Nina still very groggy and chewing at her stitches 3hrs after surgery

My first question is can I give her the metacam that the vet gave me already? Second question is..is it normal for her to be still out of it this long after surgery..She has been eating pretty much none stop and stopped to drink once since we brought her home an hour ago but her eyes are half open and she just seems bleah! Both girls that I had before bounced back immediately so I haven't dealt with this kind of slow,groggy out of it....

If she is chewing at her stitches that is usually a sign that she is in pain. When properly medicated they should leave it alone

Sounds like she might be in pain ..... not necessarily groggy
but vets normally give an injection of metacam after surgery that lasts 24 hrs
You need to check with your vet
Maybe your vet didn't give her metacam or maybe she needs something else
Godmother had a girl whose pain didn't respond to metacam and the vet had to prescribe something else

Vet had already left when we picked her up and won't be back till tuesday..she seems ok now she is walking around but she did pull out 3-4 stitches..maybe they were to tight? I don't know but she is leaving it alone now and walking about on the couch without a care....She gave me antibiotics as well for her but like I said she was gone when we got there and the people left didn't know their a** from a hole in the ground it seemed...took them 10 minutes to fill her antibiotics! they couldn't figure out the dose......I am going to put her back in the cage with the boys and see if they helps keep her comfortable...

Well we are back to chewing...should I go ahead and give her the pain med? I don't wanna overdose her but it is definitely bothering her again and she now has porphyrin coming from her nose....her sides are also sucked in which makes me think she is definitely in pain...she has metacam 1.5 mg/ml and it says give her 0.05 once a day roughly 428grams she could have gained a bit more since she has been here but she also lost a tumor so she is about that weight..I have to keep stopping to yell at her haha....

she doesn't like me but for the first she actually is calm when I pet her so I know she must really be hurting

Side sucking is what we call owie stretches and is a sign if pain

I gave her half of the dose of her pain meds cause I don't wanna overdose her but if in an hour she doesn't feel better then I am giving her the other half....She has chewed herself wide open now..I can't even use the bathroom without her chewing at it so I am going to have my husband run out and get steri strips and put her incision back together but surprisingly she isn't bleeding and there is a staple in there so I am assuming the tumor was deeper than the vet originally thought. I am just an angry upset mess right now haha I can't help but feel that way.....

She has settled down now and I think maybe trying to sleep so the pain meds helped...If she wakes up later and starts to chew and show signs of pain again should I go ahead and give her the other half? her sides are still sucked in a bit but I imagine having an open incision is painful....I will call the vet in the morning and see if maybe she might make a special appearance for us but I doubt it..can't hurt to try though.

Oh dear it doesn't sound like she got appropriate pain meds post-op. The dose is tiny as well which is why she chewed out her stitches. Can you get us a pic of her incision (full body pic not a closeup) so we can advise you better. Also what type of surgery did she have? BBS with a better dose of metacam.

As suspected your vet used the very low recommended dosing of 0.2 mg/kg, whereas most use 0.5-2 mg/kg. A good dose for her is .29 ml once a day, so wake her up, give her the balance of the metacam, take the pic then let her sleep...poor lass.

She had a suspected mammary tumor removal but the vet said when she examined it that it was growing inward and was growing nubs or tentacles...She recommended we do the surgery as soon as possible because she was afraid if it grew any further into her abdomen that she would be able to remove it all so I am thinking it was deeper in then what she felt during the exam...hang on she is chewing again..I will try to give her more meds but I have nothing to mix it with atm!....just my luck haha

she won't stop chewing long enough for me to even type...let alone dose

.29? that seems like alot of pain meds...or maybe that is just in my head..you mean 0.29? I am bad at this hahaand she has now balled herself up in her fleece....but she isn't chewing anymore....As soon as I dig my phone out from behind the couch I will take a picture...My life is a hot mess right now..I hate surgery days!

Ok so you have to speak to me in small words because I am mathmatically retarded....I want to be 100% sure that we are speaking the same language and I might get lost and wonder off a bit but I will try and stay with you...I will take a picture of my syringe with my laptop and try to mark where I think you mean and you can correct me if I am wrong.

That's it, stick the syringe deep in her mouth, she'll hate you now but thank you later.

Yay! sometimes I am smart hahaha...Ok so now I will be the bad guy (she hasn't decided to like me yet anyway till pain took over) give her the pain meds and then try my best to get a good photo of her boo boo before I try and patch her up...I also have that weird gauze stuff that you can make cast out of if I need to do that to her to keep her away till new stitches...it might not be as bad as it looks but still freaks me out seeing open flesh.....

Ok well she did manage to spit some of it out...luckily I had my daughter to help hold her or I wouldn't have been able to do it..that was pretty much all the metacam they gave me for 4 days...We gave her a yogurt treat after to get the taste out of her mouth..

her incision is a hot mess...I can't even make out what is supposed to go where! Is it not as bad as it looks to me?

Poor girl! As mentioned, sadly most vets do under dose. Some of my ratties have required metacam and tramadol of pain. Call tomorrow and insist on more. If they refuse you can use children's advil OR tylenol but I cannot remember which. Someone on here will clarify. Please do not cast - if a proper barrier is not put between that stuff and the skin the skin can get a nasty burn. Use the steri stripes and hopefully with the meds she'll leave it alone. Hang in there...