chin over the last hour however, giving any more to her was causing pain. (she started to whimper) Right now she is in an upright position and has quieted down so I will leave her to be for the night and hope she can pull through as I feel I have almost exhausted my options. It's just driving me crazy wondering why she never showed any signs of improvement this whole week despite bringing her asap to a vet and following the outlined procedure.

 

[Anna]

Despite the grave nature of your chin's condition, I hope she pulled through and you take her to a vet, where you can request motility drugs, maybe pain killers, overnight vet care, if necessary. You said she was upright, maybe give her a tummy massage? Sometimes that helps to get things moving but since her condition is severe, other members who are more knowledgeable may correct me on that. I am thinking of you and your chin, and I hope that any help you can get her now will not be futile.
I hope above all else that you're spending as much time as you can with her

 

[tunes]

I would drop her off at the vet and tell the vet to care for her while you're at work. Tell them to check for gut stasis and have them start hand feeding her along with the motility drugs and subcu hydration. I can understand not being able to miss more work, but she needs a vet immediately if you hope for her to survive. So put it in the vets hands and have them take care of her while you're at work.

 

[chinmax]

Unfortunately, she passed away in my arms before I could get her back to a vet. This would have been my 4th vet visit in the last few days. The vet seemed out of ideas after the last time I went and told me to hope for the best. Looking back at the situation, does anyone know why my poor chin did not get better? She had vet care and antibiotics as soon as I heard a slight wheeze, yet over a week later, no improvement to her breathing occurred. (despite the Baytril, Bactrim, Lasix and painkillers given) The vet said that only one of her lungs appeared swollen in the xray and it could have been a tumor. However, aren't tumors uncommon for chinchilla's especially one that is only a few years old?

 

[momenteller]

I'm so sorry to hear of your loss.

 

[starleomach]

Tumors are very uncommon Everytime I have heard a vet say it looks like a tumor on the lungs...it has been pnumonia. The Hard thing is vets often don't know as much as we wish they did so you have to go in prepared as an owner with ideas of what you need medication wise. without a necropsy can't be sure what your chinchilla died from but 2 or 3 feeding a day is not enough to keep a sick chinchilla going. and she needed motility drugs. I would also imagine you weren't giving her oral fluids so she as likely dehydrated which can make stasis worse. With Pnemonia you don't want to do subQ fluids as that adds strain to the lungs

 

[ErinsChins]

I'm sorry for your loss She had a great mommy. I hope someone can give you some help as to why she didn't recover. RIP <3

 

[Laurie]

I'm sorry she passed, you did all you could. While vets are SUPPOSED to know how to care for chins, many of them do not. We think of vets as animal doctors when in fact they are not all animal doctors, meaning they do not specialize in all types of animals. It seems to be the case here for sure as not enough critical care use was instructed, nor were you told she would lose appetite with oral baytril, nor given any motility drugs.

 

[SamiJami]

I'm sorry for your loss! Your baby is in a better place.

 

[chinmax]

Thank you for the comments. The research I initially did online was turning up the use of Baytril, Bactrim, lasix, CC, and a painkiller to treat pneumonia which is why once I saw the vet prescribe those, I assumed she knew what she was doing. It looks like the two pieces that I didn't uncover (and the under educated vet didn't do) was the amount of CC needed and the use of motility drugs.

One thing I am curious of however, is even if CC was being under-fed, why did her body show no signs of recovering from the pneumonia despite the use of antibiotic? I understand that in the long term she would have needed more CC and motility drugs to recover from the stasis and pneumonia completely, but isn't there usually some remote sign of pneumonia improvement after 24-48 hours on anti-biotic? Shouldn't her body have not been crippled enough by the stasis to prevent some form of healing at least in the very beginning?

 

[Andrea]

I am so sorry for your loss. If you want a definitive answer, a necropsy would be your best bet. It sounds like perhaps your vet was just not very knowledgeable regarding chinchillas. You did all you could...she's in a better place now.

 

[menagerie]

I'm sorry for your loss.

One thing I am curious of however, is even if CC was being under-fed, why did her body show no signs of recovering from the pneumonia despite the use of antibiotic? I understand that in the long term she would have needed more CC and motility drugs to recover from the stasis and pneumonia completely, but isn't there usually some remote sign of pneumonia improvement after 24-48 hours on anti-biotic? Shouldn't her body have not been crippled enough by the stasis to prevent some form of healing at least in the very beginning?

With being underfed, she probably did not have the energy and resources her body needed to fight. Also, the antibiotics given may have not been effective on the specific pneumonia she had. She had two things that are extremely debilitating to chins. She may have been able to fight one, but her immune system was severely compromised and fighting both may have just been too much for her system to take.

 

[chinmax]

With being underfed, she probably did not have the energy and resources her body needed to fight. Also, the antibiotics given may have not been effective on the specific pneumonia she had. She had two things that are extremely debilitating to chins. She may have been able to fight one, but her immune system was severely compromised and fighting both may have just been too much for her system to take.

hhmm I do like your point about maybe the antibiotic not being effective against the specific type of pneumonia. Maybe it was viral not bacterial? In terms of energy, while my chin's wheezing got worse, she was still energetic up until the last two or three days. She was running around and jumping from ledge to ledge like normal. (minus the wheeze)