Advice on fungal/ringworm breaking the chain of infection?

[lu_lu]

Background
Just over a month ago, sarina had a small scratch above her right eye, and a small “nip†like mark on her back, off to the vet for a check up and the vet was undecided if it was results of a sqwabble or irritated skin, we’d had a really bad batch of hay and i’d come out with bad dermitis, i was given fuciderm and told to come back in a week. After a week no better i suggested fungal infection after combing the internet and the pics looked like sarina’s what had now turned into a patch, i was told it was probably mites and given xeno 50 and told to return in 2 weeks, over the next week sarina’s patch spread to the right side of the upper face, ear and just behind the head. Her mate Lucie had developed a small patch on the nose and rosie who use to live with them developed what looked like a blind spot on her nose the size of the old haIf penny, which after several days seemed to go down and look fungal, I got another appointment and they finally took a culture which takes 10 days, got a call on the 8th ringworm confirmed.

the girls are now in 2 sets of 2, in ferplast 120, on newspaper and hay which is changed once sometimes twice daily, cleaning rejeme is apron and gloves on,
remove girls into mega bucket, remove all contents of ferplast, change gloves, lay kitchen roll down and spray distel on top, leave 15 minutes to soak through (in this time i weight and check girls and give meds and apply anti fungal cream) fresh gloves wipe base and sides and removed kitchen roll, then spray ferplast again and rewipe, fresh gloves, lay newspaper, hay add food then add girls back in, disinfect mega bucket, wash up.

this has been my rejeme since i suspected fungal/ringworm 3 weeks ago but things don’t seem to be improving so i must be reinfecting somewhere or they are!

Can anyone offer any advice on anything more i could be doing, scales are disinfected between each girl, gloves are constantly changes to stop cross contamination occuring, there is nothing in the cage apart from a plastic food bowl which is disnifected at clean down time,

i am panicing about this, we have a few animals and i’m very worried about it spreading (this morning i noticed a minute patch on one of the boars who lives in a different part of the house and now i don’t know if its panic or actually the start of something). The animals are being vet checked at the end of the month and signed of fit to travel when we move to France but i don’t think this will be cleared, everything is booked to be moved...

any advise greatly appreciated
cheers

 

[biscandmatt]

ches got fungal/ringworm aswell, gave it to me. thankfully maisie didn't get it aswell.

it can take a while to clear up. ches had meds and cream. this was for four weeks.

it sounds like you are doing everything right, and more! so you might not be re-infecting anywhere, just that it can take so long to treat it.

have you thrown away all wooden items in the cage? (fungal spores can stay longer in wooden items) and have you washed all fleece at at least 60?

if the ringworm patches don't look better now then i would speak to the vet again, because i noticed a clear up in the patch quite soon after treatment started. it could be that they need meds to treat that way, aswell as the cream applied.

eta: sorry, just realised you said meds and cream. mallethead

 

[lu_lu]

Previously they were on fleece in a 7 x 2 c&c with wooden hides but after I read your post I binned the hides and washed the fleece @90 degrees down graded to to ferplast and did the new routine, mainly to stop the kids reaching in the c & c for a cuddle ( they are so absent minded ) the vet said the spores are not air borne and its transferred through contact but I don't know... The patches where the hair were still look red and angry on Rosie and quite dry and scaly on Lucie and Sarina, Gaia the 4th pig has no symptoms at all but I was told to give meds as a precaution, all girls are wheeking as usual, putting on weight slow and steady and popcorning at hay top up time, I guess I'm just a bit freaked out, feels very weird picking the girls up with gloves on ! I have an appointment for 22 nd to have another culture done to see if its cleared guess I need to chill a little :o{:|

 

[Salt n Peppers mum]

Hi
Sorry if I've missed it somewhere in your first post, but can you confirm how the piggies are now being treated for the fungal?

 

[lu_lu]

hi
the piggies were prescribed sporanox liquid, 5 units per 100g of pig, the girls are weighed daily so i can adjust the dosage as necessary, i'm also putting a dot of daktacort cream on the afflicted area, this is applied with a sterile cotton bud, several cotton buds per pig so as not to cross contaminate. At present the younger 2 seem to be improving hair is starting to grow back on the nose and above the eye area, there still gaining weight and seem well in there selves, Gaia still has no symptoms what so ever, Rosie has improved that much, the area afflicted seems larger than original and still a little raw looking, some days she seems a little miserable and just curls in the hay, but she is gaining weight slowly so fingers crossed this is it coming to an end

 

[biscandmatt]

glad to hear things are improving.

noticed you are in manchester. do you go to ashleigh vets? we see aidan there and he is excellent. i highly recommend him if you find you need to go back to the vets for any reason.

