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Advice Needed - Bladder And Kidney Stone Pig

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Kerrie74

Kerrie74

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My son has just taken his guinea to the vets, he's had an xray and they've found a stone in his kidney and two in his bladder (tiny ones). The vet said to stop his pellets, lower his veg intake and give him lots of hay (he has lots of hay anyway). She said to give him painkillers and baytril.

Can someone give us some advice on what we can do for him please?

I'm going to put all the guinea's on the IC diet next week although some are a tad fussy, also is there something I can use other than coriander? One of our guinea's is a bit weird, when he's offered coriander he squeaks and runs off lol.

Do people think changing their pellets to the grainless ones would help? (One of them doesn't like them though).
 
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Oh one other thing, does anyone know if potassium citrate actually works on shrinking stones in a guinea pig?

Here's his xray.

STORM.webp
 
Sorry to hear this Kerrie. I know the people you tagged will answer in due course.

To answer one of your questions, Dill can be given occasionally as an alternative to Coriander on the IC diet.

I know you know this already - but I'll say it for the sake of our newer members - it IS possible to feed a pellet free diet - if you can be sure your Guinea Pigs are eating sufficient Vit C veggies. Has your vet advised what veggies you can feed?
 
Kerrie74 said:
@PiggyOwner No she hasn't :(

Ok, I'll put that on the list along with coriander as the others will eat it, it's just the one piggie!
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Stick to the IC diet recommendations (i.e. the daily veg) in our general diet thread. That makes sure that your piggy is getting a balanced low calcium diet. This is the easiest one for you to follow. Recommendations For A Balanced General Guinea Pig Diet

You can either cut out the pellets or switch one of these low calcium varieties:
Bunny GuineaPigDream BASIC | Free P&P on orders £29+ at zooplus! (5 pellets per guinea pig per day)
Vitakraft Emotion Professional Prebiotic Guinea Pig

Filter any water; it is not just calcium but also the minerals in the water that can contribute to the build-up of stones.

I know that some vets are giving potassium citrate, but it is rather in the way of a supportive measure. If it was successive, it would have made the rounds in vet circles and have become a firm part of any stone treatment the way other things have, like septrin and the use of glucosamine/cystease/cystophan, considering that citrate potassium has been around for a few years now.

There is not a lot you can do for kidney stones unfortunately apart from trying to prevent them from growing. They are not operable.
 
Thanks @Wiebke so it's just a matter of controlling his calcium intake so the stones don't grow any more? In regards to the potassium citrate a vet that we took Jericho to see who we believe has IC said not to bother giving it him as it's not been proven to work on guinea's. I was just wondering if anyone else had used it and seen any improvements.

Would the JR Grainless Pellets be ok to give them? If I'm changing all the piggies the Bunny is a bit expensive for 10 guinea's.

JR Farm Grainless Complete Guinea Pig | Free P&P £29+ at zooplus!

Also should I change their hay? They are on Ings at the moment.

Final question for now, will he have to be on long term painkillers?
 
Kerrie74 said:
Thanks @Wiebke so it's just a matter of controlling his calcium intake so the stones don't grow any more? In regards to the potassium citrate a vet that we took Jericho to see who we believe has IC said not to bother giving it him as it's not been proven to work on guinea's. I was just wondering if anyone else had used it and seen any improvements.

Would the JR Grainless Pellets be ok to give them? If I'm changing all the piggies the Bunny is a bit expensive for 10 guinea's.

JR Farm Grainless Complete Guinea Pig | Free P&P £29+ at zooplus!

Also should I change their hay? They are on Ings at the moment.

Final question for now, will he have to be on long term painkillers?
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@helen105281 may be better poised to answer your pellet questions. If necessary, feed any urinary tract issues piggies apart when it comes to pellets. Just make sure that you crumble one Bunny pellet for the other piggies, so they smell the same around the mouth and there are no grudges.

Timothy is the lowest in calcium.
 
I don't know how big his kidney stone is- but if it is small he may be able to pass it - my Bumble had a small stone and my piggy savvy vet told me to syringe a small amount of fizzy water daily and hopefully the gas in the water would help to push the stone out - it has now gone - my vet is happy to speak to other vets as they are a referrals practice where they take on cases that other vets can't solve - her name is Rachael Mowbray at Vale Vets 01453 542092
 
No point discussing with my vet @gizzy no offence to her but she's not exactly clued up on piggies and keeps going on about potassium citrate and when my son first took him she tried to say he had gas... We aren't withdrawing their calcium, we are going to follow the IC diet on the forums which is an healthy balance. My son's going to see if he can speak to a piggie savvy vet on Tuesday about it as he's taking one of the sows for a scan then.
 
Hi , its not just pigs, all animalimals incuding us, need a balanced Calcium to magnesiun .
 
Sorry to hear this. They look reasonably small. Sadly there are no diets that will dissolve the stone (like there is in cats and dogs), but trying the IC diet may be useful in future to stop or slow down the incidence of more stones developing. Your little one may (or may not) be able to pass the stones but you will need to monitor him very closely to ensure that the stone doesn't get stuck and block his urethra and block his bladder with urine (this is serious if this happens) so you will need to monitor his urination very closely. It may also be wise to syringe him some water to push the fluids and dilute everything down in his bladder.

Another question is, why did your vet give you baytril?

x
 
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Thanks for the reply @Abi_nurse no idea why he was put on baytril he's been on it since he first went to see the vet, but I've noticed she does it as a just in case thing. Could it be because there's been blood and maybe she thinks there's an infection or something? she does give it out a bit willy nilly though.

She's not exactly piggie savvy but we're a bit stuck with us being in Nottingham and not driving, I can't exactly get the bus due to ill health. I'll be glad when my son learns how to drive.
 
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PiggyOwner said:
That's the beauty of the IC diet Gizzy. The person who developed this diet did a lot of research into getting the best balance- that is why Spring Green is part if the diet
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I was going to say exactly this. I remember how much work went into putting the IC diet together, even hay was taken into account.

@Kerrie74 my pigs are on JR Farms at the moment and I have a bladder pig, Amy.
 
One of my pigs, Sundae, has been living with a bladder stone for years now. We follow the IC diet as suggested above. The stone has changed very little over time (yearly x-ray) and she has not formed more. In her case, it is too large to pass or lodge. Surgery was considered, but it's not performed as often where I live and it's extremely costly. We decided to treat conservatively and watch for quality of life and luckily she has done quite well.

Sundae's major problem that you may want to look into with your vet is chronic bladder infections. Apparently the stone gives more surface area for bacteria to grow, hence making bacteria more numerous. We went through a period of time around the time of diagnosis where she just had antibiotic treatment followed by repeated infection on an ongoing basis. Eventually, the vet suggested that we keep her on a low dose of suppressive antibiotics on the time reduce the bacterial load in her bladder. This actually seemed to help a lot and she has only had a couple of flares (maybe about one a year) on suppressive antibiotics. She also is much perkier on the antibiotics... I think she may have low-level bladder symptoms when she is off them even when she doesn't have frank blood in her urine. Just something to think about if ongoing or recurrent UTI is a problem.
 
Timothy hay ordered :) bag of JR ordered :) I also asked for some advice from the guinea savvy vet who is going to be scanning Cocoa on the 22nd, so hopefully she should get back to me, if not Aidan will ask when he takes Cocoa. Storm seems very unhappy today, just given him some of Jericho's metacam (my son didn't think to get the inflacam he was offered by the vet lol, so I've emailed and asked her for some).
 
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