Crusty And Cracked Lips

[ajpevers]

Dear members,

I would appreciate some advice about a disease I just can't seem to fix. I will first show you some photo's so you know what I'm talking about.

As you can see the lips are very crusty and cracked. It hurts her very much. She had the same symptoms last winter. During the summer it almost completely disappeared apart from some small crustiness in the corners of her mouth. Now during the winter it becomes worse until the point that she has trouble eating because the crusts are in the way and of course the pain. She loses weight because of this and I have to force feed her to prevent her from starvation.

Things I've tried:
- I've been to the vet 3 times last year and to a specialist clinic twice and have spent more than 400 euro on lab tests of tissue samples.
- there were no bacterial infections found.
- no fungus or yeasts either
- an anti parasite shot had no effect
- tests for syphilis turned out negative
- I treat the crust with honey ointment to keep them soft and remove them once they get in the way of eating
- my guinea pigs get one vitamin C pill each once a day
- I clean their cage every week
- they get 2-3 types of vegetables every day.
- they have an abundance of hay and guinea muesli with seeds and all
- they have sawdust as floor filler

I am very sad when I think of her having to endure the pain for another full winter and I hope one of you might have seen this before and knows a treatment.

Best,

Anton

 

[Wiebke]

Oh dear! Poor girl!

This looks about as bad a case of cheilitis as I have ever seen! Cheilitis is either fungal or bacterial, most often caused by feeding too much or too often acid fruit and tomatoes. I would recommend to take all fruit and tomatoes off the menu.

Did your vets just test for bacteria or fungal or did they actually treat for it? In the UK, lab test only test for ringworm, but not other fungal infections, so it is likely that it could still be a fungal issue. So I would strongly recommend to consider an oral fungal like itraconazole (in the UK sold as itrafungol). I would also recommend to ask your vets for pain relief.
http://www.guinealynx.info/cheilitis.html

PS: Could you please add your country to your details by clicking on your username on the top bar, then go to personal details and scroll down to location, as you are obviously somewhere in the Eurozone?

 

[ajpevers]

Does this also get into the eyes? I see a little crustiness around the eyes as well.

That hardly eat apple and never tomatoes. But the infection is there for over a year so it could originate from a time that they ate more apples.

 

[Wiebke]

I must admit that have never seen anything as bad as this and my initial diagnosis (which certainly seems to have been considered by your vets) could be wrong. Is the crustiness at the eyes new or was it there from the beginning?

But I know that if left untreated/mistreated by the vets, it can wander under skin without really showing; it did so with a friend's piggy who ended up with a lot of necrotic skin on his cheek/chin.

I am tagging our medically most knowledgeable member for you. @Pebble

 

[Abbie]

Aw, that poor little girl

I'm afraid I cannot help in any way, I just want to send some healing vibes her way and I hope you manage to get to the bottom of it!

 

[ajpevers]

@Wiebke The eye thing only happens when it's serious like this. Also last year I noticed loss of hair and very dry skin on the cheeks. Of course this could also be because of the lack of food intake. One of her teeth also broke twice during this time. We tried several antibiotics and anti fungal medicines last year with no result. But I would try it again if the combination of the right two medicines could do the trick. Apples are off the menu from now on. I'd love to hear @Pebble 's opinion. The more angles the better.

@Abbie thanks for the support.

 

[helen105281]

I agree it looks like Chelitis to me too and a very bad case of it. His immune system is probably compromised too which is why it gets worse in the winter. My recommendations would be Itrafungol plus topical treatment with a product like Surolan once the scabs are removed. Also something to boost his immune system like Oxbow Immune support tablets.

Is he a black self? I have been told that they can be genetically predisposed to Chelitis.

 

[ajpevers]

I don't know if she's a black self. Looks like it from the Google images search but I got her from the petting zoo with her sister so no purebred I think. I'll take this thread with me when I visit my veterinarian after the weekend. I think it will be of much use. Especially since they're mainly specialized in cats and dogs and might not have all the knowledge in house to diagnose the disease.

