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Thread: Vet Needed in New England / Upstate New York

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    Default Vet Needed in New England / Upstate New York

    Hi, does anyone know of a vet that will see injured squirrels in the south western New England / Upstate New York area? We are relatively close to Albany NY and Hartford Ct (western Massachusetts). Imp seems to have an injured foot. There is swelling and a lot of pain. We have pain meds but we don't know if he needs a splint or cast or something of this sort.
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    Default Re: Vet Needed in New England / Upstate New York

    Quote Originally Posted by niapet View Post
    Hi, does anyone know of a vet that will see injured squirrels in the south western New England / Upstate New York area? We are relatively close to Albany NY and Hartford Ct (western Massachusetts). Imp seems to have an injured foot. There is swelling and a lot of pain. We have pain meds but we don't know if he needs a splint or cast or something of this sort.
    Reach out to SammysMom, she's in New Haven.
    I have a vet in Saratoga, BUT you will need to drop your baby
    off as she only "fits in" new wildlife.
    To be honest, I'm not even sure she's still doing that.
    She had to cut her hours back due to health issues.
    She was getting inundated with wildlife as she is also
    the vet for a large wildlife organization up here.
    If you can't find anyone else, I could always make a call,
    but I can't promise anything.

    There is one of the best squirrel vets going, but he is
    in Manhattan. If possible, that would be your best choice, IMO.

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    Default Re: Vet Needed in New England / Upstate New York

    At the end of the day if we HAVE to drive to NY city we will. It is a good 4 hour drive, and honestly it would be harder on Imp than us. I am not 100% sure there is anything a vet could do. His foot is swollen between the ankle and claws (i would say it isnt outrageously swollen but I'm not sure what would be mild or sever swelling for a squirrel. Ill try to get a picture next med dose). I believe this would correspond to human toes? If the injury is anything like injured human toes I know it just kind of needs to play out. However, the bio-mechanics of squirrel feet do strike me as more complicated and maybe he needs some kind of treatment?

    The worst part is seeing him in such pain. We are treating with Tramadol and Motrin. I would like to increase the dosage but am not sure what is safe. If you have any information on max safe dose mg/kg for these meds I would be very happy to have it.

    Also, he isn't drinking water when i offer it. I have been giving him tomato to get some liquid into him but it concertos me. He will eat food when offered but he hasn't had any water other than whatever is in the medication and the tomatoes. I may force feed him water with the next dose, I dont have any way to subq water =/.
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    Default Re: Vet Needed in New England / Upstate New York

    Quote Originally Posted by niapet View Post
    At the end of the day if we HAVE to drive to NY city we will. It is a good 4 hour drive, and honestly it would be harder on Imp than us. I am not 100% sure there is anything a vet could do. His foot is swollen between the ankle and claws (i would say it isnt outrageously swollen but I'm not sure what would be mild or sever swelling for a squirrel. Ill try to get a picture next med dose). I believe this would correspond to human toes? If the injury is anything like injured human toes I know it just kind of needs to play out. However, the bio-mechanics of squirrel feet do strike me as more complicated and maybe he needs some kind of treatment?

    The worst part is seeing him in such pain. We are treating with Tramadol and Motrin. I would like to increase the dosage but am not sure what is safe. If you have any information on max safe dose mg/kg for these meds I would be very happy to have it.

    Also, he isn't drinking water when i offer it. I have been giving him tomato to get some liquid into him but it concertos me. He will eat food when offered but he hasn't had any water other than whatever is in the medication and the tomatoes. I may force feed him water with the next dose, I dont have any way to subq water =/.
    Do you happen to have any Metacam?
    Tramadol and Metacam combination is the bomb.

    What does Imp weight, and what dose of infant ibuprofen are you giving?

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    Default Re: Vet Needed in New England / Upstate New York

    100 uL so that's 2 mg of Ibuprofen (100 mg/5 mL infant Motrin = 20 mg/mL with 100 uL dose = 2 mg). Realisticly it is less than 2 mg since I was not confident the Tramadol would dissolve in the Motrin suspension so I dissolved it in 2 mL of water before adding it to the Motrin. I wanted a one dose solution that I could administer with a micro-pipette. The amount of Tramadol in the solution is roughly 0.3 mg +/- 0.02 mg.

    I dont have any Metacam and it doesn't appear to be OTC. Is it that much better than Ibuprofen? I have always found Ibuprofen to t be the most effective NSAID for myself, but I don't know if that is the case with squirrels, or even other humans for that matter.

