Guinea pig losing fur and messy bottom

squeaky3

Post   » Sat May 26, 2018 4:22 am


As long as the cysts are present, the hair loss will be. They could easily be the root of all her problems, they can even interfere with thyroid function, metabolism, blood pressure and heart rate. I had one elderly sow who had big ones most of her life, when she was around 5-6 years old, she was spayed. All her *hair grew back and she seemed much happier, but she died of old age about 9 months later. Spaying is a major surgery and she had some digestive issues for a few weeks after it because everything had to be 'moved around' and then had much more space to spread out. Meloxicam is an NSAID frequently used for pain relief and as an anti inflammatory, some guinea pigs do well on it, others seem not to do so well, how did she do on it?
Last edited by squeaky3 on Sat May 26, 2018 4:24 am, edited 1 time in total.

squeaky3

Post   » Sat May 26, 2018 4:23 am


I said fur... I meant hair!!

amyfw

Post   » Thu Aug 30, 2018 10:17 am


Butterscotch has regrown all of her hair. The vets at Cornell still see cysts on her ovaries on ultrasound but suspect they are not hormone dependent since her hair grew back. She continues to have .25 of metacam a day. That seems to be the secret number in terms of a dosage that keeps her bottom from getting so messy. We did a trial of her off the meds for two weeks and as suspected, she acted exactly the same, same food intake etc. BUT her bottom became covered in urine again. The suspicion is that she has posturing problems related to arthritis so we put her back on the meds even though she has no signs of arthritis. Basically, without metacam she gets covered in urine but with metacam she is able to be cleaner. Will keep people updated with changes.

amyfw

Post   » Sun Jul 14, 2019 9:10 pm


UPDATE July 2019-

My 5yp female guinea pig has been dealing with incontinence and a uti since January. She has been seen during this time weekly or bi-weekly continuously at Cornell Vet Hospital and has been on 4 different antibiotics. Nothing is helping. The UTIs are causing stones and I have tried everything to help her dissolve them (see med list below)

At this time, we are out of options. The vets have prescribed proin syrup to help the incontinence with the hope that it will help with the uti as well but they have no experience with using proin in guinea pigs and I am worried about giving it to her after reading countless horror stories by dog owners and the fact that it was used in humans but recalled and is now banned for use in the US.

Does anyone have experience with treating drug resistant UTIs or using proin syrup to treat incontenence? Any suggestions? I have tried d-mannose and numerous other otc supplements as well as the prescribed meds she is on.

Current med list-
TMS antibiotic
Doxy antibiotic
Sodium citrate
Meloxicam
Tramodol as needed
Probiotics
D’Mannose
Cystease
Pet uti free supplement
Shilingong
Renalvive

User avatar
Sef
I dissent.

Post   » Sun Jul 14, 2019 10:39 pm


Unfortunately, nothing has been proven to help dissolve bladder stones in guinea pigs. Antibiotics, and in particular SMZ, is generally effective in treating UTI, but this sounds more challenging due to incontinence. Have stones in the urethra been ruled out? Probably a long shot, but a stone or stones stuck in the urethra could cause dribbling of urine.

You may find something useful in this thread (Propalin is mentioned further down, which I think is the same thing as Proin):
https://www.guinealynx.info/forums/viewtopic.php?t=36615

User avatar
Sef
I dissent.

Post   » Sun Jul 14, 2019 10:59 pm


Also meant to ask...what kind of bedding are you using?

bpatters
And got the T-shirt

Post   » Sun Jul 14, 2019 11:22 pm


I wouldn't give d'mannose. It's a sugary carbohydrate, and guinea pigs just aren't engineered to process sugar. You can wind up with major digestive upsets with sugars.

I agree with sef that nothing is likely to dissolve the stones. I wouldn't even try. If they're small enough she might pass them, and the shilintong might help with that. But if you don't get rid of the stones, the incontinence is probably not going to stop, and you could wind up with a full-on emergency.

I'm also not sure why she's being given sodium citrate. It's used to make the urine alkaline, but guinea pig urine is alkaline to begin with. It may have no effect at all. Renavive is another unproven product that's not likely to work in herbivores.

Is there some reason you haven't had the stones surgically removed?