 

[Wiebke]

Ringworm always gets worse before it gets better as the affected area is much bigger than the initial spot. To heal off properly, all the affected hair needs to come out since the fungal sits on it (including the roots).

I hope that Rosie is getting over it, too! Please remember that you need to be careful for two weeks after the end of the last active symptoms - that is the incubation period in order to make sure that it is really gone.

 

[lu_lu]

thanks for the advise, i never knew that...Gaia is still unaffected, is that normal that her cage mate has it and she doesn't? Rosie, the tissue looks dry around the edge of the "wound" and pinkish in the middle, she did come down with it a week later than the other 2, I'm just not sure i pulled all the infected hair out...Is there a way to tell if its still infected? i don't want to hurt her by pulling away at the hair on the off chance it might still be fungal. I've tried to get a photo but can't get a clear shot...she doesn't squirm now when i apply the cream...

 

[Wiebke]

Not every piggy will come down with ringworm. Even if it makes a comeback, you will find that it won't affect the rest of the piggies much.

Ideally, you gently tug at the hair after a bath, but it sounds like she is getting over it. Give her two weeks to see whether it comes back.

I found imaverol dip great for removing the infected hair, it came out pretty much without any tugging and it doesn't sting in the eyes.

Just make sure that you have a fungal bath and an anti-fungal disinfectant at home so you can treat immediately if it makes a return at some point.

It happened to two of my piggies a few months after the first outbreak, but it didn't go any further and none of the other then 14 showed any signs. I haven;t had any problems for a year now.

 

[gizzy]

http://www.365vet.co.uk/acatalog/Su...tml?VETGBase&gclid=CNLe-oWVrLcCFYHHtAodXSYAgQ

Hi there I'd run a Guinea pig sanctuary and occasionally I will get pigs in with quite nasty ringworm/ fungal infections,

I have had a brilliant success rate with any medication called Surolan , it is vet prescription only and it says on the bottle that it ear drop med , but don't let that put you off!

since my vet introduced it to me some 15 years ago, it is never let me down, when a pig comes in with ringworm etc. I just use the neck of the bottle to wipe liquid around the infected areas twice a day, and within a week to 10 days all signs of the fungal infection have gone never to return.

Apart from being an excellent antifungal preparation It also has the advantage of being an anti parasitic,antibacterial! so is also useful for ear infections which is what it was designed for

But best of all its stores for such a long time , a few months ago I had a pig come in with really bad ringworm round is a ear and his nose and head, my bottle of Surolan had been open for well well over a year and I was a little bit skeptical but it worked , and the problem was sorted in eight days

 

[lu_lu]

Thanks for the tip and the link, I'm there today with the dogs so i'll see if he'll prescribe.

Mini update:
was at the vets on Tuesday, Sarina and Lucie have improved so much (yay), all there hair has grown back, they are eating well, popcorning at fresh hay time and generally look like there old selves, i was advised to continue with the treatment for a further 2 weeks, then have another culture taken to confirm it has gone. Gaia is still clear (yay) but i feel Rosie is far worse, the area of infection has doubled in size, it is now more now like the size of a 20p piece, i am pulling loose hair daily from the area, the hair sits different, almost at an angle and you can see raised tissue beneath. I am bathing the area twice daily and applying cream, it looks very dry (white, flaky) and sometimes it bleeds, i'm presuming this is due to tissue damage. She is still on sporanox. The vet said it gets far worse before it gets better, but with the other 2 but it didn't seem to, she is eating well and hasn't lost any weight, in fact shes gained a little, i put that down to being board, the cage seems tiny in-comparison to what they were in and she isn't getting much exercise, she still seems quite miserable and only perks up at veg or hay time, I'm giving a tiny amount of veg every hour or so and holding onto it so she has to get up if she doesn't want Gaia eating it all, gotta get her moving some how! Is it possible that Gaia even though she has had no symptoms could be infecting / re infecting Rosie? I did ask the vet to test Gaia but he said there was no point as there were no symptoms presenting, I didn't like to demand it as it felt rude for me to do so...

 

[Wiebke]

Gaia is not infecting Rosie. That size is normal for a fully developed ringworm area; it can go up to a 50p size. The bleeding comes from Rosie scratching.

Here are some ringworm pictures from my own piggies to show to hopefully help you:

Tegan first sign - a bloody scratch under the eye. Not sure whether it is an injury initially.


Taffy - furthest spread


Tegan: the hair is growing back in; you can clearly see how far the ringworm has spread


Both Tegan's and Taffy's ringworm stopped being active after three baths with imaverol (i.e. within a week of the ringworm being treated). The last picture is about 3 weeks after the first appearance.