just to reassure everyone who reads this (even if people still don't agree personally) i have double and triple checked with the vet and it is the correct dose.
he said ches had bad swelling and inflammation aswell as two bad infections (tooth roots, dental, infected gaps between teeth) so an extended course was given (0.3ml twice a day for ten days) this should have been enough to get him eating normally again but as soon as he came off that dose he couldn't eat hay again and was in discomfort.
so then he's had that ten days of the inflammation with just the edge taken off, so you'd think 'ok, increase the dose slightly' but then you've got another week nearly of extra inflammation on top of that so you need to bring that down and get 'back to the start' (that's what the higher dose is for) then when you get back there, you increase on what he was on (so 0.3ml to 0.4ml which isn't much more)
but if you just went a bit higher you'd never get it under control and 0.3ml wasn't enough for ches, so 0.4ml wouldn't be either as it's not much more. and that was for the original swelling, and now he has that plus another week of it being untreated.
he also said it doesn't stay in their system long (why he does every 12 hours) and also repeated what he has already told me about metacam and peoples worries about the side effects etc ... the warnings about possible kidney damage have to be given because of the group of meds it belongs to. some other meds in this group have caused problems but metacam itself hasn't but they have to give that warning 'just incase'.
he said he's seen hundreds and hundreds of cases like this and he's assured me it's the correct treatment for chesney.
i hope that makes sense and i know some people will be concerned by that (and even some vets! ) but he's worked at this vets for 24 years and seen many many cases like this he said.
he's also a uni lecturer so all the vets of the future may be like him, be warned! :lol:
i know it's one of those debates where people have different opinions but i know people just have concern for piggies when they hear of these doses their own vet doesn't use.
ches seems absolutely fine. he's much happier and eats hay again after having metacam but even on 0.7ml, by about 8+ hours his eating slows down again and he struggles eating hay and squints. so he must be in quite alot of discomfort with hay and crunchy veg.
i hope that reassures some people. i wouldn't go with this advice if i didn't trust this vet. i wouldn't put ches in any danger if i wasn't sure