5 year old female bleeding

[Chrisdon23]

I have a 5.5 year old female, Koko, who isn’t spayed. In October, we noticed she was bleeding a little from her lady bits so we took her to the vet. The vet didn’t see anything on her ultrasound or her x-ray and the bleeding had stopped by the time we got there. The vets best guess was that she may have had a small bladder stone that she passed on her own.

Friday night, she started bleeding again just before midnight - A LOT! I got the vet to come in so we took her to get checked out; the on-call vet didn’t have much experience with guinea pigs but didn’t see anything obvious on an ultrasound so we took her home and went back first thing the next day when another vet who had some GP experience would be in. By then, she had stopped bleeding - no loss of appetite and drinking fine. The vet gave her a 10 day course of antibiotics because the night before, the other vet thought that she seen some white discharge while doing the ultrasound.

Koko’s been fine all weekend, and there wasn’t any more bleeding until about an hour ago. She’s not bleeding as much and her appetite is still good. The vet suspects that she might either have an open pyometra or a tumour; there aren’t any vets in my city that do surgery on guinea pigs and being 5.5 years old, it would be risky anyway.

I don’t know what to do for her, she doesn’t seem to be suffering but I’m terrified that she is and I just don’t know it.

[bpatters]

There's probably not much you can do yourself. If she's still eating, she's likely not in a lot of pain.

My guess would be that there's something going wrong in the reproductive tract, but you'd need to see a good exotic surgeon.

[Lynx]

If it is pyometra (an infection of the uterus), a spay would take care of that. If you don't have any vets who do surgery or have done spays, I don't know what other options you would have (antibiotics?).

When you say bleeding a lot, how much would you say it was? A teaspoon? More than that?

It sounds like you are trying to get to the bottom of this. We would have recommended an xray to rule out stones (xrays can sometimes be used to identify an infection of the uterus). It is possible if she passed a large stone that there could be bleeding. I am sorry you are having a difficult time determining what is wrong.

[Chrisdon23]

Definitely more than a teaspoon; there was blood everywhere in the cage and when I picked her up, it gushed out and made a spot on my shirt about 3in in diameter. I’m hoping the antibiotics help her. 😟

[Lynx]

I hope so too. Was there any sort of bad odor? I ask because often infections have a smell.

[jlsolie]

I was just coming on here to post nearly the same situation (except my lady is about 3). The vet (not super familiar with GPigs, I live in a small area) also could not find anything wrong with her (did a urinalysis and an x-ray); antibiotics didn't do anything. She's eating and drinking normally, seems perfectly happy and healthy except the blood I find intermittently. I wish you the best of luck with Koko, and I'm going to keep on eye on this thread! If I learn anything about Trixie that might help, I'll post it.

[Chrisdon23]

There’s no odor Lynx.

[Lynx]

Once antibiotics are started, it usually stops any odor.

Hoping for the best for you both!

[ItsaZoo]

I would think an ultrasound would pick up a uterine infection like pyometra, because the uterus would probably be distended. It depends on the vet clinic whether they have an ultrasound machine that they can use for an animal as small as a guinea pig.

I would be concerned about a lot of blood at one time, or small pools of blood. Smears of blood that show up on bedding for a couple of days and then stop could be hormonal. Guinea pigs have a heat cycle of about 16 days. So you might want to keep track of the day when it starts and quits and see if there is a pattern. Of course, if there is any change in eating, weight, activity level, or if she's having issues when she urinates, you'll need to get to a vet ASAP.

[Chrisdon23]

I didn’t realize that guinea pigs had heat cycles; I’ve owned several females over the last 10 years and haven’t seen this before. I’ll mark down the dates and see what happens in the next month or two. Tonight, she’s doing really well - squeaking SUPER loud every time I go near the fridge and eating tons of hay. Fingers crossed!!

[bpatters]

They come into heat every 14-16 days. And most sows are like your other females -- you'll never know. However, a very few will have a spot or two of blood, or develop PMS and terrorize their cage mates.

[Bookfan]

We've seen significant amounts of blood when a pig had a bladder infection, a stone or cystitis. Leaving the possibility of ovarian problems out. A couple of times Grace passed blood plus sizable blood clots, due I think to cystitis.