With all of the pouch infections lately, I was asked to post about an extreme infection that my Sydney & Seamore's Momma had when they were babies (2 years ago). Since Roxie (Momma Glider) wasn't mine, I don't have ALL the details, but I will post what I do know since I helped supplement the joeys.
Sydney & Seamore were about 10 days OOP when the first symptoms of mom's infection appeared. Daphne contacted her veterinarian who had no experience with what they believed was an inverted pouch. After consulting with several other vets via phone they decided to try to put it back. They knocked Roxie (Momma) out and tried to re-insert her pouch. It wouldn't go back in. The pouch tissue was too stiff and hard to be re-inserted. So it was determined that it was not an inverted pouch but was actually an infection. They did a swab test to see if it was caused by a yeast infection but it came back negative. I don't think they ever found out exactly what was causing the infection, but they put Roxie on an antibiotic. They were careful which one they used since she was still trying to nurse the babies and didn't want anything too strong transferred to them through her milk.. I'm thinking that it was either amoxicillin or baytril, but am not totally sure on this.
Her pouch never totally regained it's elasticity, but did recover enough for her to raise one more joey after Sydney & Seamore. (Her mate Shadow was neutered but not in time)
Since Roxie's pouch was obviously sore and she wasn't able to produce as much milk for the joeys we supplemented both Sydney and Seamore until they were weaned and eating on their own. We debated on pulling the joeys, but elected to leave them with Roxie & Shadow as they were still taking care of the joeys (keeping them clean & pottying them) and Roxie was still trying to nurse. Tho I do believe that she would have rejected at least one of the joeys if we had not intervened since she was not producing enough milk for both.
[:"green"]Chris, Thanks for posting about this health issue. The pictures are excellent and very helpful <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumb.gif" alt="" /> When Bittah's pouch was infected a couple of years ago, I didn't think to take pictures of it. She actually had a yeast infection. She was nursing two joeys at the time, Little Cricky & Scruffy. Her infection was a yeast infection & the vet recommended that the joeys be taken away & hand-raised while she recovered from the infection so that they would not contract the infection as well. Sadly, she had one joey in-pouch at the time the infection was discovered & that joey did not survive. I hand-raised Little Cricky & Scruffy from the age of 3 weeks onward. However, I did allow them to "visit" their parents through the cage bars by placing them on the outside of the cage for a few minutes at a time. (See attached picture of "visitation".) Bittah did heal nicely and the joeys both thrived with being hand-raised. Neither of them contracted the infection. Treatment of her yeast infection included: ~ irrigating the pouch 2x/day with sterile saline solution ~ oral antibiotics (I don't remember which one was prescribed) ~ pulling the joeys so that they wouldn't irritate the pouch nor contract the infection themselves
Chris, Suz, thank you for sharing. I think this information will be of great use to folks. I'm so happy that both cases had happy endings too! Kudos to both of you for the good jobs helping out the mommas and babies!
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Re: Severely Infected Pouch Story with pictures
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#108877 06/09/0610:10 AM06/09/0610:10 AM
Yes thank you and thank God everything worked out for you. I do have one question though how were the babies able to nurse at all with the pouch that infected? It looks like it was super painful. It didn't hurt the mom when the babies nursed?
~Christine
Re: Severely Infected Pouch Story with pictures
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#108878 06/09/0612:31 PM06/09/0612:31 PM
Thank you for sharing...that infected pouch looks awful! I had no idea it would look like that!
Suz, that picture of Cricky and Scruffy visiting with their parents is just heartbreaking. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> But cute, at the same time...
Re: Severely Infected Pouch Story with pictures
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#108879 06/09/0609:43 PM06/09/0609:43 PM
Wow that has gotta hurt, thanks for the photo. I remember nursing my kids, and there were days that it just plain hurt like the dickens. What a trooper. What did the vet do about this anyway. I mean if she is still nursing then that really limits the antibiotics that you can give, but she has to be on something, I know where that poor mama is coming from, poor thing.
Last edited by Chaungo1; 06/12/0610:12 PM.
Re: Severely Infected Pouch Story with pictures
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#108882 06/13/0612:36 AM06/13/0612:36 AM
When this happened 3 years ago, they put Mom on either Baytril or Amoxocillin (sp?). It didn't seem to hurt the joeys at all. About the only effect that I've noticed with them is that Sydney doesn't seem to know how to keep her pouch clean (understandable since she couldn't see Mom taking care of hers) so I have to give her a hand with it.
Chris Illusion, Malcom, Isabell, Annabelle, Zach, Isis, Aly & Indy AND Miss Emmy & Miss Chloe kitties
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