TheCageCleaner/Cramer’s Herd’s Medical Thread

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TheCageCleaner

Post   » Mon Jul 12, 2021 3:18 pm


Okay, making a new thread for my herd since we will have lots to share. I’m TheCageCleaner and Cramer is my partner. We now have three pigs remaining after Dana passed away. Casanova (neutered male), Bean (3yo female), and Opal (2yo female).

Casanova is currently ~6? Adopted in 2018 and was appx 3yo at that time. When we got him he had totally normal eyes. I’ll link all the photos instead of embedding because there are quite a few.
https://imgur.com/a/Eqc5arq 2018, normal eyeballs.

In 2019 we noticed he was developing white borders around the eyes, suspected osseous metaplasia.
https://imgur.com/a/27vd2Yp 2019, if you zoom you can kinda see.

This progressed throughout 2020. Both eyes have white rings.
https://imgur.com/a/BZB205G 2020
https://imgur.com/a/AmZsGOF 2020, better view

We took him to the ophthalmologist on 6/8/20 and they confirmed osseous metaplasia/heterotropic bone formation in both eyes. His pressures were normal. Vet advised that the limited research on this condition suggests excess vitamin C may contribute, so we reduced his intake by removing tomato and pepper from his diet.
https://imgur.com/a/mjrXCvx Here are the nice photos from the vet of both eyes. Left on top, right on bottom.

This year, we noticed his right eye was really starting to bulge out. Went back to ophthalmologist on 3/22/21 and they determined there was an early cataract with some inflammation and that the bulging was likely due to the bone formation. Prescribed NSAID eye drops.
https://imgur.com/a/usNPdEd Bulging eye, even with eye drops.

We had a follow-up in May and the eye was stable, pressures normal, vet advised reducing NSAID drops to every other day. At this point Cas is essentially blind, but gets around just fine with his nose.

This past week I got all out of sorts caring for Dana, who was requiring lots of medications and hand-care. I fully admit that I literally forgot to give Cas his drops for a few days amidst all of this. So yesterday we were handling everyone and I noticed his eye is bulging even more and has some red fluid in there. https://imgur.com/a/bRBBCRb Yesterday’s photo.

I’m calling the ophthalmologist today. I’m pretty sure the recommendation will be enucleation/eye removal. Thing is, I’m not sure who I trust more to do that. The ophthalmologist is great with eyeballs of course, but he treats all species. My exotics vet knows how to handle cavy surgery. So if that’s the route we need to take I may have our regular vet handle the surgery. We will keep y’all posted.

Lynx, you have my permission to save/use all these photos for reference of course.

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Mon Jul 12, 2021 9:43 pm


Here is one of your later pics that is also very crisp. I must say, he is a real cutie!

Has he had an xray to see if there is anything pushing on the eyeball?

Image

I don't believe there is much vitamin C in tomatoes. I also rather think natural vitamin sources would not have caused this (I rather doubt ascorbic acid is negatively involved).

Besides other things that could push out the eye (elongated roots, an infection) I wonder if there are other eye conditions that could be involved. Glaucoma? Hyperthyroidism, or an overactive thyroid gland can cause bulging eyes in humans.

Eye removal would certainly be a last resort.

TheCageCleaner

Post   » Tue Jul 13, 2021 3:58 pm


Thanks Lynx.

I haven’t had rads done on him, I’ll ask at the next appointment. Ophthalmologist did rule out glaucoma previously. Our exotics vet requires sedation for bloodwork, not sure how willing I would be to do that, but I would definitely be curious to see his thyroid levels. He is not massively overweight or anything, but he is definitely still a hefty boy at 1160g. He has not had any age-related weight loss yet!

It’s interesting, the left eye has the same bone formation but isn’t bulging at all. I’ll be curious to see what the ophthalmologist thinks. Quickest appointment I could get is in two weeks, fingers crossed we don’t have any serious changes in the right eye before then.

bpatters
And got the T-shirt

Post   » Tue Jul 13, 2021 8:07 pm


That's not a huge weight for a boar. Every sow I had except one consistently weighed more than 1200 grams, and the one that didn't hovered consistently at around 1190.

TheCageCleaner

Post   » Thu Jul 15, 2021 3:44 pm


One of my girls is at 1200 too. Cramer fostered a pair of massive boars a few years ago, I met them once and it was nuts seeing them compared to my pigs.

I was cleaning some stuff up and I found our weight log from 2019. Cas was 1500 at one point. Guess I was wrong about him not losing weight as he’s aged. Now he’s being out-weighed by our girls, poor guy.

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mmeadow
Supporter 2004-2022

Post   » Fri Jul 16, 2021 2:35 pm


I have a six year old boar who has gone through the same weight loss, 1550 to 1120. He used to be a little meat loaf--you couldn't feel his bones, but there was no squish at all. Now he's bony and saggy, but still happy.

TheCageCleaner

Post   » Sun May 07, 2023 12:42 pm


Hi all, it's been a hot minute. I have some general life/herd updates and would like some advice on a new medical situation (can skip to bottom of post for this).

One bit of good news: Cramer and I are now Mr. and Mrs. Cramer and expecting a baby in October! :) At some point in the last couple of years we decided that we were not going to adopt any more guinea pigs while allowing our remaining herd to live out their lives with us. At this time it is too difficult to manage care of a whole herd, and I believe I am better suited to caring for my other pets as time goes on. That said I have been and still am committed to caring for the remaining pigs as long as they live.

The sad updates: Casanova passed 1/6/22 in my arms at ~7yo, after a brief illness. Opal and Bean ended up needing to be separated not long after this. Opal was very aggressive toward Bean and we tried every trick to re-bond them short of rehoming them. Having 4 piggies together seemed to keep Opal in check, but the only person we trusted to take either pig did not have the space/herd dynamic needed. I was not comfortable rehoming with an inexperienced owner, so we separated the girls into two cages and they did very well for the year following.

