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Another Bladder Flare- Will It Ever End!

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Adelle

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My nearly 5 year old sow has ongoing bladder issues. Septrin normally clears it up, and loxicom helps with the inflammation (i also give zantac as cruchie has had tummy issues in the past.)

She jusy finished a week of antibs a couple weeks ago, and this morning we are back to bloody urine and quiet squeaks when weeing- i guess the only consolation is she doesnt appear to be in as much pain this time round. This is probably the 8th or 9th time weve treated with antibs, shes had an ultrasound and several urine samples tested, all that comes back is blood and inflammation. We tried treating her before with just the loxicom but septrin was eventually needed and it works very fast. Shes had a 3 week course in the past and still it came back. She has also been xrayed to rule out stones recently, and urine is always checked for crystals.

I used to feed burgess excell but changed to vitakraft as it was lower in calcium. It helped her bladder issues but everyones poos where a bit off and wouldnt resolve (i took proper precautions of introducing food.) i then changed to oxbow as was advised it was lower in calcium, but have since learned of the calcium carbonate issue with it. I am now going to go back to burgess excel blackcurrent, as it is getting out of hand now.

I was free feeding pellets, as i have a terminally ill piggy in the group that needs all the food she can get. I have now bit the bullet and took all pellets out the cage, and just offering the oxbow to my other 2 sows a few times a day. I will start slowly introducing the burgess to crunchie tomorrow.

I have always fed crunchie on an IC diet since her second flare. It helped initially but not anymore. (Celery,cucumber,pepper,green bean and occasionally tomato or carrot)

I recently gave the girls Ings hay as the timothy wasnt great and they didnt like it- i understand non timothy hay is slightly higher in calcium so i have now changed the hay back to my original alfalfa king timothy- its expensive but dont know of any cheaper but good quality timothy out there.

She has her oxbow urinary support tab daily, shes on her 2nd box so thats been around 65 days shes had these.

Today i also started giving barley water- she preffered the blended barley with water rather than just the gloop. I'm not going to start giving her pellets until tomorrow, incase she has any effects from the barley and i can pinpoint the cause.

Does anyone have any advice? This has been going on for around 7/8 months maybe and although she remains bright and eating throughout bless her, it must be horrible for her!

This is what she passes on a flare :(
 
Sorry your guinea's having problems :( During the Summer last year one of my boars was doing the same thing, urinating blood, squeaking when going to the toilet, he has baytril, painkillers, it seemed to clear, then it all started again, was given sulfatrim, painkillers, again seemed to clear, and then it happened again, more sulfatrim, but then I was told it could be IC rather than the bacterial cystits, was given cystophan for him, he has half a capsule of that per day and plus painkillers, he's been on this a while and we've had no more problems with bloody urine and he seems to be back to normal, he put the weight back on that he lost, so I'm quite happy with his progress but at the same time keeping an eye on him just in case. I've also moved all of my guinea's to the IC diet, I have the same problem with hay, they seem to prefer Ings.
 
Sorry your guinea's having problems :( During the Summer last year one of my boars was doing the same thing, urinating blood, squeaking when going to the toilet, he has baytril, painkillers, it seemed to clear, then it all started again, was given sulfatrim, painkillers, again seemed to clear, and then it happened again, more sulfatrim, but then I was told it could be IC rather than the bacterial cystits, was given cystophan for him, he has half a capsule of that per day and plus painkillers, he's been on this a while and we've had no more problems with bloody urine and he seems to be back to normal, he put the weight back on that he lost, so I'm quite happy with his progress but at the same time keeping an eye on him just in case. I've also moved all of my guinea's to the IC diet, I have the same problem with hay, they seem to prefer Ings.

Thank u for that. Iv just bought vegan glucosamine from boots and will start that tonight. Its the same as the cystease/cystophan I'm sure. Glad your boy is stable now. Wish us luck!
 
I'm sorry you are going through this.

My Emma has had bloody urine on and off since September. Before that, she had about 3 UTI's which a course of Septrin cleared.

She had Septrin for quite a few weeks in September but the blood never cleared. Sometimes she would have visible blood and others just a trace of blood on the urine dip stick.

She had X-rays, ultrasounds, urine spinned down and a urine culture which showed nothing but blood. My vet has therefore diagnosed IC and Emma has a daily dose of Cystease and metacam, she is on a low calcium diet and has filtered water.

She still has bloody pees mixed in with normal ones and does the occasional squeaky wee.

