Aspirated while on antibiotics

[Chandlerdubberly]

Hello everyone. I am a first time rehabber and I have a 6.5 or 7 week old eastern grey baby squirrel named Peanut. I found out recently he is unreleasable because he is blind in one eye. My fiance and I are going to be keeping him, he is my only baby in the house now. On Sept 8th, I took Peanut to the vet and found out he has aspiration pneumonia. They prescribed I inject 0.02 Baytril once daily under the skin and nebulize twice daily with 2ml saline 0.20ml budesonide and 0.20ml baytril in the nebulizer. He has been on the medication seven days today, today being Sept 14th. Today, during afternoon feeding he aspirated very badly! I use the syringe the vet gave me and a miracle nipple but somehow I pushed down too fast and he aspirated. He spit up formula and spit out of his nose for a good minute. I was panicking because he was acting lethargic right after. Once he settled down and stopped sneezing formula up I nebulized him. After the nebulizing treatment he was acting fine and active. What more can I do since he is already on Baytril? How likely is he to get aspiration pneumonia while being on antibiotics already? I called my vet and they told me their wasnt much I could do except keep a close eye on him for a couple of days. I'm so worried. Before he aspirated today though I should also mention within these seven days he still sneezes even though he's been on the medication but still as happy, healthy and hungry. I also still hear a very very faint clicking noise every now and again. Ugh

[redwuff]

Hi,

As long as there was not a fatality within minutes of a bad aspiration, yes that can happen, the Baytril he is on should cover this event. What size syringe are you using? Do you hold the syringe so that you can hold back on the plunger? Sometimes it is not operator error, but a strong sucking baby that causes aspiration. For those I would consider changing the nipple from the miracle nipple to a catac nipple that you have to make your own hole. I might also go to the next size SMALLER syringe because the force and flow is less. But the most important thing to do is to always have a means of controlling/slowing down how fast the plunger goes.

Hope that helps! We would love to see a picture of your baby!

[redwuff]

How is this baby doing.

[Chandlerdubberly]

He is doing great today! I woke up around 8 o'clock and he was going crazy in his cage as he knew it was time for breakfast. He has a great appetite so he had formula and then we did a nebulizing treatment. He's been playing and active all day and just now laid down for a nap. I am using a 1cc syringe with a miracle nipple and we took it very slowly today. Thank you for your responses! I attached some pics of my baby.