Sonya again.

[Brittany_Lynn]

Last night at around midnight, I noticed Sonya wasn't herself. I opened the cage and tried to pick her up and immediately had bells and whistles going off in my head because she let me-she didn't even try to hop away. She NEVER let's me just scoop her up (once I am holding her she's always calm, but she is so spunky usually).

I checked her out from top to bottom:
She was lethargic.

The area around her nose was crusty, but she didn't have any wheezing or sneezing, or any other symptoms for an URI.

I checked her mouth because there was a little dampness below her chin and the inside of her mouth was kind of slimy when I took my fingers away, but otherwise her teeth looked healthy and normal.

She had a clear/whitish vaginal discharge. It didn't smell to me, but it is something I haven't seen before.
Also I saw very few poops in her cage.

Her usual vet (Cats and Critters in Rochester NY-very knowledgeable, very good) was closed for the night, so I called our animal emergency services here in Rochester. They listened to my description of the problem and asked all of the vets on staff if anyone felt comfortable seeing a chinchilla and all of the doctors said no. So I asked if they had any doctors on call who might know, and that answer was also no. They said the best bet was to try back tomorrow, and even if a vet tomorrow didn't feel comfortable seeing her, they might be able to call one of the doctors from Cats and Critters in the morning.
So this morning I got up early and called back, and to my surprise they had someone there who felt capable of seeing a chinchilla. I took Sonya in and they looked her over and decided that she was at least a little dehydrated, but she might also have something else going on. After talking about the realities of
a. animal emergency services not being used to caring for chinchillas and not having any knowledgeable staff who would feel comfortable doing much else, AND their prices therefore being higher because they usually just do dogs and cats
and b. myself not having very much money at the moment
he talked to Sonya's usual vet on the phone and we all agreed to give Sonya sub-q fluids today, and to have me bring her in to Cats and Critters tomorrow. The vet at AES suggested that they might want to do an x-ray tomorrow because he is slightly concerned that she might have pyometra, but because he didn't see any of the discharge and it didn't smell/wasn't a thick yellow/white color, he didn't feel it was something he wanted to do and charge me for because he felt it wasn't a pressing issue.
They also gave me some Critical Care, and want me to give her 10 ml 4-5 times per day to make sure she's eating, and to also give her some water at the same time to make sure she's getting fluids.

So for the moment I've spent 3 hours at the vet and $130. We'll see what tomorrow brings. In the mean time, Sonya has been less lethargic since the sub-q fluids. At the vet I had the door to her carry-case open, and she just laid inside and didn't try to escape. When I brought her home and opened the door, she climbed right out.

So I'm writing to see if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions. Info I have not mentioned that you might ask about:
She eats Purina Rabbit Show Chow Pellets and timothy hay every day. She gets alfalfa once or twice a week.
The only treats I give are either plain cheerios or a plain shredded wheat, up to 2 times a week depending.
She is in a room with the 3 other boys I have, and they are all healthy as ever.
The room (my bedroom) has an air conditioner in it which is set to 70 degrees during the day, and 66 degrees at night. The power went out last night around 3 am for about half an hour, but otherwise I haven't had any problems with the air conditioner--so I don't believe any of this has to do with heat stroke.

I think that's it...I"ll be keeping an eye on her and updating here, so if you have any questions I'll answer them as soon as I can.

 

[caiti]

I don't know what Sonya has but I hope she gets better! That being said, my first thought was to look into her nose/mouth symptoms, as the other symptoms could possibly be from just being lethargic (not moving around or eating as much will cause digestive issues, and maybe the vaginal discharge is something she normally grooms right away and because she is lethargic, she didn't--but pyometra is sneaky)

Is she eating the same amount? Does she have watery eyes? The slimy saliva could be from dehydration or maybe she aspirated or something (developed into pneumonia?) but if her lungs sound good and she isn't wheezing or sneezing then that seems like less of a feasible cause.

That is all I can think of. An xray might not be a bad idea, as it could help shed light on the pyometra and pneumonia/respiratory illness if either are even there. SQ fluids usually help with everything so I hope that helps her out a bit. Hopefully you can find a vet that may give you some answers so Sonya can recover quickly!

 

[Brittany_Lynn]

Is she eating the same amount? Does she have watery eyes? The slimy saliva could be from dehydration or maybe she aspirated or something (developed into pneumonia?) but if her lungs sound good and she isn't wheezing or sneezing then that seems like less of a feasible cause.

I haven't observed her eating, but then again she rarely if ever eats in front of me. She refused shredded wheat/cheerio treats yesterday and this morning, but this afternoon she ate 2 little cheerios so I got pretty excited!
She gobbled up 10 ml of the apple banana critical care about 15 minutes ago, and I just spied her nibbling some hay.
She does not have watery eyes.
Both the nurse in triage and the doctor checked her lungs because they also were worried about pneumonia or an Upper Respiratory Infection, and they both said the lungs sounded perfect--and I have not seen any sneezing or wheezing. I believe the crusty area around her nose is from trying to clean the vaginal discharge.
I'm wondering if it is maybe a combination of a particularly "bad" heat cycle and dehydration...She has been hopping around much more like her old self than the past 12 hours (or however long it has been), since she got the sub-q fluids. Like I said she gobbled up her critical care a few minutes ago and has been moving around much more than she was earlier.

