Chinchilla stasis - bleeding

[ioyrmt]

My chinchilla, Ruby, is five and has been in and out of stasis for almost four months now. For the past few days my mother and I have been giving her fluids and tonight when we gave them, we think the needle hit something on the way out, as she bled from it. She seems to be acting fine now, and I believe she has stopped bleeding (this happened less than a half hour ago), but I am still very anxious about her. I feel awful that I caused this. Is there anything I could/should do for her at this point? She had fluids in the hospital when she first developed stasis and, although it is rare, she developed an abscess from this. I really do not want this to happen again.

I am also at a bit of a loss, as she has been in stasis for so long now. Every time that we try to wean her off her medicines (currently: fluids, reglan, bupronex, simethicone, and flagyl) her symptoms just come back. I am worried that she will not get better and that we are just torturing her trying to do so. Has anyone been through something similar to this for this long?

Also, I'm sure some of you may wonder whether or not I have been giving critical care. I just stopped two days ago because every time I would put a little in her mouth, she would not chew and then struggle so hard to get out of the "burrito" that she would choke. The vet does not believe that she aspirated and she is not showing any signs of pneumonia. Since I stopped the critical care, she began eating on her own again and she is now eating very close to 100% of her pellets and hay.

Any advice would be helpful. I am going off to college next year and not only have I spent money from my college fund trying to save her, I worry that if the stasis does not go away or if it keeps coming back that my parents will not be able to care for her while I am gone (I can't bring her with me unfortunately).

Thank you for your time and knowledge.

 

[ticklechin]

Has this chin had a ultrasound? The action of the complete GI tract needs to be observed. Part of the GI tract can die leaving stasis symptoms yet the chin can produce poo and eat-I had two this happened to due to tumors-not your usual "tumors" but the tumors caused a thickening and death of part of the lower GI tract. Second, chins can be wheat intolerant-one of the tumor chins could not tolerate any wheat and had to be on a hay only diet, this was early on in his life a few years prior to his diagnosis. I personally do not like the use of buprenex on GI issues in chins, it in itself slows the GI tract and can cause stasis even with the use of reglan, I would use metecam and tramadol for pain and I would be using propulsid and reglan for peristalsis. I am also going to assume the chin was checked for parasites and something was found for the use of flagyl in this situtation-its not a first choice if its being used as a antibiotic in this situation as opposed to being used as a anti-parasitic. I would use something like TMS or Albon for a antibiotic for the GI tract, much more gentle and less problems.

 

[Buddy]

Aww sounds terrible My chin has Stasis and bloat and everything last year and she's been in and out of the vets due to the bloat coming back. But it was an entirely different reason to yours I presume.
But either way I got a second vet to look at my chin and he ended up being the one that saved her life.
When my chin had stasis and bloat she was on metacam, and something called Emeprid- which was a gut mobility. So maybe you should possibly ask for them and see what your vet says. Also, the actual thing that saved my baby was something called Fibreplex. Yes it is for Rabbits but honestly works a treat. If she's refusing her critcal care then maybe you should ask your vet about fibreplex, it also contains probiotics. Has your vet given you any probiotics for your chin as antibiotics kill all bacteria even the good ones!.
Get in touch with your vet and possibly get a second opinion. I am also going to uni in spetember, and possibily having to leave my Bubbles behind for the year. I'm having to trust my mum knows when and what to do if my Chin becomes sick. So I am giving her a list of symptoms that she has got to check for EVERY DAY as she does not know Bubbles like I do. So maybe you could do this? and if they are unable to pay it, Leave your usual amount that you pay in a safe place that you can tell your parents about if your chin becomes sick Hope she gets better!!

 

[ticklechin]

Emeprid IS reglan which the chin is already getting and Fibreplex is a UK item not avaliable in the USA unless shipped in.

 

[ioyrmt]

I just had a long chat with my vet. I am currently using buprenex because my chinchilla could not tolerate the taste of tramadol, and my vet says that it is becoming more widely known that metecam should not be used in chinchillas with stasis because it can cause more additional upset than the buprenex. Also, cisapride was recently banned in the US, so I guess I will just be sticking with the reglan.

I myself am concerned about the flagyl because we haven't seen any bad bacteria in her stool recently, but because the stasis is so persistent and flagyl can have an anti-inflammatory result in the gut, my vet is insisting that we keep her on it until she is pooping totally normally. I really trust this vet and there are no others around to give a second opinion, so I'm trying to stick to her plan as best as I can. Right now she is going back and forth from having perfect poops to having some smaller, dryer ones.

Ruby has not had an ultrasound yet because due to the nature of her personality, it would most likely require sedation. If she is not doing better in a couple of days, we are going to schedule to have her get blood tests and an ultrasound done early next week.

