So my vet told me to put Fiver on ONLY timothy hay for 6 weeks. Week 1 went well, for the most part, until Saturday night when for some reason I had a major allergic reaction after cleaning his night hab and filling his basket, and I almost thought I was headed for the ER, my nasal tissues and windpipe were so swollen and I had not only running nose but eyes as well. (I’ve never had water stream from my eyes like this.) I downed a benadryl and took a shower for over an hour just to be able to wheeze, plus drank some sinus clearing herb tea and was still hoarse yesterday evening. I thought I was going to be at least using my husband’s inhaler from his pneumonia treatment, that was how scared I was that I might stop breathing.
I talked to the vet yesterday and she says it’s understandable that I wouldn’t want to continue the timothy treatment, but that he has to be on a grass hay. Either timothy or brome. She is not convinced (because she has no experience with it) that orchard or oat would help. Since this problem may have started with Fiver eating bluegrass, a less stalky hay much like orchard, that option is out.
The only place that sells brome up here puts it in 50 lb. bales that I have nowhere safe to store it in. If I remember bringing home the sample last summer, it was also a hay that tended to make me wheeze, but I figured it was because it was in a horse barn, and I can’t be near horses either. I will see if I can tolerate it better, but needless to say, whatever I switch him to is going to start the 6 week quaratine all over again. He still has minor messy cecals, plus some brown puddling where he sits to try to eat them, but it has improved since starting the timmy treatment.
Sooo…I still have the organic timothy that BB no longer sells becasue the company went out of business, which I started adding in small amounts to his basket today. I tolerate it better than KayTee brand which is bad enough that if I prick my fingers with it they begin to rash and I get hives. Then I begin having trouble breathing. I have to get some gloves to handle hay with plus I use a mask now and wash after each hay I touch. I have been on non-stop benadryl and kicking it with gypsy cold care herb tea for the last few days. I am hoping Fiver will be able to eat the organic timmy, I have hardly used it since I got it -trying to stretch it out and not get the buns dependent on it since it’s the only one we’ll ever have…so it’s like a treat hay- and it’s been in it’s box in the living room of my house, so when I sniff it I don’t get any bad smells from it. He seems to like it, but once it’s gone, it’s gone. It will probably last 6 weeks though, if I only feed it to him and not the other two. (easy enough, they have their own favorites)
The question is, after the 6 weeks I have to start introducing other hays, then discontinue them if his dysbiosis returns. But I am wondering if there is a hay out there that I can eventually put him on that will not cause me respiratory distress, but will also work for his bowel trouble.
Next question…when and if I finally get the three of them bonded…how am I going to get them to all eat just one hay? (this is of course a future worry, but I am thinking I will not have a threesome unless we find some other cause for this problem Fiver has) I haven’t been able to get a sample from him to take to the vet for testing yet. Even so, last time I took one in they found nothing wrong with it and that was after he’d been on the metronidazole for ten days, which didn’t do the job.
I can’t move him away from where he is, there is nowhere else in the house to put him. And eating that hay for 6 weeks isn’t long enough for me to put myself on allergy shots if he eventually won’t have to eat it anymore.
Suggestions? Opinions? It seems to me that the idea is…as long as he only eats one kind of grass hay, he should be fine, it may be that combination hays were too much for him to digest. But WHY does it have to be the one hay that I am MOST allergic to?
And Benebac doesn’t help. He is also not allowed to have pumpkin. So I’m at a loss.