4 year old female is squeaking when urinating

User avatar
Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Sun Oct 21, 2018 4:59 pm


I am guessing then 100 grams total a day, more or less. This would be 14 mg for peeled and 16 mg for unpeeled (not an excessive amount).
https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show ... n=&q=&ing=

https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show ... n=&q=&ing=

You would want to lower calcium for guinea pigs prone to sludge and stones. You can see how various foods compare on this page:
https://www.guinealynx.info/chart.html

duskern

Post   » Thu Oct 25, 2018 7:03 am


Lynx wrote: Sun Oct 21, 2018 4:59 pm You would want to lower calcium for guinea pigs prone to sludge and stones. You can see how various foods compare on this page:
https://www.guinealynx.info/chart.html
Thank you for you answer Lynx. I have looked at the charts on the page you linked, and I find it hard to figure out how to use it. Like, what vegetables have acceptable values of calcium, and at the same time is good food for a guinea pig. I'm not even sure what amounts of calcium are ok, and what are not. I'm hoping to be able to put together a good diet for the girls and at the same time something that is good for Abigail.

Here's the stuff we usually feed our girls: carrots, cucumber, romaine lettuce, peppers, broccoli, beetroot, celery (a variant that's called leaf celery in Danish, check the link below for a picture :))

https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bladselleri

User avatar
Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Thu Oct 25, 2018 8:29 am


The chart can be sorted by the Ca:P ratio (calcium:phosphorus ratio). You want mid to low range, avoiding sugary fruits.
Ca:P COLOR CODES
Midrange (Calcium to Phosophorus) represented by greens.
High range by blues.
Low range by yellows.

If javascript is enabled in your browser, you can sort the various columns in the table on this page to find foods high or low in particular vitamins or minerals. If not, see [https://www.guinealynx.info/chart_CaP.html]
Go easy on the carrots, beet root, and cucumber, Skip the romaine lettuce (use a different leafy green, like green leaf or red leaf lettuce).

Read over https://www.guinealynx.info/stones.html#prevention

duskern

Post   » Tue Oct 30, 2018 7:29 am


Lynx wrote: Thu Oct 25, 2018 8:29 am The chart can be sorted by the Ca:P ratio (calcium:phosphorus ratio). You want mid to low range, avoiding sugary fruits.
Go easy on the carrots, beet root, and cucumber, Skip the romaine lettuce (use a different leafy green, like green leaf or red leaf lettuce).

Read over https://www.guinealynx.info/stones.html#prevention
Great advice Lynx, I will check it out and see what I make of it. Just to be sure what we are doing is ok... we give carrots every other day, beet root once a week, and cucumber we give like I Wrote earlier, 3x30g for Abigail and like 3x10g for the other two. I've always heard that romaine was good for them, but I guess it's not. Does it contain too much of something?

User avatar
Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Tue Oct 30, 2018 8:09 am


Sounds like you are doing pretty good.

The caution on romaine is for guinea pigs who have stones or grit. We have noticed that guinea pigs excrete extra calcium when they are eating romaine. So it is on the assumption that there is something else going on with this green that we advise against giving it if one wishes to cut back on calcium.

If you have dark towels, you can do your own experimenting, checking the amount of calcium excreted when a guinea pig eats various foods. I used to feed lots of romaine and the deposits were quite evident. Some time after feeding it (I don't recall precisely), there would be piles of white pee. Later in the day when they were eating other things, the pee would clear up.

duskern

Post   » Wed Oct 31, 2018 11:19 am


Lynx wrote: Tue Oct 30, 2018 8:09 am Sounds like you are doing pretty good.

The caution on romaine is for guinea pigs who have stones or grit. We have noticed that guinea pigs excrete extra calcium when they are eating romaine. So it is on the assumption that there is something else going on with this green that we advise against giving it if one wishes to cut back on calcium.

If you have dark towels, you can do your own experimenting, checking the amount of calcium excreted when a guinea pig eats various foods. I used to feed lots of romaine and the deposits were quite evident. Some time after feeding it (I don't recall precisely), there would be piles of white pee. Later in the day when they were eating other things, the pee would clear up.
Really good advice Lynx! It's hard to do such experiments for us at the moment, as we have a two year old daughter that's often playing in there :D We have done something similar with white towels on the floor in the living room, and the cage on top, just to give them some fun and exercise while checking for red pee. I guess we could start doing that again sometimes when our daughter is outside sleeping, just with dark towels. I have some that are dark blue, really close to black that should work.
Bookfan wrote: Tue Oct 16, 2018 1:47 pm We have a stone-prone pig & the vet prescribed diazepam to relax the urethra, meloxicam for pain (both so it would be easier to pass small stones) and an antibiotic. This is the vet who saved her last year by using some tool to pull a stone out of the urethra that was causing blockage.

