cavy health question

Question
hi, i have a female guinea pig she's about a year and a half.  she's always been healthy and loves eating carrots, she would never turn one down.  recently i noticed she was coughing a bit and being lethargic.  i took her to a vet and was given an antibiotic and they gave her a vitamin shot and another shot i can't remember which one.  at first she was doing great, eating and running around.  a couple days later i noticed she wasn't eating again so i took her back.  they checked her out and i guess they couldn't find out what was wrong so they gave me another antibiotic and a pain killer in liquid form to stop any pains she might have and get her eating again.  in addition to the 3 medications she gets everyday, i also am feeding her a powdered herbivore food 3 times a day since she still won't eat.  a week and $300 later she still isn't recovering.  she shows no physical symptoms but i can't figure out what's wrong with her, do you have any ideas?  i'm at my witts end!

Answer
Hello Melissa,

Keep force feeding and giving her the meds. It sounds like a possible URI and those can take a couple weeks to get rid of and they typically get worse before better even with treatment. If she doesn't show improvement very soon, maybe have an x-ray done to check for abnormalities and possibly a blood test. I recently lost a piggy with symptoms very like your piggy's and my vet couldn't figure out the problem either. After the necropsy, we discovered it was in fact a staph infection. I believe your vet can check for this with a blood test. Unfortunantly, not eating and lethargy are symptoms of so many illnesses it's difficult to say what it could be. The antibiotics are important and so is continued force feeding. Continue with those and hopefully it IS a URI and she'll show improvment soon. Also, add acidophilus and vitamin c to her food mixture. Acidophilus can be found in the vitamin and supplement section of a drug store and it helps replace the needed tummy bacteria the antibiotics kill off. If things don't get better, take her back to the vet for those tests. Good luck. I'll keep you and your little girl in my prayers.

-kkat
www.geocities.com/abyssinianguineapigs