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Advice Needed- Possible Dental Piggy

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Adelle

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I'm possibly facing my first dental piggy in 6 years of owning 5 pigs!

Crunchie is a bladder piggy, like clockwork every 4-5 weeks, she has a flare up of blood in urine and painful bladder. She normally isnt up or down in herself and doesnt lose weight. This is managed with loxicom and septrin, and flares arent as extreme since strictly following IC diet.

7 days ago her weight dropped from 1090g to 1070g- obviously i wasnt overly concerned. I weighed her daily to be safe from then as she started refusing her pepper- she still ate everything else fine, and weight stayed at 1070g.

Last night at tea time she left half her veggies before running off to eat hay- with some handfeeding she ate most of the rest. Weighing her last night she was down to 1040g, so i gave her loxicom thinking she could be having a bad bladder flare and could be sore. There was no gassy tummy, still pooing weeing and eating hay.

As i was getting mallow ready for the vet this morning, i weighed crunchie out of curiosity and she was down to 1020g, so i took her along to the vet too. Her chest and heart are clear, her abdomen is soft and pain free, including her bladder. The vet advised that if her weight doesnt pick up then we'll need to sedate her and check her teeth as they may be causing the problem.

Weighed her before her dinner tonight and shes now 990g. Shes never weighed this in her life an shes been Through a spay.

Shes got an app with a piggy savvy vet at 4 tomorrow as this was the earliest we could get. Iv stepped in with syringe feeding as shes not keen on veg tonight, however is very active and doesnt seem painful.

Does anyone have ideas of other possible causes? I may suggest to the vet that she could take blood if crunchies teeth are fine, whilst she is still sedated so we dont have to put her under again.

I'm really worried as the weight is steadily falling off her. And although its early days, its definately not a good pattern. TIA
 
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I'm sorry I can't help with advice, but just want to send you hugs and Crunchie healing vibes. Hope you are better soon Crunchie.
 
helen105281 said:
Her breath doesn't smell musty does it?
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Havent noticed, shes more of a lap sleeping piggy with hand kisses rather than laying up near my face... And all i can smell now is critical care! What would that indicate?
 
Oral thrush which can make them faff with their food, and make mouthing actions. It smells like damp dishcloths. The vet should be able to check for that though. It may well be dental though, it only takes a short time of them not eating properly for teeth to overgrow. Do her incisors look slanted at all?
 
helen105281 said:
Oral thrush which can make them faff with their food, and make mouthing actions. It smells like damp dishcloths. The vet should be able to check for that though. It may well be dental though, it only takes a short time of them not eating properly for teeth to overgrow. Do her incisors look slanted at all?
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Okay, will have a sniff later before i feed her cc. She does recieve antibs alot so guess oral thrush could be a possibility (a better one at least!)

Her inscisors where straight, the vet checked them but obviously the back ones cant be checked properly when theyre concsious and chewing! Shes still bright at the moment, everything seems fine other than shes just not eating enough and losing weight as a result.
 
The incisors can slant if there are problems with the back teeth, Tim's were very slanted.

I will tag @furryfriends (TEAS) as she is much more knowledgeable.
 
Have you got a definite reason to think teeth eg dropping food, eating strangely etc or is it more just the weight loss? Just that given her history of bladder issues I would be thinking bladder pain as a strong contender? Both my bladder pigs went off particular veg when they started losing weight and it was pain behind that. I know you said her bladder seems Ok when examined but I would have it high on list.
i hope you get some answers soon and sending lots of vibes for Crunchie.
 
lauraboara said:
Have you got a definite reason to think teeth eg dropping food, eating strangely etc or is it more just the weight loss? Just that given her history of bladder issues I would be thinking bladder pain as a strong contender? Both my bladder pigs went off particular veg when they started losing weight and it was pain behind that. I know you said her bladder seems Ok when examined but I would have it high on list.
i hope you get some answers soon and sending lots of vibes for Crunchie.
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Hi! Thanks for your advice. Her urine tested normal on dipstick, and was easily palpated. Usually theres visible blood during a flare, pain on palpation of bladder and definate thickening of the lining. None of this was apparant today, so it was highly unlikely to be the cause. Hopefully we get to the bottom of it soon!x
 
I don't think this sounds dental. However, I'm wondering if she has a urethral stone. I've seen this sort of weight loss, without any obvious reason and then a urethral stone has been found on examination. My vet can normally just pop them out. Once removed, the weight slowly increases.
 
furryfriends (TEAS) said:
I don't think this sounds dental. However, I'm wondering if she has a urethral stone. I've seen this sort of weight loss, without any obvious reason and then a urethral stone has been found on examination. My vet can normally just pop them out. Once removed, the weight slowly increases.
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Thank you for that. I will mention tomorrow to the vet ( different one from today, i was meant to see her but the other piggy vet appeared! Shes more surgery than medicine). I will suggest looking into poss bladder complication (conscious xray or scan) before diving into dental checks. The only noticable symptoms are leaving some of her veg at meal times ( mostly pepper/cucumber) and losing weight- shes bright and doesnt seem to be painful.. Shes laying comfortably, sleeping soundly and active.
 
Crunchie managed to maintain her weight at 1020g overnight, weighing before last feed and first thing this morning. So i let her do her own thing, put in a few different hays n other pellets to keep the selection up. But since then her weights plummeted dramatically in a short space of time (gettig ready for vets hence why i weighed her again) despite the fact iv saw her rummaging in the hays just as enthusiasticaly as she normally does, and appears to be eating. Yet weight plummets when i dont syringe feed. Its all very strange, shes still charging about like shes fine in herself. Confused.com !
 
