My guinea pig has pneumonia and heart murmur. What are her chances?

I am so sorry that your guinea pig is having this problem. Since she is so young, it could be a congenital malformation/disease or possibly an infection. You could take her to a veterinarian for an examination to try to determine the cause and see if any treatment would help. Unfortunately, there isn't much you can do at home without veterinary care. So sorry.

I am so sorry! Since it has been a few days she may still heal on her own. I am concerned though that she may have a broken rib or puncture lung since she is breathing heavily. I wish I had a great home care treatment for her but it sounds like she needs extensive medical care to ease her pain and help her heal. You could call the vet that saw her and see if they can prescribe any pain meds or additional pain meds to help her. Plus without seeing her and knowing exactly what is going on, it is hard for me to give any recommendations. If she is continuing to suffer and treatment isn't an option, you may want to consider humane euthanasia so she doesn't continue to suffer. I'm sorry and I hope she starts to heal.

Thanks for reaching out about Buttercup. No all bacterial respiratory diseases are treated with the same antibiotics, and not all respiratory infections are bacterial (could be viral). No all respiratory signs are infectious, as heart disease can appear similar (but unlikely in a young guinea pig). If increased respiratory effort continues, additional treatment needs to be sought. Good luck.

I am so sorry to hear this. Make sure you are supplying with vitamin C if you aren’t already. Also keep the cage very clean as the ammonia from urine is irritating to the respiratory tract. Of course if you can get any nutrition in him that would be helpful too. Best of luck and I hope he improves soon. Thank you for using Pet Coach.

Hello. I assume your previous veterinary visits resulted in x-rays, antibiotics, & a good assessment of diet & environmental conditions. If a dust free environment was not suggested, then change to something like Yesterdays News. If not, that is where I would start. Many young GPs can get a respiratory infection called Bordetella. Treatment involves using the antibiotics enrofloxacin (10 mg/kg once daily), & doxycycline ( 2.5 mg/kg every 12 hours ). Nebulization using saline & enrofloxacin may be very useful. Your veterinarian can recommend a protocol, but I like to do this 3 times daily for 10 minutes. Treatment with antibiotics & nebulization may need to be continued for as long as 21 days. I hope Thomas is feeling better soon. Take care.

I am sorry to hear about Pea. If she is consistently having heavy breathing with noticable body movement likely due to the effort I would recommend bringing her in to see the vet. She could have something like a respiratory infection that requires treatment, and with respiratory difficulty the sooner we address the problem the better the chance of a fast and full recovery!

If the cough is just very occasional and Daisy is otherwise acting normally I would not be too concerned at this time. If however, the cough is increasing in frequency (more than a couple times a day), if Daisy is not eating well, and/or if she has eye or nasal discharge I would recommend taking her to the vet to be examined. Guinea pigs are prone to getting upper respiratory infections that can lead to pneumonia so if the problem progresses you should have her checked out. I hope this helps. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. Best of luck.