Bladder Stone Can't Be Removed

[Y2Craig]

Hi,

I posted about this a few days ago but got no replies, have some more info now though.

Our pig, Dean, has a bladder stone and was operated on to remove it with no success (the vet couldn't find it and has passed the x-rays on to a specialist they know for advice).

After the op, he wasn't eating anything so we started on critical care, this seems to have been successful and he's slowly getting his appetite back (now eating more hay and veg and he's excited at food time again!). We'll continue with some CC until he's fully back to normal.

My issue now is that I don't know what happens if the stone can't be removed, has anyone experienced this? It seems to be in one place and isn't blocking his urethra, but he still has some blood in his urine. We'll be taking him back to the vet in the next couple of days and will get able to speak to her tomorrow, but I'd like to know other people's experiences and possible options please.

 

[Wiebke]

Hi,

I posted about this a few days ago but got no replies, have some more info now though.

Our pig, Dean, has a bladder stone and was operated on to remove it with no success (the vet couldn't find it and has passed the x-rays on to a specialist they know for advice).

After the op, he wasn't eating anything so we started on critical care, this seems to have been successful and he's slowly getting his appetite back (now eating more hay and veg and he's excited at food time again!). We'll continue with some CC until he's fully back to normal.

My issue now is that I don't know what happens if the stone can't be removed, has anyone experienced this? It seems to be in one place and isn't blocking his urethra, but he still has some blood in his urine. We'll be taking him back to the vet in the next couple of days and will get able to speak to her tomorrow, but I'd like to know other people's experiences and possible options please.

Hi! sorry if your thread went unanswered. It can sometimes happen if our forum is very busy and there are lots of posts and alerts to work through.

A bladder stone will not go away on its own. I am sorry that your boy had a difficult operation recovery for nothing. Did your vet take more than one x-ray from different positions to help him locate the stone?

You may need to consider another operation after a suitable recovery period and may also want to look for another vet to do it. I would however wait and see what the specialist says.

Guinea Pig Vet Locator
Tips For Post-operative Care

You may want to give your piggy cystease or another glucosamine product to help protect the bladder and urinary tract walls (which have a natural glucosamine coating) from the irritation of the stone. There are some other things you can do to support a bladder piggy, which you and your vet may consider - however, there is no medical miracle cure. None of them have ever stood the test of time.

Please read the chapter under special diets and filter any water to prevent contributing to the growth of a stone.
Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diet

 

[Y2Craig]

Thanks for your response, I think I posted in a busy period last time.

The vet took 3 x-rays and the stone can be easily seen in them but she couldn't locate it after opening him up

She's generally really good, and knows pigs, but has never had this problem before. Her thoughts are that it's either attached itself to the bladder wall or somewhere at the urethra (really hoping it's not that). Hopefully the specialist can help more but I'm dreading either something too expensive or nothing at all!

I'll look into cystease, though, that sounds like it would be helpful in the short term

 

[Freela]

Is it possible the stone had passed before the operation? Is he peeing normally (a stone in the urethra often can lead to a blockage with exquisite pain and total inability to urinate which becomes critical very quickly.) So I would think that situation would rule itself in or out pretty quickly.

I actually had a pig who lived for years with a bladder stone. It was too large to block the urethra so having it lodge and cause a blockage was not an issue. Because I'm in an area where guinea pigs are not that common and even fewer people take them to the vet, the surgery to remove the bladder stone, while possible, was ridiculously expensive and pretty risky because vets just don't have experience performing that op in guinea pigs. We decided that we would have to treat conservatively and assess her quality of life, with the mentality that if she was happy and pain-free we would let her go on, and if she were in pain we would have to reassess and either somehow find the money for the operation or, worst case, have her put down. The only reason we even knew she had a stone was because she had recurrent UTIs. She never had signs of pain. She was on a suppressive dose of antibiotics every day, with us increasing the dose if she showed any signs of UTI (typically for her a wet bottom or visible blood in urine.) She actually surprised us with how well she did. She lived to an old lady pig of almost 7 and then passed away of something completely unrelated. If the stone can't be located on x-ray again, trying something like that might be an option if the vet suspects it's still in there. It's not an approach I would recommend for every piggie, especially because some pigs are so sensitive to any discomfort that they go off their food and are acutely miserable (most of my pigs have been of that variety!), but Sundae was such a tough chick of a guinea pig that it worked for her, as NOTHING made that girl stop eating and running around like normal!

 

[Y2Craig]

Thanks for your comment, it's given me some hope for my own pig

He's definitely still got the stone unfortunately, and he has blood in his urine again (at least he is urinating though!). The vet's passed some more info on to a specialist reasonably close by, but I think they would be far too expensive for us to use. She's also suggested another operation to try to flush it out but it sounds worse than the one he's already had so I just don't know what to do.

We've got the vet again on Wednesday morning, hopefully there'll be more to consider after that.