 

[GPTV]

Aww the poor little darling
That looks so painful

Sorry I have no experience of anything like this. But have you tried changing her bedding to something other than sawdust?
I'm wondering if something less dusty/moisture retaining would help her condition?
Maybe towels/puppy pads /absorbent layer covered with fleece, vetbed, or auboise bedding?
I use newspaper covered with shredded paper&then handfuls of hay on top.(good quality &or dust extracted)

Also as the others have said try &stay off the acidic fruit,hopefully this should help her improve.
Have u discussed with your vet about pain killers? Eg.Metacam/loxicom.
I imagine it hurts a bit, if like having a coldsore/chapped lips or hands.
It might help with her eating too if she's a bit more comfortable?

Your vet seems to have tried various ideas this seems promising, as a lot of vets try minimal ideas &give up.

Does she have any problems with her feet? Bumblefoot (swollen feet)

Do you live in a hot or humid property or country? Is she an indoors or outdoors piggy?
Does she have any respiratory problems?

Hope you can sort her quickly-she looks like she's quite a stunner when he hasn't got this problem-a lovely shiny coat s
Good luck. Keep us updated
The girls & i xx

Ps a black self is basically an all black guinea pig, no other colours involved.

 

[ajpevers]

Ah good one. The one on the photo is all black. Her sister has a little brown and a white dot on her head. They have an all orange father and an all black mother. The feet are ok. Always have been luckily. The sawdust is always dry on top as I use super super much of it with newspapers underneath. But it is kind of dusty indeed. They are inside guineas. I live on the 4th and 5th floor and the first thing they do when I let them out of the cage is find their way back in. It's quite a large cage in which they run very fast quite often. So I think they like it in there. Officially its a rabbit cage. I bought the largest one I could find. .

I will try a fleece blanket coming month to see if this helps but in combination with the medicine I cannot tell for sure if the lack of dust is also helping. I am hesitant about edible stuff on the floor. I want to avoid that they eat their own urine. So I won't use hay. But I do have cotton buds. I can use those with newspaper snippets.

 

[ajpevers]

Ah and respiratory problems do occur when the scans are really in the way. You can hearse a squiky noise when she breathes then.

I live in Holland on the 5th floor so it's not very humid and not very dry either here. I cranked up the heating to help her immune system a bit.

 

[Pebble]

Oh dear - that does look like a bad case of chelitis.

In most cases of guinea pig chelitis, tissue samples/culture normally reveals the presence of yeasts (Candida in one case) or the bacterium Staph aureus or (often) both as a mixed infection.
.
Getting the right anti-fungal and/or antibacterial cream to deal with the infection is difficult as it very much depends upon exactly which yeast is present and whether the staphylococcus is resistant to certain antibiotics.....and we are seeing many cases now of baytril and septrin resistant Staph being isolated from swabs .

However you say that no yeasts or bacteria were identified - although this may be because of the nature of the sample tested. It is well known that pus from abcesses is often sterile and devoid of the bugs causing the problem because they reside deeper in the tissues and that may be the case here if only the crusty scabs were examined rather than a full tissue biopsy being taken.

There has been a recorded case of chelitis being caused by a pox virus in guinea pigs....but because viruses are more difficult to identify/isolate (let alone treat) there has been little work done on naturally occurring viral infections in guinea pigs (they have however been used as experimental animal models for e.g. herpes simplex infection in humans)

Without extensive further testing to truly identify the cause (which could be viral) you and your vet are left with having to decide a sensible treatment plan in the absence of knowing the cause. This would be a case of trying the least risky treatments first to rule out the more common probable causes.

Many of the recorded cases of chelitis in guinea pigs are fungal in origin and respond well to the right antifungal treatment. If it were my guinea pig I would first of all discuss with my vet treating as though this was a yeast infection - with a topical course of Nizoral (ketaconazole). This has been shown to work well on other chelitis yeast cases where use of other antifungal creams such as daktarin, canestan etc have failed....

