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Exaggerated/laboured Chewing - Vet Visit Booked

Carrotyd

Carrotyd

Junior Guinea Pig
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Hello all. Looking for some advice on our rescue piggy, Bruce. He's around 3 years old, and and we've had him for about 3 months. Here's a picture.
20171225_085153.webp

He's been a big hay eater since we got him, and tends to favour sweeter tasting veggies over herbs and romaine lettuce.

Today, I was watching him eat and it looked like it was a real effort for him to chew and swallow, and he was doing so in a very exaggerated fashion.

I've since booked him in to see the vet tomorrow morning, but wondered if anyone had any ideas about what might have caused him to suddenly do this?

We've been weighing him weekly since we got him, and his weight has dropped by about 27g since then, but he's tipping the scales at 1,197g right now.
 
Carrotyd said:
Hello all. Looking for some advice on our rescue piggy, Bruce. He's around 3 years old, and and we've had him for about 3 months. Here's a picture.
View attachment 77519

He's been a big hay eater since we got him, and tends to favour sweeter tasting veggies over herbs and romaine lettuce.

Today, I was watching him eat and it looked like it was a real effort for him to chew and swallow, and he was doing so in a very exaggerated fashion.

I've since booked him in to see the vet tomorrow morning, but wondered if anyone had any ideas about what might have caused him to suddenly do this?

We've been weighing him weekly since we got him, and his weight has dropped by about 27g since then, but he's tipping the scales at 1,197g right now.
Click to expand...

Please ask your vet to check the back teeth; premolars can overgrow into spurs that cross above the tongue and trap it in a very short time if the teeth are for some reason not ground down evenly by the silica in hay and grass.
 
Sounds like dental issues. vet in your area below

Goddard Veterinary Group
Anne O'Meara
150 Kingston Road
Elwell
Surrey, KT17 2ET
020 8393 6049
 
I definitely will. Thank you for the swift response. He is a keen hay eater, but are there any particular reasons why this problem might be presenting now?
 
Carrotyd said:
I definitely will. Thank you for the swift response. He is a keen hay eater, but are there any particular reasons why this problem might be presenting now?
Click to expand...
Dental issues just start.... One of our girls in my avatar started one evening then that was it.... noticed her pawing at her mouth.
Another of our girls started after she was poorly and her teeth over grew a little. You have caught it early.
 
That's interesting to know. We had a boy piggy with congenital dental issues since birth, so we are pretty hot on picking them up here. Kind of assumed Brucey Boy's appetite for hay would protect him against all this.
 
The vet was brilliant. He did a thorough check of Bruce's teeth and said he can see - on the right hand side - signs of overgrowth of the the back teeth, with a sharp point sticking into his tongue, which is most likely the cause of his discomfort.

He's booked in tomorrow to have it trimmed down, under GA, and to have the rest of his back teeth looked at properly too.

Is there anything I should be doing or preparing now for his post-op care, as it were?
 
Ask for some pain relief as vets don't always provide is as standard. Metacam is the most common one. It definitely won't harm him having it for a few days.

Be prepared to step in with syringe feeding @Carrotyd. Fingers crossed he'll be fine and eating again, but if your luck is anything like mine then I always end up having to syringe feed when I don't have the supplies. If you don't have any food or syringes then the vet should be able to give you some.

If he's eating, but still struggling a bit then you can grate his veg or cut it into smaller pieces to help him.

You're probably aware of it anyway as you've had a piggy with teeth issues before, but he may need a couple of trips to the vet before it's completely sorted.
 
Well done @Carrotyd for picking it up early. Good luck for the procedure tomorrow. Great advice from @Jaycey about pain relief and syringe feeds- best to be prepared.
 
He's home and seems to have bounced back from the procedure pretty well. They found (under GA) spurs on his back teeth on both sides that were hindering his tongue, and he's started tucking into hay and his veggies (with trepidation). We also have, unprompted, a week's supply of Metacam for him too.

Haven't seen any of the throat clearing action he was doing pre-op, so fingers crossed the wee fella is feeling a lot more comfortable.
 