She still has a big pocket or kind of a bag of fluids under her skin near where they gave them, does anyone know when that should start going down?

ETA: I am going for X-Rays tomorrow at her usual veterinarian, and I'm going to ask them to swab for pyometra too.

 

[Brittany_Lynn]

Tried to give Sonya another "dose" of critical care (10 ml like the vet recommended) but she wasn't too happy with it this time. She did bite me twice while I had her burrito-ed, which is a good sign; earlier when I handled her she didn't care what I did, but just now she was, I think, mad at me for trying to force feed her.
Anyway it looks like this time she only took about 5 or 6 ml at the most. Is this something I should be really concerned about, that she's only taking that much even though the vet wanted her to take like double that at a time?
She's up eating hay right now (I don't think she knows I can see her, haha) and is hopping up and down and around.

Sonya is doing so much better now, but...I feel like if I do follow up tomorrow, they're gonna tell me it was just dehydration but they will still charge me for the x-rays...and yet I'm scared that if I DON"T follow up, that it will turn out to be pyometra and she'll die of infection. Ugh.

 

[Brittany_Lynn]

Okay, so. Cats & Critters couldn't get Sonya in until 6:40 pm (and I had to work until 6 pm besides; work is 40 minutes away! Luckily all of the kids at the day care got picked up early so I got out early and therefore Sonya to the appt quicker), and also when I was describing the problem to the woman who answered the phone, she sighed at one point and said, "If you haven't started her on antibiotics yet, there's nothing we can do and it is probably too late for her besides," ....that was pretty upsetting to hear.

The very experienced Dr. Hach checked out Sonya and on first impression:

Since I'd cleaned her nose and mouth area after her critical care feeding this morning, she had no more crusty/wet area around the nose or mouth which was good

Her temperature was 1 degree cooler than at the Emergency vet yesterday, and that temperature had been on the "low end" of the spectrum for chinchilla temps to begin with

Her breathing was more rapid than she would have liked

She massaged the abdomen and felt nothing out of the ordinary; uterus was not at all thickened or distended, and there was no more vaginal discharge (I haven't seen any since Saturday night, but the area around her vulva/anus is a little dirty from the discharge on Sat.)

When listening to her lungs, she at first sounded clear, and then Dr. Hach said she heard a "slight murmur"; it wasn't clear to me whether she meant heart or lungs, I kind of freaked out when she said that but she calmed me down and said it could be nothing.

SO we talked about options and since she was now leaning more towards lung trouble than pyometra, I decided to go for the X-Rays so that we could see exactly what was giving us the trouble.
The first X-Ray was of her side, and Dr. Hach was at first alarmed that Sonya's heart seemed to be a little large for her size and age; but she said that could be fluid in/around the lungs messing the image up a little bit. Her uterus(es) seemed clear, normal size, except in an area that looked "too dark" for her uterus to show up as on the X-Ray; but it could have just been the intestines. She also had gas in the intestines and a small amount in her stomach but the Dr. said that was normal.

Any way the first x-ray was not conclusive enough so they took a second x-ray, this time they stretched Sonya out on her back and took a straight on X-ray of her chest and abdomen. This time, the lungs showed that there wasn't enough "space" in them as she would like; whether there was fluid present in the lungs from pneumonia or "whether Sonya is in fact septic from pyometra and that fluid is in the diaphragm, pushing up on the lungs", she wasn't sure. The right lung is worse than the left. Her uteruses (not small intestine this time) in the second x-ray looked "too dark" still, but she would have expected pus or discharge to come out of the vagina when she massaged Sonya's abdomen if it was actually the pyometra so she still didn't think it was that.

I did not opt for a scrape/test of the uterus because the X-ray was so expensive, and also because Dr. Hach said she would be "surprised" if it was pyometra. She thinks maybe it could just be a little more mucous than what she usually has, depending on her cycle and everything.

Because Dr. Hach was not sure whether we were dealing with pneumonia or a uterine infection of some sort, she decided to stick with the antibiotics because whichever one it is, the meds will work to fix it. She did not feel like Sonya needed any immediate surgery or intensive care; because I felt comfortable hand feeding and giving medication, she didn't recommend keeping her overnight.
The second visit cost $187.00, which puts me at a grand total of $323.00 over the past 2 days.

So in the end, I am to continue giving Sonya 40 mL of Critical Care per day
give her .16 mL Enrofloxacin, 2 times a day
and
give her .15 mL Metacam ONCE per day.

However, because her temperature was just a little low, and because pneumonia can be so tricky in chinchillas, I should

not be surprised, nor should feel bad if Sonya passes away.

So.

 

[Encantadora]

I like to play music for them. I like to think it speeds healing.

 

[Brittany_Lynn]

I like to play music for them. I like to think it speeds healing.