Bladder problems are awful, frustrating and very stressful :( xx
 
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It sounds very typical for IC - interstitial cystitis! You get these occasional flare-ups, but they are not quite as bad as initially. IC is something you cannot heal, just manage the symptoms of. Eventually it is going away in its own, but it usually takes more than a year or two. :(

My Nerys (who is now 7 years old and has been free of IC for three years after having bladder issues for about 3 years) and my Caron both eventually got over it. The good news is also that IC is not shortening the lifespan... ;)
 
PS:
Trying to protect the natural glucosamine film on the bladder walls by giving either vegetarian glusamine or glucosamine-based cystease or cystophan can help for the long term.
Some people also swear on the healing properties of the gloopy water that results from cooking pearl barley in it for 20-40 minutes and then sieving it out; that you can give as much as a piggy likes. Again, it is supposed to have bladder wall healing properties.

Sadly, we do not have any miracle cure for IC. :(
 
I'm sorry you are going through this.

My Emma has had bloody urine on and off since September. Before that, she had about 3 UTI's which a course of Septrin cleared.

She had Septrin for quite a few weeks in September but the blood never cleared. Sometimes she would have visible blood and others just a trace of blood on the urine dip stick.

She had X-rays, ultrasounds, urine spinned down and a urine culture which showed nothing but blood. My vet has therefore diagnosed IC and Emma has a daily dose of Cystease and metacam, she is on a low calcium diet and has filtered water.

She still has bloody pees mixed in with normal ones and does the occasional squeaky wee.

Bladder problems are awful, frustrating and very stressful :( xx

It sounds very typical for IC - interstitial cystitis! You get these occasional flare-ups, but they are not quite as bad as initially. IC is something you cannot heal, just manage the symptoms of. Eventually it is going away in its own, but it usually takes more than a year or two. :(

My Nerys (who is now 7 years old and has been free of IC for three years after having bladder issues for about 3 years) and my Caron both eventually got over it. The good news is also that IC is not shortening the lifespan... ;)

Thank you both. I got her vegan glucosamine today. Going to give her the week of antibs (two weeks if shes still having problems by day 5), limited burgess pellets, glucosamine and barley water.

When i was free feeding, there was probably around 120g in the bowls (i measured today) and that would refilled probably a day later. That works out as the standard 40g each but in all honesty my terminal piggy eats majority of it!

How much pellets should i feed crunchie in grams now I'm reducing her intake? Shes on practically nil calcium veg so obviously i dont want to go too low on the calcium and cause her different issues altogether!
 
PS:
Trying to protect the natural glucosamine film on the bladder walls by giving either vegetarian glusamine or glucosamine-based cystease or cystophan can help for the long term.
Some people also swear on the healing properties of the gloopy water that results from cooking pearl barley in it for 20-40 minutes and then sieving it out; that you can give as much as a piggy likes. Again, it is supposed to have bladder wall healing properties.

Sadly, we do not have any miracle cure for IC. :(

See my comment above.. Great minds eh! Haha
 
Thank you both. I got her vegan glucosamine today. Going to give her the week of antibs (two weeks if shes still having problems by day 5), limited burgess pellets, glucosamine and barley water.

When i was free feeding, there was probably around 120g in the bowls (i measured today) and that would refilled probably a day later. That works out as the standard 40g each but in all honesty my terminal piggy eats majority of it!

How much pellets should i feed crunchie in grams now I'm reducing her intake? Shes on practically nil calcium veg so obviously i dont want to go too low on the calcium and cause her different issues altogether!

About 10-20g per adult piggy per day or if you want to go low calcium pellets, 5 "bunny" pellets (they are larger) per day. If you want to follow the carefully researched IC diet (as listed under "daily veg" in our balanced diet thread and at the end of the low calcium diet thread), it contains the necessary daily calcium and magnesium for a balanced long term diet.
See end of this thread: Low Calcium Diet For Bladder Piggies
 
Another good low calcium food is Vetcare multi-modal food for guinea pigs from Vet Uk - my specialist piggy vet recommended it to me as its very low in calcium,high in vitamin c and she feeds her pigs on it - as soon as I switched from burgess to that there was an improvement.
 
Another good low calcium food is Vetcare multi-modal food for guinea pigs from Vet Uk - my specialist piggy vet recommended it to me as its very low in calcium,high in vitamin c and she feeds her pigs on it - as soon as I switched from burgess to that there was an improvement.

Will look into that and bunny too- current vet bills are high and regular, never mind £60 prescriptions for my heart pig! Will look at prices thanks :)
 
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