A question I have, which I wondered if you might have some experience of @Jaycey @sport_billy and @Wiebke is that in the 3 months since we rescued Bruce his breathing has always sounded a little louder than any of our other pigs but it is only really noticeable when you hold him up to your face.

Since his dental, that has completely stopped. Is that a symptom or observation you've come across before in dental piggies? As this predated his other symptoms by a number of months, so could be an early indicator to keep tabs on in case this problem re-occurs.

As an update, he's eating hay well and tentatively attempting to eat veg (we've been offering him thinly sliced melon with some success, as well as romaine lettuce and peppers) and I've been syringe feeding him a bit as he's not eating his pellets with as much gusto as he used to. I think he's bouncing back well, I think.
 
I had to a piggy in a similar situation to yours about a month ago, with dental spurs that got caught early. I got lucky in that Comet was eating normally again almost immediately so no syringe feeding was needed.

That said Comet was fine in every other respect, breathing included, and he's been on antibiotics for a URI before. So breathing louder isn't necessarily a sign, I don't think.
 
@Carrotyd I've never heard of any experiences where pigs have had heavy breathing when they had dental issues but it stopped when their teeth were okay. How about you @furryfriends (TEAS) , have you had anything like this occur?

It could be related I guess, pigs are all different so things can affect them differently. I've had a few pigs suffee with bloat over the years and none had heavy breathing. But I have a current pig whose breathing gets noisy when he's starting to bloat. It's very weird but it is a helpful indicator.
 
No, this isn't something I have observed and we work with many dental piggies, every day! I have noticed that they can sound grunty if food catches at the back of the mouth when the teeth are overgrown, but it isn't something that happens well in advance of an issue being noticed.
 
Yeah, grunty sums it up pretty well. It's only audible when up close, and I appreciate you all taking the time to comment. Always keen to build my guinea pig knowledge :tu:
 
Glad he's doing well post-dental! I have had dental pigs before and know very well that 'chewing glass' exaggerated lip pull that they make. Once you've seen it, you will remember it (my vet was impressed once that I knew that Sundae had a molar spur that he couldn't see while she was awake... I asked if he could please knock her out and look and file it down if needed because I was so sure from her chewing motion that there was a problem- he was impressed that when he got a better look under sedation there was a spur and I, in fact, was right!) One thing to remember is that dental problems can recur, so keep on monitoring his weight and his chewing so that you catch any future problems early the way you have done this time. I also recommend regularly running your fingers along his jawline on both sides to feel for any lumps or bumps, because sometimes dental problems can be precipitated by and abscess that has not yet puffed up or become apparent, so just be on the lookout for any jaw lumps that could indicate this. Hope he makes a quick recovery!
 
We're back at the vets with Bruce tomorrow for a post-op checkup, one week on.

On the whole, I think things have gone ok. We've seen no more of the exaggerated chewing/throat clearing that prompted me to take him to the vet in the first place to get check out, but he has been supremely fussy all week with eating his veg, in particular.

He's been eating hay and chewing on cardboard, and tucking into pellets. One day he'll eat his veg and other days leave it untouched, after sniffing all around it.

We've tried grating it, cutting it into tiny cubes or strips and the contrary little sod will eat it one day, and then shun it the next. Think It's safe to say he's keeping us on our toes...

His weight has fluctuated a little over the course of the week (up and down by 10-20g day to day), and I've done a little bit of syringe feeding, on and off, on days where he appears to have left his veg untouched.

With his follow-up appointment tomorrow, do you think it is worth mentioning all of this, or does this read like the ramblings of an over-anxious guinea pig mad woman?
 
I always tell the vet everything. That way they can decide for themselves if it’s relevant. Hope all goes well today.
 
Just to update you all, Bruce weighed in at 1.2kg this morning at the vets, up from 1.08kg when we were there last week! She's really happy with how he has bounced back from the procedure, and - aside from keeping a close eye on his food intake, poop output, weight and general behaviour - he is all good! She warned us it could reoccur, of course, but for now, no more visits. :D
 
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