The vet (the one i prefer to see) saw us this afternoon and flushed out crunchies mouth with water , then checked her teeth.. Shes found spurs at the left hand side, bottom teeth. As there are no other problems and crunchie is bright, just simply not eating enough food, she suspects this is the problem. Crunchie goes back at 8.30am tomorrow morning and will have her dental done at 12 under GA. I do trust my vet but obviously concerned at crunchie is 5 now, so not a young thing anymore.
Guess i do have my first dental piggy afterall :-( heres hoping for a smooth recovery x
 
Can anyone with dental piggy experience advise me on the likely hood of this being a recurring issue, and anything i can do to reduce the likely hood of this?

I used to feed the girls timothy hay in a rack/ corner tray that couldnt be sat in and expensive timothy in a normal rack. Due to fudge having limited time left in this life, i bought them decent sized litter trays and pile it with cheaper meadow hay, cleaned everyday, so they can rummage and have fun, along with their usual expensive timothy in the rack over the tray. The meadow hay is softer- could this have lead to crunchies spurs?

She does have bladder issues but never loses weight when having a flare (once a month for around a year), so its unlikely this has caused the problem as she doesnt seem to eat less during a flare.

Could it just be age, the spurs have grown over some time and now too big and causing issues?

My 7 year old heart piggy fudge has mild spurs on her back teeth (found 10 months ago), not suprising due to how ill she was at the beginning and not eating.. But theyve never caused a problem so we've left them alone (a GA would also be lethal to her so its just as well). So this makes me think it could just be age with crunchie too?

Thanks in advance for any ideas x
 
helen105281 said:
I will let Debbie answer as she knows much more than me.
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Thank you for replying! I'm sorry if i'm a pest, you helped me so much with fudges CHF, i didnt have a clue and my vets (at the time) where writing her off.. I honestly dont think she'd be here now without your advice, she wouldnt have gotten the meds and tests she needed so quickly and without them, she wouldnt have survived. Now when i have questions and need to tag someone.. I'm like "helen, she'll know!" Sorry :roll:
 
Thank you, that's lovely to know. I think you know more than me about heart now though, you descriptions the other day were brilliant.

I know a little about dental but mainly to do with Tim, Debbie knows more about how often dental issues reoccur etc.
 
Please help just picked crunchie up shes not in a good way they said shes just taking a whole to come round shes limp and keeps opening and closing her mouth i told them she dlesnt look right they said a vet checked her n she was fine to go home: she looks like she dying
 
They warned me she was taking longer to recover than she should but that i was to take her home and keep her warm and syringe feed her- theres no way she can be syringe fed in this condition. She isnt gasping for air like i first thought, shes chewing but very slowly? Is this normal after a dental? She is exteemely groggy and unresponsive- i told them when they brougt her to me this wasnt normal but apparantly the vet jad checked er 5 mins before said shes just recovering slowly. If i cant feed her.. What do i do? More importantly there isnt anything they can do either is there,
 
Vets really shouldn't discharge animals that haven't come round properly. On the rare occasion one of the piggies at TEAS has needed a dental under GA they have been absolutely fine when I have collected them, and are bright, lively and are either eating for themselves or able to take syringe food well. Most of the dental work that is done on the piggies at TEAS is done without GA. If she isn't eating or drinking can they not give her some sub cut fluid, which might perk her up a little. When was the dental done? It shouldn't take long for her to come round.
 
I don;t like the involuntary chewing either. This concerns me, and makes me wonder what is going on in her mouth. What exactly did they do? Has anyone explained what the findings were, what was done and if there is any ulceration in the mouth?
 
2 spurs on left bottom back- nothing else. They filed them down, everytjing is smooth apparantly. She kept trying to turn onto her side, breathing shallow. Shes with the vet and I'm in waiting room balling my eyes out, only just got here. Think i know the outcome of this.
 
Do you know what GA they used? I know of someone whose pig was behaving like that after a dental and they had given something way too strong. Keeping everything crossed x
 
Crunchie is back home with me, the receptionist drove me home (shes friends with my sister). shes still critical but making progress- she is now walking around (albeit extremely unsteadily) and ate some very tiny pieces of lettuce (made sure they where gone before giving her anymore). I then syringed 2ml cc over half an hour (literally the tiniest bit every couple of minutes) and she did swallow. However theres alot of noise from her teeth, and I'm worried theyve f*cked them up. It seems like a bad anaesthetic reaction. If theyve ruined her teeth and she pulls through then i will seriously consider getting her to northampton once shes fit enough as theres no way she can have another GA. theres alot of mouth movements but I'm praying its just due to all the poking prodding and "burring" of her teeth as apposed to a bad dental job. Please keep her in your thoughts- its going to be an extremely long night.
 
Wishing you and Crunchie all the best. Will be thinking of you. I really hope you can get to Northampton if there is more dental work needed. I don't think my Bubble would be here if not for Simon.
 
After a very long day and night, crunchie started to come round from the anaesthetic at 1am (9 hours post dental!)- up until then she was still needing her heat pad and could only syringe super tiny amounts of food and water, slow administer of pain relief as she was very flat. By 4am she was more respnsive and purred when being petted instead (she mostly slept in my bed under the duvet!) and ate some veg on her own.. Including pepper and celery (hard veg), and the horrible teeth sounds/motions stopped completely. She is now eating hay regularly and is back in her cage with fudge (and 6 different types of hay!).. Pooing lots too! We're back at the vet with mallow at 2 for a spay wound check as she developed a lump- and crunchie will be checked over too. Fudges meds are done, theyve all had breakfast and a fresh bed.. Think i need to go back to sleep now!

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