Dana, 7yo, just seems to be slowing down

bpatters
And got the T-shirt

Post   » Sat Sep 12, 2020 11:10 pm


Where on the pig is it?

TheCageCleaner

Post   » Sun Sep 13, 2020 2:55 pm


Lower back, just above hips. We’re 99% sure it’s her old surgery site from when she had a lipoma removed.

bpatters
And got the T-shirt

Post   » Sun Sep 13, 2020 4:17 pm


You sure it's not the grease gland?

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Sun Sep 13, 2020 10:38 pm


I don't recall seeing something quite like that before. Let me know if I can add your pic permanently to your topic. It is fairly clear and may help future readers.

Do you have any cold pressed coconut oil? I would be tempted to slather some on to try to soften this and see if it can be removed to figure out what is going on underneath.

Is it raised? Does it extend into the rest of the hair? Is this guinea pig's skin dark?

Edit: I didn't see the posts on this page before I posted. Bpatters may be right on about it being the grease gland. If so, the cold pressed coconut oil would definitely help.
https://www.guinealynx.info/grooming.html#grease_gland

TheCageCleaner

Post   » Wed Sep 16, 2020 10:36 pm


Hey, sorry for late response. Doc is looking at the pics I sent and asked me a couple of follow-up questions.

I’m not sure if it’s grease gland because it’s not midline, but off to one side over a hip bone, I think? It’s so hard to find under her hair so I barely know where it even is haha.

Doc asked if it was a scab or if it was ‘thickened, darker pigmented, without hair’. So I told him it’s definitely more like the second. Very, very curious to see what he thinks. Dana’s skin is dark under her red hair which is why I didn’t freak out about it being black.

In the meantime Dana is acting completely normally so my fingers are crossed it’s something resolvable. I will definitely keep you guys posted.

Lynx, feel free to save the pic and label it whenever we have an answer! :)

bpatters
And got the T-shirt

Post   » Wed Sep 16, 2020 11:01 pm


I've never seen an off-center grease gland, so it's probably a skin lesion of some sort.

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Thu Sep 17, 2020 8:21 am


I am very interested in finding out what this is too.

Here's a crop of your original photo:

Image

TheCageCleaner

Post   » Thu Sep 17, 2020 12:21 pm


Thanks for the crop. Yes, I am also very interested and only because she has acted completely normally otherwise. I’d be running her to the vet ASAP if that wasn’t the case. Luckily our vet here is more than happy to answer emails to make sure something non-emergency is worth coming in for or not.

I’m the kind of person who peels stuff like this off my own skin so I am so tempted but I don’t want to cause any wound or infection. I am holding off on applying anything to it until vet gets back to me as well. Just keeping fingers crossed that whatever the answer is we can treat it, I do still have the big C in the back of my mind but that seems so unlikely.

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Sef
I dissent.

Post   » Thu Sep 17, 2020 6:34 pm


Hmm. I don't know. I don't think it looks fungal, exactly, but it's dry and crusty like a fungal issue. No itching/scratching?

I think, depending on what the vet says, I might be inclined to either try coconut oil on it or a little bit of Monistat to see if it responds to that.

TheCageCleaner

Post   » Fri Sep 18, 2020 7:09 am


Vet responded again and asked me to come in. I think he’s as stumped as we are. In his words it’s ‘bizarre’!

I’m honestly wondering if it could be ringworm-related as I’m now noticing a patch of fur falling off my boy’s butt, and I even had a possibly-related patch of some kind of skin reaction recently that hasn’t abated....

bpatters
And got the T-shirt

Post   » Fri Sep 18, 2020 8:53 am


Whatever that is, it isn't ringworm. You can google ringworm and click on Images, and nothing there will look like that.

TheCageCleaner

Post   » Thu Sep 24, 2020 1:00 pm


Believe it or not, the vet actually suspects and chose to treat for ringworm. They’re running a test for it as well which can take up to 2 weeks to come back. The reason he thinks this is because one of my other pigs has a touch of butt hair that’s just thinned and I still have my skin issue which I need to go get checked out...so we are doing miconazole cream twice a day for 6 weeks. Since Dana’s skin is black this is why the thickened skin is still black. We’ll have to see if it helps. The only other thing we could do is a biopsy but that would involve cutting the entire lesion out under anesthesia which is much too risky for her.

It’s also possible it could be some form of skin cancer, unfortunately. Her weight loss would make some sense in that case. If that is the problem, we will be operating off of quality of life/palliative care. It’s not an answer for sure yet but I am preparing myself for piggy hospice either way at her age.

For now she is having good days and just okay days, still eating/drinking/pooping normally but definitely just a little slower than she used to.

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