Ill Chinchilla That Will Not Stop Biting Her Leg- Please Help

Hi,

I have a 6 year old chinchilla named Allie. About a month ago, I discovered that Allie had a nasty wound on her neck. I took her to the vet, who took blood samples and sent us home with antiobiotics and a pain killer. The test results showed that she had a staph infection (nothing serious) and enterobacter. She tested negative for fungus.

After she began the antibiotic and painkiller, she started chewing on her left leg. She would gnaw on her leg, barking and freaking out. It had gotten so bad that one night we took her to the emergency vet. It had nearly been chewed off.

She was kept for further observation. She had no absesses in either wound and had a collar around her neck to further prevent her from self mutilation. Both wounds were stiched up. They healed, but we still had no answers. The vet allowed us to take off the collar since she technically had a clean bill of health.

I applied "bitter apple" to where the wound was, in case she would continue to repeat the biting behavior because she had been wanting to chew for nearly a month at that point. She seemed to not enjoy the taste, but to our surprise, she again chewed her leg.

We took Allie to a different Exotics vet today to get a second opinion. Her teeth were normal (mollars were checked). The vet had noticed that Allie could not fully extend the leg that had been bitten (she was not resisting at this point because she was sedated for the xray). The Vet thinks that this may be caused by scar tissue or arthritis.

We are at such a loss of what we should do. She keeps having her "fits" (she absolutely goes crazy) and continues to bite herself. We have exahusted what seems like all our options except for euthanizing her. Right now she is on 2 pain medications (1 is a narcotic) and antibiotics. Tonight she made her leg wound worse.

Any suggestions?????????? Please Help before we have her put down