Given the infection is localised there is some debate as to whether oral meds are warranted in addition to any topikcal creams. An appropriate anti-fungal would be itrafungal andif the vet felt an oral anitbiotic to address any potnetial Staphy infection was warranted, then perhps, in view of the emerging baytril and septrin resistance we are seeing, perhaps try either doxycycline or azithromycin as an alternative. Again that is a discussion to be had with your vet. On no account however should penicillins or cephalosporins be given (even by injection) as these types of antibiotics are extremely harmful for guinea pigs.

If anti-fungal (and antibacterial) treatments show no improvement then the possibility of this being viral in origin would need to be considered and, whilst I am not aware of any reported cases, the possible use of the antiviral cream Zovirax may be an option to discuss with your vet. (It has been used on guinea pigs experimentally infected with herpes simplex to compare various human treatments)

Finally husbandry may also play a role in this condition and as already stated it is best to remove acidic fruit/veg such as apples, oranges, tomatoes from their diet. Two suggestions would be to
a) change their dried food away from muesli to a reputable nugget such as Burgess which does not contain food colourants or small seeds.
b) substitute a paper or fleece bedding for wood shavings

I do hope you manage to sort out an appropriate treatment plan for your little girl
HTH
x.

 

[ajpevers]

Hello Pebble. Thank you so much for your comprehensive response. The sample was a tissue sample for which my Guinea pig had to go under narcosis. (poor thing). But I will return to my vet with this forum thread as a starting point and let her decide from there. Thank you so much for your help and your kindness. I will do my very best to help her get over this.

 

[ajpevers]

Today I've been to the vet. She read the forum posts and has looked at my guinea and will get back to me tomorrow with an approach to try and cure it.

What struck me is that my guinnea is doing lots better since I shut some vents in my apartment. Almost the whole nose is healing. Could a little draft have such a big impact on guinea pigs?

 

[GPTV]

Today I've been to the vet. She read the forum posts and has looked at my guinea and will get back to me tomorrow with an approach to try and cure it.

What struck me is that my guinnea is doing lots better since I shut some vents in my apartment. Almost the whole nose is healing. Could a little draft have such a big impact on guinea pigs?

i know that guinea pigs do not like it damp or draughts, i had one girl that when she got older & she was put out on windy days she would develop urinary tract infections (UTIs) or cystitus, all i had to do was put some screens up to cut off the wind & she would be fine. Cooler or hotter days didn't seem to make any difference but the wind did.

So it may be a contributing factor?
How long ago did you shut the vents? Is that &turning the heating up the only changes you have made so far, or could it be a combination of the things you have tried?

Oh & just checking... i guess you mean you don't want to use hay for their bedding & not that you don't use hay? (they need it as at least 80% of their diet)
i must admit mine do like to burrow in theirs when i first put it in, then have a stamp around on it, then lie on it & munch away, but they have a hay rack too
If you do try fleece for bedding they need washing about 3 times without fabric conditioner first,this will help the wee soak down through (wick)& not sit on top of the fabric. an absorbent layer will be needed underneath the fleece though (e.g. towels, puppy pads, incontinence sheets, shredded paper etc).

You sound like a devoted piggy slave she is lucky to have you.


Good luck at the vets & its lovely to hear your little girl is improving keep us updated it would be great to hear she makes a full & speedy recovery.
Does your vet think its chelitus/fungal related?

xx

 

[Guinea-pigGaga]

Random thoughts:

Bacterial infection?! Secondary, perhaps?!

Fungal infection?! Quite possible - Itrafungol (Itraconazole)?!

Viral infection?! Papilloma virus - Verruca/wart treatment?!

Parasitic - Not unheard of, but unlikely?!

Endocrine/Immune/Metabolic Disorder?! Nutritional?! Diagnositics?!

Hygiene?!

Remove scabs?! Leave scabs?! Debatable. . .

Anti-inflammatory/ Pain-killer?! Advisable!

Dental issues?!

Reason/s for the improvement in the summer - What was different?!

Treat companions?! Separate from companions?! Possibly - Depending on cause/ If companion is making condition worse (Licking affected area/s etc). . .

 

[Guinea-pigGaga]

@ajpevers - How is your guinea pig?!