Bloody Urine/ Discharge

[Jhurt006]

Hey, new to the forum. I need some help though ! My girlfriend and I's guinea pig Twix has blood in his urine/ bloody discharge. He's three years old, he's eating and drinking like normal, acting like normal, but we see consistent blood in his urine/ in the bedding where he has peed. We noticed this 12 days ago when we cleaned cages for all of our animals. We changed his bedding out with fresh white bedding and almost immediately noticed blood/ red discolored bedding. We took him to the Vet that day and they "diagnosed" him with a UTI. Since then he has finished his "course of treatment" prescribed to him (antibiotics and pain medicine). Two days ago however when we did cages again, we do them every 10 days, we noticed there was still blood. The Vet says that there are no signs of bladder stones, so they are currently doing a culture to see if they can find a more identifiable bacteria.

They offered to send him home with pain meds, but they also said if its not a UTI the next possibility is cancer or a tumor. Thats a pretty extreme jump to me and i was wondering if anyone had any similar situations/ advice. I've heard there's a pretty good vet on here that will hopefully respond to this....

Also, i've also heard about a condition called Pyometra? Could that be causing it ?

 

[Pound Shilling & Pig]

Hi. Did your vet take xrays to rule out bladder stones? This is the only way to know for sure. Does your piggy cry when he wees?
There are no vets on here but there are some very knowledgeable and experienced piggy owners.
Pyometrea is an infection of the uterus so not possible for a male piggy

 

[Jhurt006]

Hi. Did your vet take xrays to rule out bladder stones? This is the only way to know for sure. Does your piggy cry when he wees?
There are no vets on here but there are some very knowledgeable and experienced piggy owners.
Pyometrea is an infection of the uterus so not possible for a male piggy

So, unfortunately my girlfriend has taken him both times because of my work schedule, but to my knowledge they did take "radiographs" which I assume is an X-ray. Thats how its worded on the receipt. And he does wine occassionally when hes urinating

 

[Wiebke]

Hey, new to the forum. I need some help though ! My girlfriend and I's guinea pig Twix has blood in his urine/ bloody discharge. He's three years old, he's eating and drinking like normal, acting like normal, but we see consistent blood in his urine/ in the bedding where he has peed. We noticed this 12 days ago when we cleaned cages for all of our animals. We changed his bedding out with fresh white bedding and almost immediately noticed blood/ red discolored bedding. We took him to the Vet that day and they "diagnosed" him with a UTI. Since then he has finished his "course of treatment" prescribed to him (antibiotics and pain medicine). Two days ago however when we did cages again, we do them every 10 days, we noticed there was still blood. The Vet says that there are no signs of bladder stones, so they are currently doing a culture to see if they can find a more identifiable bacteria.

They offered to send him home with pain meds, but they also said if its not a UTI the next possibility is cancer or a tumor. Thats a pretty extreme jump to me and i was wondering if anyone had any similar situations/ advice. I've heard there's a pretty good vet on here that will hopefully respond to this....

Also, i've also heard about a condition called Pyometra? Could that be causing it ?

Hi

There are several conditions that present with very similar symptoms. Treatment follows from the most easily curable to most difficult to diagnose.

If an antibiotic doesn't do the trick, the next step is to ensure with an x-ray/scan that there are no bladder stones or sludge. Once that has been ruled out, what you are left with a condition called sterile interstitial cystitis (i.e. a non-bacterial recurring or chronic bladder infection).
The last has become a lot more common over the last decade but most general or exatics vets that do not see lots of guinea pigs won't have heard of it. Treatment of sterile IC follows that of a comparable condition in cats called FSC (feline sterile cystitis), i.e. glucosamine (cat bladder capsules like UK brand cystease or comparable brands are what we recommend) and an analgesic like metacam is what is generally used to address the symptoms. Sterile IC cannot be healed but it may eventually go away on its own; however you are looking at a matter of years rather than months. Very new but not yet fully established is treatment with cartrofen injections (i.e. very strong glucosamine). Experiences are currently collected and in due time there will be a more established way of how and when to apply it.
The good news is that it doesn't cause bladder stones and is not life shortening.
Here is some more information on sterile IC (interstitial cystitis): Links - Interstitial Cystitis - Guinea Lynx Records

PS1: While red urine can contain blood, the colour actually comes from porphyrine. I hope that helps you be a bit calmer.

PS2: Pyometra is a potentially fatal infection of the womb lining but thankfully not something that boars will ever suffer from!

I hope that this helps you and your vet?

 

[Jhurt006]

I appreciate all the responses. For now we are waiting on the culture to come back in one week, so next Monday, and then going from there. The vet gave us meloxicam for pain and Orbax as a antibiotic for now until we get the culture back. I'm going to call tomorrow and ask about the "sterile interstitial cystitis.