    We also have steroidal anti-inflammatory if that would be a useful addition.
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    Default Re: Vet Needed in New England / Upstate New York

    Quote Originally Posted by niapet View Post
    100 uL so that's 2 mg of Ibuprofen (100 mg/5 mL infant Motrin = 20 mg/mL with 100 uL dose = 2 mg). Realisticly it is less than 2 mg since I was not confident the Tramadol would dissolve in the Motrin suspension so I dissolved it in 2 mL of water before adding it to the Motrin. I wanted a one dose solution that I could administer with a micro-pipette. The amount of Tramadol in the solution is roughly 0.3 mg +/- 0.02 mg.

    I dont have any Metacam and it doesn't appear to be OTC. Is it that much better than Ibuprofen? I have always found Ibuprofen to t be the most effective NSAID for myself, but I don't know if that is the case with squirrels, or even other humans for that matter.

    We also have steroidal anti-inflammatory if that would be a useful addition.
    What does Imp weigh?
    And how many mls are you giving him of each drug?

    OK I'm not completely understanding how you dosed.
    With 50 mg of Tramadol we add 10 mLs of water to get to
    a strength of 5mg/ml dosed at 2 mg/kg

    With infant ibuprofen at 50mg/1.25 mL it's dosed at 10mg/kg and "could" be given at 30mg/kg
    Personally I would not dose that high when also on Tramadol.

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    Default Re: Vet Needed in New England / Upstate New York

    This sounds like i have the incorrect dossage information on Tramadol and Ibuprofen. He is being given 0.3mg Tramadol. It sounds like you are saying the dose for Tramadol is 5mg/Kg. With imp weighing about a Kg that should be 5mg, which is more then 10 times the dose I have written down. It may be that a decimal place was lost at some point when I got Tramadol dosing info...

    If this is the case it would certainly explain why he isnt responding that well to the medication.

    I am administering in 100 microliter doses, which is 0.1mL (I have the equipment to dose in these quantities and it is easier to give than a milliliter).

    It also looks like my Infant ibuprofen is half the strenth of yours. It comes marked 100mg/5mL so that is only 25mg/1.25 mL. This also looks like it is off by a decimal place.... Jesus poor Imp...

    To recap he has only been gettin 0.3mg Tramadol and 2mg of Ibuprofen

    You are saying these doses should be increased about ten-fold to 2mg/Kg of Tramadol and 10mg/Kg of Ibuprofen?
    Sciurus meus amicum optimum est!

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    Default Re: Vet Needed in New England / Upstate New York

    Quote Originally Posted by niapet View Post
    This sounds like i have the incorrect dossage information on Tramadol and Ibuprofen. He is being given 0.3mg Tramadol. It sounds like you are saying the dose for Tramadol is 5mg/Kg. With imp weighing about a Kg that should be 5mg, which is more then 10 times the dose I have written down. It may be that a decimal place was lost at some point when I got Tramadol dosing info...

    If this is the case it would certainly explain why he isnt responding that well to the medication.

    I am administering in 100 microliter doses, which is 0.1mL (I have the equipment to dose in these quantities and it is easier to give than a milliliter).

    It also looks like my Infant ibuprofen is half the strenth of yours. It comes marked 100mg/5mL so that is only 25mg/1.25 mL. This also looks like it is off by a decimal place.... Jesus poor Imp...

    To recap he has only been gettin 0.3mg Tramadol and 2mg of Ibuprofen

    You are saying these doses should be increased about ten-fold to 2mg/Kg of Tramadol and 10mg/Kg of Ibuprofen?
    Please read my post above more closely.
    On phone right now, will explain when I'm off.
    At 1000 grams Imp should get 0.4 mL

    Edit: I should never try to do 2 things at once.
    Look at the charts below and see if this helps you, ok?
    If you have any questions I will help.
    What is Imp's weight, 1000 grams?
    Last edited by Nancy in New York; 10-17-2017 at 11:28 AM.

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    Default Re: Vet Needed in New England / Upstate New York

    See if these help.





    Infant ibuprofen chart


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    Default Re: Vet Needed in New England / Upstate New York

    Okay according to that chart a 1000g squirrel does get 10mg Ibuprofen it says .25cc at concentration of 50mg/1.25mL

    Thus for Ibuprofen: 0.25mL*(50mg/1.25mL) = 10mg (which is 5 times what I have been giving).

    According to that chart the tramadol is prepared at 5mg/mL and a 1000g squirrel is given 0.4mL

    Thus for Tramadol: 0.4mL*(5mg/1ml) = 2mg (which is almost 7 times what I have been giving).