I feel like I am really stuck between a rock and a hard place with this. The treatments are very exhausting, both emotionally and financially, for my family, and I am not sure how much longer we can keep this up. Is it even fair to my chin to be putting her through all of this for so long? She is clearly in pain, even on the medicines, and I am worried that she will not get better as it has already been nearly four months. Am I close to the point where enough is enough? This is something I really need advice on.

Thanks for all of the help.

 

[ticklechin]

Propulsid is still avaliable for animal use in the USA, I was just prescribed some 2 weeks ago for a foster chin by my vet. Are you in the USA or Canada? Its banned in Canada for all use I believe. Metecam used for longer term use is used with pepcid for the issue you described-it might even be a good idea to try some pepcid anyway. When I use metecam and tramadol long term meaning more than 20 days my vet prescribes the pepcid to prevent gastric ulcers and issues. To answer your question about euthanasia-there does come a time when you need to say enough, treatment options have been exhausted-IMO I would say in this case if the ultrasound and blood work come back negative and since ite been 4 months I might be apt to say when. It took a couple of years in my case to say when with my tumor chins and frankly it was too long.

 

[Buddy]

My chin has been sufferiing with on and off bloat for the past year. It comes back when she comes of meds after a good 3 to 6 months. My vet has told me whilst there's a treatment he is not comfortable with putting her down.
I think just like Ticklechin said an ultrasound would be your best bet to find out what is going on. It could be easily treated.

 

[ysy]

One of my chins Kelly, used to be in and out of bloat/stasis constantly. She has had bloat on numerous occasions, severe stasis on two occasions, confirmed intestinal damage due to a prolapse (which happened twice). Everytime she recovered (which took months), the issues would be back in less than 3 months. For close to a year, I was best friends with the staff in the several clinics.

I came to this forum looking for solutions and Dawn I think told me about wheat intolerant chins. My vet also mentioned that Kelly might have some inherent gut issues that could be allergies to the food she was taking. I had to do a elimination test when she was better to find out what exactly is causing the problem. Kelly does not get treats at all after her first bloat and in the end, the pellets were the issue. It wasn't a matter of poor quality pellets, but more of the fact that Kelly just couldn't digest pellets properly anymore after her first case of bloat.

Critical care is what got me through - both during the recovery, the food testing phase, and currently. It has lots of fibre and fluids that is essential to gut health, plus it is easy to digest. Kelly no longer gets any pellets, she is on a strict diet of CC as a staple supplemented by various hays, mainly timolthy and alfafa, but she gets oat (hay), botanic, wheat grass every once in a while. She is also on a regular course of probiotics (I use benebac). She would take the CC voluntarily through the bars so it was no trouble at all to feed her. I am on constant poop watch but I clean their cages daily anyway.

Things started to look up, and it's been a year and a half since I've put her on this diet and it's been going well. No more bloat (touch wood!) and she started to put on weight. She now weights 200g more than her heaviest weight (before the diet) but then again, she never had a chance to put on enough weight before she got sick again.

I'm not the kind of person that would choose euthanasia as a way out. I understand the reasoning behind it, and I know sometimes it's kinder, but I've always felt that when it's time for that the chin will let you know. Never once had Kelly given up the fight (and I can tell you it got really really bad at one point) and I wasn't going to fail her. But that's me.

 

[Buddy]

Ysy I can relate
You just never want to give up when you see their little selves trying so hard to eat and get so excited for critical care. Wheat intolerant? Can this come up after so many year with an old chin? My chin gets bloat all the time now and she does have teeth issues, but even when her teeth arent causing her any pain she becomes bloated. I'm just thinking I thought wheat intolerent chins would have that from birth? Not from their first illness of stasis and bloat?

 

[ticklechin]

Wheat intolerance can be adult onset-the father chin I had was around 4 and the son was around 1 when it started, the daughters also had it and it stated later in their lives, they were not mine-my vet diagnosed it and deals with tons of chins and has seen it before in other chins. Dental chins often bloat because of the hand feeding and gulping air during it.

 

[Buddy]

Oh I see. So can stasis and or ongoing bloat cause wheat intolerance?

 

[ticklechin]

Wheat intolerance/allergy can cause bloat and other digestive issues, not the other way around. The tumor chins the vet felt developed the tumors due to the long term issues with the gut caused by the wheat, not the other way around. A epic fail on my part by only dealing with the symptoms and not being aggressive enough on the diagnosis.

 

[Buddy]

Oh I see. So chins cannot develop the wheat allergy later in the life? Even after excessive amounts of stasis and bloat?

 

[ticklechin]

They can, but its not caused by bloat.

 

[Buddy]

Oh ok! Thanks! I did not know chins could become wheat intolerent. How would you test this and make a diagnosis for your chin?