RI - antibiotics and success rates

[bearhart]

My condolances.

Here are my suggestions and thoughts on your situation:

1) For any illness, do your own research on causes and treatment. Unless its something very minor, you should leave treatment up to the vet. This issue is the source of many heated exchanges on this forum. There is one catch, however, that is often overlooked. We may not be the specialist, but we are the managers of our pet's care. We are the ones who decide to go to the vet in the first place. We are the ones who decide whether or not to follow his recommendations. We are the ones who must determine if its time to find a new vet.

So, I think you did the right thing by getting on here and asking questions. I encourage you to further educate yourself on these issues. Don't just rely on forums and friends - there are plenty of sources of proper veterinary knowledge on the web. Not only will this make you more effective in your role in treating your pet, but it will also increase your ability to recognize symptoms early thus improving your pets prognosis.

I want to also encourage everybody to be careful when preaching on the sanctity of veterinary advice. As I mentioned above, the keeper is the one with the ultimate decision-making responsibility. Also, vets can kill your pet too especially with exotics. So, crapping on people that give care advice is a double-edged sword. Stifling bad advice helps. Stifling good advice hurts. For example, there are senior members here that encouraged me to override my vet's advice when my BP got an RI. There were not vets but, ultimately, I followed their recommendations and everything turned out well.

2) Find a new vet. I wasn't able to determine the exact course of treatment that your vet recommended but it doesn't sound like it was very good. From my experience, the standard procedure for RI is:
a) Immediately begin a course of a broad-spectrum antibiotic such as Baytril. This part is the vet playing the odds that here is a high probability of success. The motiviation is that tests take time, during which the animals health will continue to degenerate.
b) Immediately take the appropriate sample (mucous, blood, faeces, etc) from the animal and order a "bacteria culture and sensitivity test" in order to determine the exact nature of the infection and which antibiotics will be truly effective.
c) Schedule a new appointment at the time the tests return. At that point, if the animal is getting better and the tests do not show any bacteria that are resistant to the initial antibiotic then its simply a matter of finishing the current course of antibiotics. If the animal is not getting better and/or the tests show resistant bacteria, then a change in treatment will likely be recommended.
d) (good vets) Provide husbandry information and/or recommend temporary and/or permanent changes.