Bean had a recurrence of her ovarian cysts in February of this year. I had them drained/a new hormonal implant placed by the vet. At the same time we saw a small bladder stone that was not causing her any issues at the time, so the vet recommended I supplement her with Sherwood's cranberry tablets which I did. She bounced back very well for two months, but something happened and literally overnight she became lethargic and passed away 4/11/23 at home before I could get her to the vet. She was about 5yo. We did not have a necropsy done so I do not know what happened, sadly.

New medical issue is here: Opal is 4yo and our last pig, doing really well on her own. We were on vacation last week and had a relative pet sitting for 4 days. For some reason, this person didn't feed Opal her veggies (spring mix in a mini fridge right next to the cage), but did provide her hay/water/pellets. When we returned home I noticed less pee/poop in the cage than usual but Opal was acting normally and happily ate her spring mix so I was not too concerned. A couple of days ago I noticed her straining and made a note to call the vet for an appointment, since it happened only once and she was still acting normally. Yesterday it was apparent she was in crisis--the straining turned to full bladder spasms and she was not reacting to being touched. I immediately called the emergency vet from the car as her primary was closed, brought her in and they found a bladder stone that was obstructing her and she had retained a bunch of urine. In the course of them figuring this out, the vet was able to express the stone from her urethra. They also noticed some GI stasis, although she was still pooping a small amount which was good.

As it was very late at night I allowed them to keep her hospitalized and came back in the morning. She was doing relatively well, eating and drinking unassisted per the vet but they still supplemented with Critical Care and gave subQ fluids. She had developed a UTI and was given antibiotics, and at least one buprenorphine injection for the pain from the stone. I actually signed her out AMA this morning as they wanted to keep her for another 24-48 hours but there was nothing they were doing that I could not do at home since she was taking food/water/medications orally (not to mention the cost of hospitalization). She was very tired from the narcotics but I have had her home for a few hours and have given CC + Pedialyte, will continue to do this every couple of hours. She pooped quite a bit of wet but formed poop once home and I have her in a large carrier on a towel/pee pad to ensure she is peeing. Vet confirmed she is peeing and has been since the stone came out, they had been waiting for poop so I was happy to see it. Medications are currently Metacam 0.25mL q24hrs, enrofloxacin 0.15mL q12hrs, and they also gave me a script for potassium citrate liquid that I will be filling with her primary vet tomorrow (couldn't find this at local pharmacies).

Questions for the hivemind: I am wanting to give BeneBac which I have a fresh tube of, is this advisable considering the antibiotic? Also, is there a limit to how much Pedialyte she can drink? I can essentially get as much as I want into her via oral syringe, but I will water it down if there's an upper limit. I am confident that she will recover and can follow-up with her primary, I just want to be sure I do the right things while keeping her stable until they open tomorrow. I am also going to lay off pellets and potentially move away from spring mix to red/green leaf lettuce only plus some add'l veggies for vit. C (we used to do this but switched for efficiency, but I think the spring mixes have likely had too much arugula and spinach).

Thanks for reading if you made it this far. :)

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Sun May 07, 2023 3:43 pm


Congrats on the coming baby; sorry for your guinea pig losses.

Just so you know, if you want any feedback on dosage, we would need her weight and the concentration of the drugs (metacam and enrofloxacin) to comment.
https://www.guinealynx.info/calculate_dose.html

If I recall correctly, potassium citrate is not a supplement that is likely to help with stones. If you haven't recently, I would read over:
https://www.guinealynx.info/stones.html

BeneBac may help and shouldn't hurt.
https://www.guinealynx.info/probiotics.html

You are fortunate to have a good emergency vet at hand. Glad the stone could be expressed. Keep in mind that Bactrim (trimethoprim sulfamethoxazole) is generally more effective on UTIs. Weigh daily right now to watch for inappetence in case the Baytril (enrofloxacin) is poorly tolerated.

TheCageCleaner

Post   » Mon May 08, 2023 3:41 pm


Thanks Lynx! Today Opal is pretty much back to her normal self, eating/drinking independently and wheeking loudly for breakfast as usual. Doesn't seem like Baytril is affecting appetite at all but will monitor. I am continuing to give her a bit of critical care since she really likes it and needs to put a few grams back on--her weight at the vet's was 755g. For meds, Metacam is 1.5mg/mL and dose is 0.25mL. Baytril is 50mg/mL and dose is 0.15mL twice a day.

The potassium citrate is a bit of a mystery. They prescribed it at 1.33mEq/mL, dose 0.1mL twice per day, and they told me I could find this at any pharmacy but nobody seems to have it. Chewy only has it in mg/mL concentration so I'm wondering if that's why. Wedgewood only stocks 10mEq/mL so it would be a special order through them for the lower concentration. I left a message with the vet to see if they can clarify...if it's ineffective maybe it's not worth the trouble. (I have a hunch that the Sherwood cranberry tabs were equally ineffective for Bean, if her 'small stone' eventually enlarged/blocked her that could explain the sudden passing.)

Her only issue at this point is that one of her eyes has some discharge and upon cleaning it off I noticed a spot that could be a hay poke. Am hoping the oral antibiotic can still cover, it's not as bad today as it was yesterday. I was able to get her a follow-up appointment on the 16th but will move that up if things don't improve.

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Mon May 08, 2023 11:28 pm


Your better bet is shilintong for stone prevention.

Do watch the eye closely. If there is an injury, seeing a vet asap is preferred:
https://www.guinealynx.info/eyes.html

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