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Advice For Guinea Pig With Bloat

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kingfisher

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Hi, one of my pigs was diagnosed by the vet a week ago with Bloat and Gut Stasis. He has been on the following medication since then:
Emeprid 1 ml 3 times a day
Zantac 0.13 ml twice a day
Metacam 0.2 ml twice a day
Infacol 0.25 ml 3 times a day.

In addition to the above I have been syringe feeding him Critical Care and water 5 times a day and massaging his tummy. I also read on another forum that 0.2 ml of olive oil can help break up the gas bubbles, so have given him this for the past couple of days, however there has been no improvement so far. He is still very lethargic. He will eat a few mouthfuls of greens and hay but no nuggets or water by himself. His poo is less than normal and is misshapen. I took him back to the vets yesterday and he said to give it a few more days as he has prescribed all the recommended treatments for guinea pigs. I would like to know if anyone can suggest anything else I can do or give him to try and help him recover. Thanks.
 
Welcome to the forum and sorry to hear that you are having problems with the health of one of your guinea pigs.

I am not experienced enough to give advice about guinea pig health issues but can assure you that one of our experienced members will reply. I assume you are happy with the advice you have been getting from your vet. Guinea pigs are classed as exotics so it is always worth checking if your vet specialises in treating exotics. You may wish to look at the vet locator on this forum.

It would useful if you could add what country you live in (and County - if you are happy to do so). We have members worldwide and forum members will want to give advice appropriate to where you live.
 
Welcome to the forum, sorry to hear your piggy is poorly with bloat

Your vet has covered all bases by the looks of it treatment wise.

The Metacam is for pain and anti inflammatory

The Emeprid and Zantac are Gut Stims that will be pushing things through the guts, they both work on different areas of the gut so are good when used in combination.

Are you syringe feeding him at all? This will need to be done so he has food in his system to poo out. You can syringe feed mushed up pellets or critical care. With bloat it is important to gently massage piggies tummy this can be done with hands gently of something that vibrates, an electric toothbrush or a massage pad.

I would suggest asking for a x-ray to rule out any sinister reason for the bloat such as tumour, I am only saying this because we lost our little girl last year through bloat brought on from a mass in her tummy. We have however had another piggy that was susceptible to bloat and would treat her with Zantac, Emeprid and massage.

Am tagging in a few members to this thread
@helen105281
@Elwickcavies
@Stewybus
 
Thanks for the info. I am based in Upminster, Essex. The vet did do an xray last week, prior to diagnosing the stasis and bloat. When I revisited him yesterday he felt my GP's tummy and said that the tummy swelling had not increased in size, so I suppose that's somewhat positive. I am syringe feeding him critical care and water. I wasn't sure how much to give him, so he only had a few mls each day for the past few days, but having read further on this subject I have now increased the amount I am giving him. I have started massaging his tummy with an electric toothbrush. Any further advice is greatly appreciated, thanks.
 
Massaging their tummies gently really helps. I have a car seat massage pad I got it from Argos & have sat many a time with a poorly piggy on it & it has shifted their gas :) Keep at it, stasis if awful, it will take a good few days of intensive feeding & care to pull them through. If you can do a night feed as well to keep things moving :)
 
Like Lee says your vet has covered most things. I agree that a further xray may be a good idea.

Glad that you are massaging his tummy, though it may be an idea to invest in an actual massage pad as the virbrations are a lot stronger.

My other thoughts are:

- Plenty of fluids to help keep things moving through as dehydration can be lethal especially as he is having Zantac
- Gripe water (this helps relieve gas and I was doisng at 3ml every few hours)
- Dioralyte - I am not 100% sure how this works with bloat but it really helped both my pigs when they had it. It replaces electrolytes. I know Pebble recently recommeded it for a pig on here too.
 
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Poppy'sMum said:
Massaging their tummies gently really helps. I have a car seat massage pad I got it from Argos & have sat many a time with a poorly piggy on it & it has shifted their gas :) Keep at it, stasis if awful, it will take a good few days of intensive feeding & care to pull them through. If you can do a night feed as well to keep things moving :)
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helen105281 said:
Like Lee says your vet has covered most things. I agree that an xray may be a good idea.

Glad that you are massaging his tummy, though it may be an idea to invest in an actual massage pad as the virbrations are a lot stronger. I have this one


My other thoughts are:

- Plenty of fluids to help keep things moving through as dehydration can be lethal especially as he is having Zantac
- Gripe water (this helps relieve gas and I was doisng at 3ml every few hours)
- Dioralyte - I am not 100% sure how this works with bloat but it really helped both my pigs when they had it. It replaces electrolytes. I know Pebble recently recommeded it for a pig on here too.
Click to expand...

Massage pad - What a good idea - I'm going to have a look at these as I think it is something that will be handy to have in.
 
Sorry my eBay link I tried posting above is not working for some reason, if you search Niagara massage pad in eBay there are lots that come up. I have now managed to edit the useless link out of my post.
 
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I have a niagara massage pad but haven't really had much chance to use it because Minky had got over her bloat by the time it came. What I used was an electric toothbrush, the type that vibrate a lot. Not the new sonic ones. Here's a piccy of Minky & the toothbrush:-


I also used 0.5ml vegetable oil once & 1ml Boots Baby Gripe Water after meals & I think it was just a combination of all the things than got her through it. When I massaged her it obviously was some relief to her because when I went to move her after about 30 to 45 minutes she wasn't happy. Towards the end of one session she was almost pooing like a machine gun, doing 52 in less than 10 minutes. Yes I know it's sad having to count them. When she first took ill her poos were very small almost like apple seeds. Another thing I did on recommendation from Debbie at TEAS was take her out in the car. I took her on a 45 mile trip & again this seemed to help her.
 
I don't think I can add anything to what has already been said. Keep at it. You're doing all the right things and let us know how you get on.
 
Thanks everyone for your advice, and I will try all the things I am not doing already. Can anyone give me any idea of how long it may take before I should start to see an improvement?
 
I think it can take a good week or so before the guts get back to normal but you should start to see small improvements soon.
 
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