    If that chart is what is supposed to be given I have been giving far too little.

    My math is correct on the doses I have been giving, so Imp has been getting much lower dosage than what is described in the pages you provided =/
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    Default Re: Vet Needed in New England / Upstate New York

    Quote Originally Posted by niapet View Post
    Okay according to that chart a 1000g squirrel does get 10mg Ibuprofen it says .25cc at concentration of 50mg/1.25mL

    Thus for Ibuprofen: 0.25mL*(50mg/1.25mL) = 10mg (which is 5 times what I have been giving).

    According to that chart the tramadol is prepared at 5mg/mL and a 1000g squirrel is given 0.4mL

    Thus for Tramadol: 0.4mL*(5mg/1ml) = 2mg (which is almost 7 times what I have been giving).

    If that chart is what is supposed to be given I have been giving far too little.

    My math is correct on the doses I have been giving, so Imp has been getting much lower dosage than what is described in the pages you provided =/
    Also I believe Imp weighs about 1000g. He is a fat old man... It has been a while since we weighted him but he is a large adult male gray that could stand to loose a few grams, so using 1000g dose is a good bet.
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    Default Re: Vet Needed in New England / Upstate New York

    I gave Imp a proper dose by the literature provided. When I went to get him he was missing... He had left the spot on the couch and was in the kitchen. I don't know if he was looking for food.. maybe water... maybe just wanted to go back to his nest? Either way I gave him the new dose of medications and placed him back in the blanket. He is really mad at us, but this is probably because we have been aggravating him without any real relief for the past few days.

    The amount of Tramadol given does seem high to me. It is about 1/20th the human dose and squirrels weigh 1/100 of what a human weighs. But I suppose this is what is found to work for them. Perhaps they produce a lot less CYP1A4, which is the enzyme that activates Tramadol, which is actually a pro-drug with little activity on its own? Who knows, it's pure speculation.

    On the water issue... Should I start force feeding him water or are the tomatos enough?
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    Default Re: Vet Needed in New England / Upstate New York

    Quote Originally Posted by niapet View Post
    I gave Imp a proper dose by the literature provided. When I went to get him he was missing... He had left the spot on the couch and was in the kitchen. I don't know if he was looking for food.. maybe water... maybe just wanted to go back to his nest? Either way I gave him the new dose of medications and placed him back in the blanket. He is really mad at us, but this is probably because we have been aggravating him without any real relief for the past few days.

    The amount of Tramadol given does seem high to me. It is about 1/20th the human dose and squirrels weigh 1/100 of what a human weighs. But I suppose this is what is found to work for them. Perhaps they produce a lot less CYP1A4, which is the enzyme that activates Tramadol, which is actually a pro-drug with little activity on its own? Who knows, it's pure speculation.

    On the water issue... Should I start force feeding him water or are the tomatos enough?

    Anytime a squirrel is on any meds. hydration is imperative.
    Whatever way you can get him to drink without forcing, is a must.

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    Default Re: Vet Needed in New England / Upstate New York

    It makes sense that medication would increase the need for water. I tried to give Imp some water with a disposable plastic pipette (I strongly recommend having a box of these to any small animal rehaber btw) and he was resistant because the thought it was more meds. I had to pet him for sever minutes until I could get my finger into his mouth. Then I dripped the water along my finger until he got the idea it was water. At that point I was able to give him the full pipette, about 5mL of water.

    I described the process because is such a great example of how intelligent these little guys are. He is not acting on instinct alone but contemplating the situation.. Also I can trust this little guy enough to stick my finger in his mouth while he has a very painful injury... If that is not an example of animal's showing love, I don't know what is!
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    Default Re: Vet Needed in New England / Upstate New York

    I have been leaving water with imp in his recovery bed and he won't take water form me so I assume he is drinking. He lead on us at morning meds so that's a good sign.

    I got a pic of his foot, I think he got it stuck in something and yanked it out... it looked swollen...
    Attached Images Attached Images  
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    Default Re: Vet Needed in New England / Upstate New York

    Do you still need a vet to treat him?

    I'm in Orange County, NY and have 3 different vets in my area that will treat wildlife. Newburgh is not too bad of a drive for you, so if you do need help, let me know.
    Kim Cassidy
    Licensed NY Wildlife Rehabilitator

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    Default Re: Vet Needed in New England / Upstate New York

    Oh that may be useful! I am not 100% if seeing a vet for his foot would help or not at this point? He really should see a vet about his tooth anyway though. Are these vets that will return squirrels? Here in MA they will not return wildlife... Imp is a 9yo non-releasable.
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