We dropped the antibiotic some months ago with no problems and then the meloxicam. She started making pain sounds a couple of weeks ago & he restarted the meloxicam. He couldn't tell from the xray if there are stones or not.

He said he kept a stone pig going for 5 years with this approach.
I have actually talked to our wet about this, and she doesn't seem reluctant to try it out. I promised her to try to get some more insight about it before though. Bookfan, is there anything else you can tell us about it? Any info from your vet maybe? As far as I could understand from our vet, diazepam is not something that should be given lightly and would require a lot of caution, as it's the same drug that is in Stesolid and Valium.

Bookfan
For the Love of Pigs

Post   » Wed Oct 31, 2018 11:56 am


Sorry to be so slow to get back to you. I guess I missed this.

Not much from the vet about the diazepam. But he said he used it on a stone-prone pig & the pig lived to 5 years old.

Grace had a stone caught in her urethra & he did a dramatic save by using some tool, went up through the urethra & took it out. And she has had ongoing problems - I don't know it you can keep doing repeated surgeries for this. So it's weighing the risks of one against the other.

We did drop the antibiotic & later the metacam. She started crying when urinating, so she went back on the metacam.

User avatar
Catie Cavy
Supporter 2011-2020

Post   » Wed Oct 31, 2018 8:32 pm


My vet recommended something similar to diazepam but on a short-term basis. I had a guinea pig with a stone and he prescribed lorazepam (Ativan) saying it acted as a muscle relaxant. My guinea pig did successfully pass the stone a week later but I couldn’t say if it was the lorazepam that did it. I was also giving her shillintong and extra fluids. I discontinued the lorazepam after the stone was passed.

duskern

Post   » Mon Nov 05, 2018 6:18 am


Bookfan wrote: Wed Oct 31, 2018 11:56 am Sorry to be so slow to get back to you. I guess I missed this.

Not much from the vet about the diazepam. But he said he used it on a stone-prone pig & the pig lived to 5 years old.

Grace had a stone caught in her urethra & he did a dramatic save by using some tool, went up through the urethra & took it out. And she has had ongoing problems - I don't know it you can keep doing repeated surgeries for this. So it's weighing the risks of one against the other.

We did drop the antibiotic & later the metacam. She started crying when urinating, so she went back on the metacam.


That's quite allright Bookfan :) I'll take the info I have to the vet and see what we can figure out.
Catie Cavy wrote: Wed Oct 31, 2018 8:32 pm My vet recommended something similar to diazepam but on a short-term basis. I had a guinea pig with a stone and he prescribed lorazepam (Ativan) saying it acted as a muscle relaxant. My guinea pig did successfully pass the stone a week later but I couldn’t say if it was the lorazepam that did it. I was also giving her shillintong and extra fluids. I discontinued the lorazepam after the stone was passed.
Nice to hear something that backs up the treatment in question here. What is shillintong?

User avatar
Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Mon Nov 05, 2018 7:29 am


You do not need to quote all the posters since their posts appear on the page. You can reference them by name in your reply to indicate who you are responding to.

Hoping your guinea pig improves.

User avatar
Catie Cavy
Supporter 2011-2020

Post   » Mon Nov 05, 2018 8:47 pm


Shilintong is an herb used in Chinese medicine. There isn’t a lot of research on it from a traditional medicine standpoint, but there is some anecdotal evidence that it may help.

https://www.guinealynx.info/stones.html#supplements

User avatar
Sef
I dissent.

Post   » Thu Nov 08, 2018 1:50 pm


We currently have a stone pig (6-7 year old male) who is on SMZ and a low dose of Metacam [side note: has anyone seen the 2017 edition of Carpenters Formulary and can cite if the recommended dose has changed?]. Tanya from Fuzzies Kingdom is in the process of formulating a "urinary health" formula for me, with ingredients that she believes will act as an anti-inflammatory. I've actually had good results with some of her supplements in the past and will be interested to see if this helps. We had a rash of bladder stones over a 3-4 year span, and this is the first case in quite some time. Not too eager to do surgery unless it becomes necessary, as we saw recurrences in almost all of ours.

Interesting about Ativan. We had a pig on Ativan for anxiety, and it wasn't until we did a necropsy after his death for what turned out to be a mass in his abdomen that we discovered he also had a bladder stone.

Post Reply