treatment kicking in?

Chinchilla & Hedgehog Pet Forum

Help Support Chinchilla & Hedgehog Pet Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

kraucci

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 3, 2015
Messages
63
Location
Massachusetts
Background: this past Tues pm, I noticed what sounded like my chin had a dry nose and he wasn't making his usual happy cooing noises and whatnot, but nothing else symptom-wise --not behaviorally or physically. So, that didn't get worse, but persisted, bringing me to our first trip (I've had him about 5.5 years, and he grew a little when I got him, so I figure he's about 6) to the vet. We went to the animal hospital Thurs pm since neither vet who sees exotics within an hour away could see me until Tues (thankfully the second told me about this VCA animal hospital I believe it's called and seems national in the US? The first I thought was highly regarded, but told me it was no big deal to wait that long! But I digress).
So, turns out they all fell in love with Sam, and said I seemed to be doing great, wasn't being paranoid like I sort of thought (only child situation for Sam lmao #spoiled), but that everything looked fine (lungs, eyes, etc) and that it was indeed the dry nose description I gave.
Doc wasn't sure since it was so early on, but since nothing on my end changed, they went with possible upper resp. and gave us an anti-inflamatory (I think that's what Meloxicam is, right? It's anti-something lol I want to say inflam.) to give once every night for 2 weeks and gave me the choice of also doing an antibiotic 2x/day, which I did decide to do hoping to catch whatever it is before it gets worse, after they confirmed nothing bad could come of that as long as we finished the 2 weeks (trimeth or something it's called?). So, we did the first dose there Thurs pm.
Until last night (Mon), he hadn't gotten worse, but hadn't seemed to get better. So, I started worrying of course. I noticed his nose area seems to be sort of tender looking, like maybe he's been rubbing it or something, though I haven't seen much of that (I saw him paw the side where it's more prominent twice tonight), and might be a little damp (it had looked fine dry and usual color and the doc did ask about that when we went).
The doc did ask about hay use and explained it was because the fact that I'm at the bottom of the hay bag (normally I toss it by the "shake" in the bottom of the bag, but I've been under the weather and the weather itself has prevented me from getting to the store, but I absolutely will be this afternoon) could have been irritating his nose.
I'm basically wondering if going on day 6 of 14, this is normal as far as not seeing improvement, maintaining, or this nose situation possibly being a sign of getting worse and I should go back sooner than the 2 weeks if at all? They of course said to return if we got worse before the course of meds was up and of course to come back if nothing changed after, but I don't want to overreact. I don't know how long it should honestly take to start kicking in and you can clearly see I'm a nervous nelly haha. Thoughts?

Thank you always!!
 
Last edited:
Back
Top