Our guinea pig is sick

Question
Hi, I hope you can help.  For the past several weeks our guinea pig has been falling to her side and has difficulty sitting correctly and especially walking around.  She has some discharge around her eyes.  Last night, I wiped her eyes with a warm wash cloth and about 15 minutes later I saw some white milky fluid draining out of her eye again.  My husband took her to the vet. about 10 days ago and he prescribed some lice medicine and some oral medicine (I am not sure what the oral medicine was for).  Then on Thursday 1/4/07 I took her back to the vet and he said that she might have an ear infection (the cause for her not walking correctly) so he prescribed her some antibiotics.  She has been taking the antibiotics since 1/5/07.  I haven't noticed any improvements.  Does any of this sound familiar to you?

Answer
Hello Lisa,

It actually sounds like it may be scurvy. Does she have enough vitamin c in her diet? If not, I recommend giving her lots of veggies and fruits rich in vitamin c (oranges w/the peels and kale are both great) for the next few weeks. Even if there is some vitamin c in her diet, I would increase it anyway. More vitamin c is good when they are sick and if it is scurvy it should help. It may also be a calcium defiency. Giving her kale and alphalpha hay should help if that's the problem. Because of the discharge, it could be a URI so I do recommend finishing the round of antibiotics to be safe. It does very much sound like a defiency though.

-kkat
http://www.geocities.com/abyssinianguineapigs