I mentioned little Nelson on the blog last week and the latest blood that had been taken by the vet to try and establish what was going on. We have tested for everything, you name it we've tested for it, including the nasties like BVD (not that we thought he has/had it) and everything comes back ok and it did again!
He has clear fecal counts, his heart, lungs and chest sound fine, but then you look at him and he's tiny, his growth chart is far from normal and without something we fear he wont make it through winter.
As you can see on his chart initially his weight gain was normal and at the first peak at just over 6kg he got heat stroke and nothing has been the same since. After lots of hard work and various medicines we did manage a month of very steady weight gain but nothing significant and we have now slowed to between 50 and 100 grams a week if we are lucky. At three months and one week he weighs 7.71kg!!
We had decided that the next step was a plasma infusion, not that there was really any evidence that this was going to help we are just running out of ideas! So on Wednesday we headed off to Robson & Prescott this time with Nelson and a bag of Barnacre plasma and a rather paranoid me!
He's the gorgeous little man waiting patiently for his appointment with Sam Prescott.
I've never know Sam struggle to get a vein but he did with poor Nelson and when he did manage to find one they either collapsed or there was a valve, but Nelson being the calm and laid back little man that he is just sat there and got more and more shaved and stabbed.
I was so relieved when the plasma was in and the cannular removed and all appeared well. I am the first one to admit I am paranoid when it comes to Nelson, I just can't help it!
Nelson was pleased to get back home and went straight to get a drink off his mum Andromeda and didn't seem to be in the slighted bit upset by his little outing, a bit of milk solves everything :-) Fingers crossed this will kick start some growth. Sam is off now for a week and on his return wants a phone call saying Nelson has hit double figures!!
Posts
6 comments:
We're keeping fingers, toes and everything crossed for the wee man. Go Nelson! Shirley & Robbie
Good luck with him, very frustrating when you don't know what the problem is!
Good luck Debbie. At least you have a great vet in Sam, who goes the extra mile. Plasma would seem a good call, I wonder if you got albumin levels on your blood results? The plasma proteins will help. So disappointing when you do all the tests and still no answers.
Yes we did Barbara, sorry can't work out how to reply to your comment!!
That was one of first tests, all ok. The vet has spoke to various experts, including Claire Whitehead and blood experts to see if they can offer any thoughts.
We had a cria this year with sunstroke. He was very flat and poorly for a couple of days. I went on Alpacanation for more advice and thiamine hydrochloride seemed to come up everywhere as a bit of a wonder vitamin which can do no harm. The suggestion seems to be to use the highest strength you can get, as otherwise the injections are very large, for at least a few days(unless it's cocci when thiamine is not appropriate.) You may have already tried but I thought it was worth raising as anything is worth trying with such a sick little chap. Fingers crossed that he begins to grow very soon.
Hi Debbie I know you have tried most things how's about adding some Honey to his bottles for extra calories. Might be worth a try while you get other results. Jayne
Post a Comment