Can anybody help me, give me some advice?

[fayejones]

Hi, I've not been on here for a while but I feel like I just need to talk to some people who understand

My piggy Arthur has recently lost some weight and been a lot quieter than usual. I am a veterinary nurse so I took him to my vets yesterday as I felt I could feel something in his tummy. We scanned him and it turns out he has a tumour on his kidney i'm devastated but I'm not giving up on him yet. I realise that this will eventually be the end for him but he's still eating (not as much as he used to but still) and when I have him out of his cage and around he'd bright. I am syringe feeding him, he's on various medications for stimulating his gut and appetite and I am also giving him subcut fluids when I feel he needs it.

I have been looking everywhere on the internet, in my peter guerney books for any tips on how to make his last few weeks here comfortable, but I can't seem to find anything Has anyone here had a similar problem or know of any good ideas? Any comments would be appreciated

 

[sport_billy]

So sorry to hear your awful news. No advice apart from make sure he has pain relief if he needs it. Big hugs to you and love to Arthur x

 

[shiny]

Oh dear, so sorry to hear about Arthur, tough times indeed .

Our guinea pig Cloud had kidney failure in July & was so poorly in the end we had to have him pts. When he was not too bad & we could keep him comfortable at home we were giving Metacam from the vet for pain relief, this made a difference to whether he felt like eating or not. It might be worth talking to your vet about Metacam. Long-term it has an adverse effect on kidney function but we knew this & were prepared to make his remaining time more comfortable knowing that actually it might make it a little shorter. It's something to talk over with a vet for sure.

We also found that to tempt a poorly guinea to eat, food that he hasn't had in a while might be worth a go, for exampe we managed to find kale which they hadn't had for a few months & this was popular, so was the odd blueberry. The best thing I know for tempting a guinea to eat is grass cut from the back lawn, might be worth a try for Arthur too.

The things to look out for are the really bad pain signs of a guinea sitting very hunched up, eyes squinting or squeaking in pain when passing urine / faeces. In my experience a guinea in real pain like this will not eat at all or hardly anything before giving up & going back to lie down. Another pain sign can be chewing an unusually large amount on non-food things such as cardboard or material.

If there are kidney problems you may find that your guinea is sitting in a damp patch of urine, it can be useful to have towels or fleece under where he sits a lot so you can monitor what the urine looks like (is there any blood?) & change what he is sitting on often to keep him dry.

I hope this may be useful to you, sending my best wishes to you & Arthur, shiny x

 

[MargaretB]

So sorry to hear about poor Arthur. It sounds like you are doing what you can for him. Sending hugs & wheeks xx :rose

 

[Pebble]

Sorry to hear your news

I found that tramadol was a better pain relief than metacam for my piggies with terminal kidney issues. It is an opiate so "could" slow down the gut but providing that the odd bit of metoclopromide or zantac was given as a gut stimulant together with the syringe feeding, my pigs had no real porblems.

HTH
x

 

[fayejones]

The grass seems to be going down well! He's eaten lots of it I'll speak to one of the vets tomorrow about pain relief, I think you right about shorter/pain free life rather than being in pain. Its just a shock it seems to have happened so fast was the tramadol you gave in tablet form?
Thanks for the kind words everyone x

 

[fayejones]

Also Pebble, what dose of the tramadol did you use? And what mg? What weight was your pig? Sorry for all the questions it will just help tomorrow when I ask the vets thanks x

 

[suem]

so sorry you are going through this, but it sounds like you are doing all you can. I hope he has a few more pain free weeks or even longer x

 

[Abi_nurse]

tramadol is great stuff, i know several pigs (on here) that have had it and had great results from it. I'm afraid I'm not sure on the dose rate. But as you know being an opiod it would be much better than the meloxicam. I would consider adding this in even if not now but into the future. A mass on/near the kidney may cause your piggie to go into some degree of kidney failure so keep an eye on the urine output etc, and it may be worthwhile even doing a urine dipstix once in a while to check for protien.

Hope your piggie has a comfortable last few weeks/months
x

Ps. just reread everything and realise i've practically repeated everything said. sorry.