Too much pee.

[Etherite]

Last time I posted in emergencies and had next to no luck with replies.. Looked like it was a case of 'tl;dr' so I'll try to keep it short.

I've been killing myself for months now keeping my little guy happy and alive, he's been battling an unknown illness with a lot of ups and downs. My vet is clueless, I'm literally broke.. Home remedies and OCT drugs are all I have.

He was prescribed baytril for too long for a resp. infection he may not have even had, (yay vets) along with metacam. Then after the baytril, too much metacam. He's still battling the same symptoms as a month or two ago, but just recently, minutes ago, I found an enormous puddle of urine under his hay. Still very much wet, and soaking through, so I know it's new.. It was massive. Instantly I'm afraid his kidneys and/or/iiver is shutting down due to the metacam, but I'm not sure. It's too early to tell, but I'm freaking out. How will I know?.. I'm not sure what to do at this point.

> He was on baytril for a month, starting at a low dose, working higher. Metacam for 1 week during that month, then 2 weeks after that month. He's off of every med other than acidophilus and semithicone now, also getting CC daily.

 

[Cuddlebug]

Why do you say he was on the meds for too long? If he is still sick, he either needs to stay on the meds or have them changed (maybe they aren't working for what he has).

Large amounts of urine is not a sign of kidneys shutting down. It is just the opposite. You do not produce urine if your kidneys are not working. Obviously, he is drinking plenty to produce lots of urine, which is good.

 

[Etherite]

The vet assumed he had a respiratory infection and put him on baytril, he refused to change the meds after a month of the baytril not working; Only increased the dosage, with no change. To this day he won't put him on anything else. His symptoms are raspy breathing, wheezing, itching constantly, over-excitability,.. Trust me, if I could convince my vet baytril was not the answer I would have, I asked multiple times. There's also no other vet for me to go to.

Also 1+ month of being on high doses of meds with no change is too long. Being on any med that isn't helping is for too long.

And sure you do, my cat had peed all over the carpet just a day before he died of kidney failure. It was all extremely sudden, no symptoms other than that a day before he passed away. Why I'm so concerned by a pee puddle. I think it's reasonable to question it, this puddle was 3 times the size of the ones he usually makes.

 

[tunes]

There must be another vet somewhere in Canada that you can go to. I've driven 2-3 hours to get to a good vet when I needed help with something my local vets couldn't deal with. It may involve driving, but you've got to find someone who will listen to you and who isn't so stubborn that there is no other right way but theirs. That is how you end up with a dead pet.

 

[Etherite]

How I end up with a dead pet.. Every time I post I feel worse about the situation. I've looked, I've been pointed towards the 'Canadian Chinchilla' website too, looked there.. No luck. Eastern Canada doesn't have much in the means of.. well, much. I can't drive to Toronto over night (More than just a nights drive, too), I don't even have my own car at the moment. I should add my vet has also taken x-rays, and he says the next step would be to see a scope specialist for his throat for upwards of 2000 dollars. And that's just a shot in the dark, he has no idea if something is wrong with his throat.

I don't really know what I was expecting to hear, maybe hoping that someone had experienced similar symptoms.

I hope I don't come off as a bad owner. I've gone into rent and grocery money paying for his testing, I was up for 2 days straight when he needed me to give him short steam baths to loosen up his phlegm, I keep his cage at my side now so I'm always there. Just hope people can understand how hard this situation is, and that it's a matter of resources and money, I'm doing the best I can.

Thank you for the replies, really, but.. it's not like it is in America, or western Canada. There's two exotic vets in my province and I've seen both; One is a sick, twisted woman I can't see again. I saw her years ago for something that turned out to be some kind of mild allergy and she charged me 800 dollars for testing she didn't do, and told me I should just have him put down anyways.

 

[Tagna]

What province are you in?

 

[tunes]

You are not at all a bad owner. I can see that you are doing your best. My comment about the dead pet was that you may need to find another vet who isn't so tunnel visioned that he refuses to change a course of treatment, even when it's obviously not working.

Perhaps you could tell him that you have spoken to several large breeders (there are bunches of them on here) and that they all recommended a different type of antibiotic as Baytril is definitely not helping and very possibly doing more damage than good.

 

[Etherite]

I'm in Nova Scotia, the main city, too. There's no other city in the province aside from one at the other end, I've never been there, but I hear it's really small. I've looked it up and it says there's three exotic vet locations here, but I found out one is actually the same vet that just travels between here and the Dartmouth location across the bridge and I'm already seeing him.

I've actually told the guy "I've been researching things online and seeing what chinchilla experts and breeders do, blah blah blah" and he told me "Well, we have to go by medical documentation, because someone on forums might post what worked for them, but it might be a rare case, or they might be leaving something out that was really what worked."

He honestly is a nice guy, but I'm starting to hate all vets. (Okay that's a lie, I've always had a grudge against them)

About the antibiotic.. I wanted to put him on something else while we were still convinced it was a resp. infection, but after seeing the x-rays, apparently it's not an infection at all, so I don't know if even a new antibiotic would help. It really is a huge mystery, you could go back and read my other thread for some more details, but at this point it seems to have more to do with his gut than his lungs, but I don't know. Could also be a mass in his throat, who knows.

Last night I didn't get any sleep again. Every time he ran in his wheel he'd do this insanely horrible squeal, like a shrill "I'm being murdered" squeak from ****. I'd freak out, get up and look him over and then he'd bounce and chirp all happy-like.. I was really confused. But it happened multiple times so I ended up looking at his feet too, thinking maybe he hurt them? They look like they could be getting mild 'bumblefoot'.. Like the poor guy needs another illness. So at 3am I was on here researching blu-kote. I really don't understand, my little guy is in the condition of a rescue, but he's a pampered princess.

 

[ticklechin]

What province are you in?

She is in Halifax NS, anyone you know around there Tagna?

 

[Tagna]

I know a few people in the maritimes so I will see what vets they use. There are quite a few out east.

You may have to travel but it's worth it to find a chin savvy vet. Off to email some people and see who they use.

 

[dave67]

My chin has been having more urine than last year I think, drinks lots of water. I got a new cage and she does not want to come out. I had her 1.5 years now.