I always have music going in my room while I'm at work, for both the chins and my bird; I've switched from my normal iTunes DJ to just classical for now.

A question for anyone reading this:
Since Monday, Sonya's poops are very small, hard, and sometimes sort of "strung" together (they come out all connected but it looks like 2 or 3 individual poops that are right next to each other); is this from the critical care? When should her poos be back to normal?

 

[VolunteerChin22]

Hoping for a good outcome for you. When I went through the pneumonia here there was a brownish discharge at the mouth in the late stages. I wasn't successful at saving the the ones with full blown pnuemonia even with antibiotics. Be sure you are giving probiotics with the antibiotics at least two hours apart. You need the probiotics to keep the gut going since antibiotics are so disruptive to their systems. Poos won't be back to normal until she's better Im afraid.

 

[Brittany_Lynn]

Hoping for a good outcome for you. When I went through the pneumonia here there was a brownish discharge at the mouth in the late stages. I wasn't successful at saving the the ones with full blown pnuemonia even with antibiotics. Be sure you are giving probiotics with the antibiotics at least two hours apart. You need the probiotics to keep the gut going since antibiotics are so disruptive to their systems. Poos won't be back to normal until she's better Im afraid.

I haven't seen any discharge from her mouth or nose, other than the very first day when I saw a 'crusty' area around her nose...didn't have a color, and since the first day there hasn't been any more.

I don't have any probiotics, the vet didn't prescribe any, I'll call them in the morning and pick some up first thing (unless that's something I can get at Petsmart?). She's just on the Metacam, Enrofloxacin, and the Critical Care right now. Can she have any serious side affects from not having the probiotics for 4 days?
*#@*&^#*&#* EXPLETIVES! I feel like I always miss something or mess something up. And it can never be something unimportant, or just to do with me, it always has to be with my babies. I think about all the things I have learned from this site and part of me is just horrified at what a terrible owner I was when I started out. Ugh. Sorry. End rant.

 

[Anna35]

I don't think you can get it at the pet store I ordered mine online from here
http://www.revivalanimal.com/Benebac-Pet-Gel-and-Powder.html

 

[Cuddlebug]

You can get probiotics at any grocery or drug store in the vitamin section. Get the ones with the highest count you can find. You just open the capsule and sprinkle the powder on the food or you can mix it into the Critical Care.

 

[VolunteerChin22]

From the store you are looking for acidophilous - get the caplets to break open as Cuddle said and you can mix it with some critical care. I have also used benebac available either from the vet or ordering online (cheaper). And not necessarily any issues but just get it going as soon as you can. You need to give it at least two hours after the antibiotics or you are just killing off the good with the bad. And keep giving it for at least a week or two after she finishes the antibiotics to help her gut get back on track.

And no worries that you didnt think of everything...the vet should have mentioned it to you but s/he didnt so thats what we're here for!

So what are her symptoms today?

 

[Brittany_Lynn]

From the store you are looking for acidophilous - get the caplets to break open as Cuddle said and you can mix it with some critical care. I have also used benebac available either from the vet or ordering online (cheaper). And not necessarily any issues but just get it going as soon as you can. You need to give it at least two hours after the antibiotics or you are just killing off the good with the bad. And keep giving it for at least a week or two after she finishes the antibiotics to help her gut get back on track.

And no worries that you didnt think of everything...the vet should have mentioned it to you but s/he didnt so thats what we're here for!

Thank you for all the info! I only gave her one dose of the probiotics today, is that okay? Or should I give it to her every time I give her the CC, as long as it's outside of the 2 hour window for the antibiotics? Thank you guys so much for your help, I don't know what I would do without you all!

So what are her symptoms today?

Today she's much more energetic than she has been, (not quite her usual self, but getting there), breathing doesn't look *as* labored to me, but I have heard her sneezing occasionally (didn't hear any sneezing before Tuesday/Wednesday). No mucus or drainage from anywhere. Small, round, hard poops--but a good amount of them. She's really loving the critical care, and she's been taking her antibiotic and Metacam really well.

 

[greychins]

When we're giving the probiotics, I mix em in with the Critical Care every time I give it, so long as it's 2 hours apart from the antibiotics.

Good to hear she's doing well with the critical care and meds. Hopefully she'll continue to improve. Best of luck..

 

[VolunteerChin22]

Yah I dont think you need to do it everytime...When I give benebac it's just once a day, so I follow similar dosing for the acidophilous. I dont think it would necessarily hurt them but that's just mo.

 

[Brittany_Lynn]

Thanks everyone. Her poos are so much better now that I've started the probiotics. I've been giving them every other feeding, because a few of the feedings were a little too close to the antibiotics besides. She is much more active now, practically her old self. Barks and "cacks" at me when I open the cage door, and runs away when I try to pick her up. Haven't heard any sneezes lately...still no discharge from the nose or mouth, and also none from the vagina (which was her original symptom). I'm hoping she keeps it up!

 

[VolunteerChin22]

Glad to hear it Brittany!