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Eating after dental work.

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Smoothie

Our Boar, 3.5 years old stopped eating 2.5 weeks ago. Vet diagosed molar problem and filed back his back teeth (to the gums we were told). This was now 10 days ago. He is on critical care by Syringe however refuses to eat or drink on his own, although he does show brief interest when food is put in the bowl. We are no lost on what else we can do as this seems a long time. He is also lost and very quiet compared to the previous pig we new. Any ideas ?
 
Ireland. He went to a specialist GP vet who watched him for 5 days. Nothing else wrong could be found apart from teeth, although it was not a really bad case of overgrown teeth.
 
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Down to the gums that doesn't sound right! The trouble is after 10 days of not eating the teeth will be overgrown again, I take it because he is a proper guinea vet he didn't use a GA.He wiill need to go back again but I can't see why he needs to stop in.
His mouth could be sore or he might have ulcers it can sometimes [not always] take a very long time to get them to eat properly again.
 
Burgess pellets are good for syringe feeding, soak a small amount in hot water until they are completly soft[30 minutes]then mush up you can use a 1mil syringe its easy to suck up so you can get more down them, and a lot cheaper than the critical care.
 
Sometimes pigs have sore mouths after dental work or associated mouth infections I think from reading other posts. Anyone know what it is that's suggested? Wondering if it's Daktarin oral gel?
 
Welcome to the forum Smoothie, sorry to hear your guinea is not well.

Did the vet say that the molars were actually overgrown? What were/are his actual symptoms - is there any dribbling (drooling), any odour/stale smell to the mouth? There are at least two potential issues I see here:

1) Incorrect treatment which can actually do more harm than good, and it then makes me wonder about whether the diagnosis was accurate enough;
2) Sore mouth.

The "sore mouth" could be down to sore patches on the tongue or cheeks if the molars were overgrown, or an oral fungal infection may be to blame (sometimes symptoms are the same as dental problems and there may be no white spots visible in the mouth to suggest the condition, and it may occur alongside dental problems).

Both possibilities - continued dental issues and sore mouth - would cause the pig to go off his food in the first place and both may still be prevalent at the moment. I would recommend treating with Daktarin Oral Gel for three weeks to rule out an oral fungal infection, it is available from chemists/pharmacies (although they won't sell it to you if you say it is for a guinea pig!); it can also help with sores caused by overgrown molars, although there is something more specific that can be used if this is spotted as the more specific problem.

How much Critical Care are you feeding him each day, and how often? Is his weight stable (noted by daily weight checks)?

Would you be willing to speak on the phone to someone who does know a lot about guinea pig dentistry? If so, drop me an email at [email protected] and I'll pass the details on.

I know there is a rodentologist in County Mayo; she's french-speaking, and I'm not sure if she'd be able to examine and treat dental issues as I've not dealt with her myself, but maybe worth considering contacting at some point?
 
We didn't notice any dribbling from his mouth,or unusual smell. Vet checked and said his back teeth were growing at unusual angles and slightly overgrown but not as bad as she had seen before. He had a GA for the dentistry. Originally this was not the plan but we were told he has an unusually narrow mouth which mean a GA was the only option.

He is "chewing" his Critical Care when we syringe it in. When we try a bit of grass he chews but it does not "feed itself" into his mouth.

I started him on Daktarin 3 days ago. 3 X 0.5ml/day.

He is on 15g (dry weight) of Critical care a day..over 5-6 feeds. He weighs around 900g .

My concern is his trimmed teeth will overgrow. How much do they grow ? Is it 1-2mm a week or more ?
 
I'm not currently aware of any figures regarding the standard rate of growth so unfortunately can't give an accurate answer on that. However I do generally recommend weekly checks while a guinea's not eating for himself so that if the teeth do start to overgrow, it can be caught and corrected early before it causes further difficulties.

It's a shame the vet used a GA, it puts you in a difficult position with regard to frequent checks and any necessary further treatment, and I'm not aware of any decent vets in Ireland either.

He's a reasonable weight which is good, is he maintaining this weight?
 
Elvis has his teeth done every week now:( ,that wouldn't be possible using a GA.I do hope you can sort something out for him, good luck
 
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