SICK LITTLE GUY

Question
I took my guinea pig Thursday to the vet he was not eating.. she looked at him and said he has an eye infection. she gave him some meds and told me to check back in a week its Monday and I found my little guy having problems breathing and leaking from his nose and mouth I took him in again she said he has pneumonia and gave him a shot of baytril as well as a pain reducer and fluid under his skin to help him out.. she seems to think its not good he wont make it. The Vet does not even carry the other med he needs they had to order it and it will be in their office in 2 days.. she said to leave him alone in a room not to touch him .. I got him home and cleaned his cage out.. I clean his cage once a week sometimes twice a week. I am at a loss I feel she should have caught this the first visit, she did not even listen to his breathing the first trip.. is there any thing else I can do? I do not trust this vet she could not even tell me if he was a boy or girl!!!!

Answer
It's unfortunate that there aren't many vets who are cavy knowledgeable and many offices won't even take them as patients. It's not because they don't want to, but the experience is very limited when it comes to small animals like guinea pigs.

The majority of the time they've already past the point of no return by the time we realize there's something wrong. Pneumonia is an extremely difficult thing to treat successfully even when it's caught early. At this point the best you can do is hope the medication will start working quickly. The rest is just up to the little pig.

I know that's not very comforting and I apologize for not being able to give you something better to hold onto. This is a very grave situation and I'm afraid I honestly can't give you anything more in the way of advice. Let's just pray the medications work on her and she returns to good health.