User avatar
Catie Cavy
Supporter 2011-2020

Post   » Mon Jul 15, 2019 6:52 am


The only other things I can think of are to give extra fluids (by syringe, giving high water content fruits and vegetables, and wetting vegetables) and try a sedative. Sedatives like Ativan or Valium can act as a muscle relaxant to help pass stones. They have worked for a few of us here.

amyfw

Post   » Mon Jul 15, 2019 5:04 pm


Trying to answer all these questions and add details....

She is on fleece with uhual padding underneath. Changed fully 2x a week and her bedding lads are changed daily. Baths daily to keep urine off. Using desitin cream for bare spots (no active urine scald sores at this time). Going to increase baths to 2x a day to keep bacteria down 8n that area but worried about how dry that will make her skin. I also use pure coconut oil to try to keep her skin hydrated.

Her urine is collected by cysto and cultured every two weeks. The results come back positive for an infection every time and they test it to see what antibiotics will be effective against it. At first it was TMS but then it became resistant. Same with Baytril. We went to azithro next but then the bacteria changed and azithro was not effective against it. She is back on TMS but the bacteria outgrows the TMS meaning that it’s our only option but not really working. We added doxy short term as a blast to try to assist the TMS in overpowering the uti bacteria.

This all started in January and was accompanied by excessive bladder sludge. The sodium citrate was addded because it is supposed to maybe help reduce bladder sludge or at least not allow the sludge to form stones.

It did not work. Stones formed multiple times in her urethra and even ureter. She was close to death multiple times. I tried the shilitong and Renavive as a last ditch chance to save her life. They worked. Or, rather, somehow she passed those stones.

I have been to Cornell animal hospital Throughout this episode. I have told them about flushing the bladder (to reduce sludge) and removing the stones as I have read about on multiple occasions here but they will not, they say they could cause more harm than good and she most likely would not survive surgery.

So, at this time, they do not expect to cure her uti (I am hopeful and continue to try everything I can) but are just trying to keep her comfortable and happy.

The incontinence has been suggested as either coming first and starting the uti (sitting in urine can harbor bacteria) or the continuous uti has led to incontinence. She could also have stones again that cause the dribbling although her sludge was minimal at her last ultrasound.

Anyway, antibiotics don’t seem to work but I am open to hear about other options. I am most interested to hear if anyone has experience with the propalin / proin syrup. I have read it can cause death in dogs (it did in humans too and was pulled from the market) but if it could help her dribbling it might be able to stop her from getting uti’s but on the other hand, might make it harder for her to pass stones because it can cause you to stop being able to pee which sounds painful.

Anyway, any suggestions for chronic utis? Experience with propalin/ proin?

User avatar
Sef
I dissent.

Post   » Mon Jul 15, 2019 6:34 pm


Do you see the link I posted to a thread on GL regarding Propalin?

Lisa12

Post   » Tue Jul 16, 2019 3:27 am


I didnt want to give Propalin to Ringo years ago, cause its bad for the heart. And its usually not even effective from what I heard(he had enlarged prostate and was heavily incontinent. Death cause of PRopalin- its hard to say cause most of this dogs had other issues as well..

However we did not cultures for infections cause Enroxill always helped but with pigs that is much much more complicated. But yeah he has history with bladder and kidney infections cause of baccteria in prostate or something like that. But Ringo is a dog so I hope you can find the sef1268 link:)

In our cause surgery-castration-would have been better-I regret we didnt do it..we did chemichal few times-but it helped atfirst and than not at all-he is Quite incontinent still today and Will always be. Alternative medicine didnt work also. At all.

Irie was reciving TMS injections under skin for bordetella without success..but that justsome information i dont know if it can help your case-I know its more agressive and effective than oral ab.

User avatar
Sef
I dissent.

Post   » Tue Jul 16, 2019 6:15 am


I'm not sure why the vet would be reluctant to perform surgery to remove the bladder stones. Any surgery is risky, of course, but this type of surgery is (generally speaking) relatively straight forward in the hands of an experienced exotics vet. If she's passing them on her own, that's good. It concerns me, though, that you mention stones in one of her ureters. Those tend to be much harder if not impossible to remove and, in my limited experience with them, aggressive and potentially very damaging to the kidneys.

Do read the Propalin link that I posted above. I'm not sure it would be effective in this case, where incontinence is most likely caused by repeated UTI's and/or stones. I'm also not sure what else to suggest as far as antibiotic treatment.

Without reading back through...how is she otherwise? Eating well, pooping normally, engaged with her surroundings, etc.?

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