This is just a suggestion as I'm speaking from experience. The pleco lived but through a huge amount of stress. I have a male BN and though he's never jumped he has gotten stressed and showed symptoms. There are two things I've done to help and he always bounces back and is doing really we now. First I go and buy a squash zucchini and cut pieces to about 1/2 inch thick and anchor it with a paper clip pierced through the edge. I do not blanch it and he always goes right to it with no problems. I'm not sure you'd want to blanch it as it removes vitamins and minerals he needs now and they are a tougher fish than you might think. I also use HBH algae wafers as their first ingredient is Spirulina algae. It sound to me like you don't want him wasting energy scavenging for food, provide it for him and hopefully he'll get better.
I hope this helped.