Experience with Stroke or Heart Attack after Anesthesia

[SpookySundae]

So we lost our beautiful Sundae 24 hours after she had teeth surgery and I am still trying to figure out what went wrong. I keep playing the events over and over in my head and keep wondering if there was more we could do. Now poor Sundae was very unforetunate to have been inbred and had many genetic defects( or so we were told by vets) that caused her to have a very small and deformed jaw. After many vet visits she was seen by a guinea pig expert who said that along with a very small mouth, her teeth were misaligned and had sharp points that needed to be removed. We opted for the surgery as she was barely one year old.
She sailed through surgery and recovery like a champ, and we brought her home that night where she demanded food, watr and treats!
We syringe fed her through the night and she was eating and drinking on her own. She was pooping and peeing and eating and was very fiesty and loving, we were so happy to have her back to her normal self after so many failed attempts. As the day went on, her head tilt became more and more apparent, so I called the vet clinic and spoke to the vet. She told me that it would take a while for the tilt to go away and as long as she was eating and drinking, pooping and peeing we were on the right track.
She continued to be syringe fed as well as eating on her own and was fine until bed time, when we check in on her she could no longer lift her head. I picked her up and wraped her in a blanket, when she was wrapped tight she was able to eat and took the food quite vigorously. I called the emergency vet line at the clinic but no one was able to help as all the exotics were gone. Once again they told me that as long as she is eating, pooping and peeing to keep her quiet and warm and bring her in in the morning.
So I kept her with me and she was quiet while wraped up and eating, drinking and then would sleep on me. But when out of the blanket she could not find her balance and would just flop around.
At 1am she took her last breath in my arms
I feel so guilty and distraught, she didnt seem to be in pain, she was very peaceful and all her poop was normal.
Has anyone else gone through this? Any ideas of what went wrong?

 

[Bill & Ted]

I’m so sorry that you lost Sundae. It is awful that despite a successful operation she passed away. I don’t have experience of a stroke or heart attack after anaesthesia, but do understand how dreadful it is to lose a piggie and not know the reason why. Sending you hugs x

 

[Wiebke]

So we lost our beautiful Sundae 24 hours after she had teeth surgery and I am still trying to figure out what went wrong. I keep playing the events over and over in my head and keep wondering if there was more we could do. Now poor Sundae was very unforetunate to have been inbred and had many genetic defects( or so we were told by vets) that caused her to have a very small and deformed jaw. After many vet visits she was seen by a guinea pig expert who said that along with a very small mouth, her teeth were misaligned and had sharp points that needed to be removed. We opted for the surgery as she was barely one year old.
She sailed through surgery and recovery like a champ, and we brought her home that night where she demanded food, watr and treats!
We syringe fed her through the night and she was eating and drinking on her own. She was pooping and peeing and eating and was very fiesty and loving, we were so happy to have her back to her normal self after so many failed attempts. As the day went on, her head tilt became more and more apparent, so I called the vet clinic and spoke to the vet. She told me that it would take a while for the tilt to go away and as long as she was eating and drinking, pooping and peeing we were on the right track.
She continued to be syringe fed as well as eating on her own and was fine until bed time, when we check in on her she could no longer lift her head. I picked her up and wraped her in a blanket, when she was wrapped tight she was able to eat and took the food quite vigorously. I called the emergency vet line at the clinic but no one was able to help as all the exotics were gone. Once again they told me that as long as she is eating, pooping and peeing to keep her quiet and warm and bring her in in the morning.
So I kept her with me and she was quiet while wraped up and eating, drinking and then would sleep on me. But when out of the blanket she could not find her balance and would just flop around.
At 1am she took her last breath in my arms
I feel so guilty and distraught, she didnt seem to be in pain, she was very peaceful and all her poop was normal.
Has anyone else gone through this? Any ideas of what went wrong?

Hi! I am very sorry for your experience. A stroke or heart attack after an operation is extremely rare. It can well be that the operation has triggered an underlying problem that would have happened sooner or later anyway; because of it, it happened sooner.

I have lost several piggies during an operation when their heart stoppe. Mostly older piggies or younger piggies with known heart problems where a make or break operation was the only alternative to pts and the chances were worth risking it.

Please do not feel guilty. Operations on small animals, especially fiddly ones like dentals, are still not something that comes with a full guarantee of success. All you can do is buy your piggy a chance for a good and healthy life afterwards. You always have to make the jump into the unknown and play the short straw lottery.

You have done your best, please remember that, and you have not failed as a loving and responsible owner. Even in humans we can never fully predict how we react to the same operation twice in row; there is no full 100% success rate. Piggies are much harder to deal with as veterinary skill is often operating right at the limit of its abilities.
As loving owners, we can only give our piggies the best of lives and a good chance. Living with the pain of overgrowing teeth would have meant death (and a slow, painful one at that) in the nearer future. You have made absolutely the right decision; you have just been very unlucky.

Your reaction is very normal under the circumstances. Please do not let the end spoil the way you remember your shared time; feeling of guilt are par for the course, but they are always a lot stronger when a death is unexpected or linked to an action of ours. I hope that eventually your head and your heart will come together to say that you grieve about the outcome, but you would still make the same decision in the same situation again because it was the right one.

 

[Freela]

I'm so sorry for your loss. It sounds as though there were a lot of issues at play. Pigs have delicate, finely-tuned systems and unfortunately, sometimes they are at the end of their resources. I've not lost a pig immediately after surgery, but in every case where I've lost a pig, they progressed from doing well to very ill to gone in a very short period of time (less than a day, sometimes just hours.) Losing balance, being floppy, and the symptoms you describe sound par for the course for every pig that I've lost for any reason. I don't think it's necessarily to do with the surgery or anesthesia directly. Honestly, it sounds to me as though you did everything possible to help her. Dental problems in guinea pigs are very challenging. If guinea pigs can't eat, they won't make it. You had no choice but to intervene with her teeth. Sometimes, as much as we try and hope and nurse them through, it doesn't go our way. Although it's normal to question yourself, try not to beat yourself up too much. You did the absolute best you could. I've had pigs with dental issues in the past... I did lose one at a very young age due to dental problems, in spite of doing everything I possibly could to save her. It's hard and it hurts. Unfortunately, in spite of our efforts, sometimes it doesn't go the way we hope. ((HUGS)) to you, and give yourself all the time you need to grieve, but please don't blame yourself for the decisions you made in her care, there were no better choices to make than the ones you made and sometimes it still goes poorly in spite of that.

 

[pig in the city]

This happened to one of my pigs who had a routine operation. We collected him from the vets and he had been recovering fine, eating syringe food and quite perky. When l got him home he was extremely breathless and floppy. I rushed him back to the vets where he was given oxygen and supportive treatment but he died soon after.
It was devastating as it was so unexpected. There's nothing more you could have done. At least your piggy was comfy and safe with you when he died. With hindsight l wish l hasn't rushed him to the vets.

 

[Claire W]

I am so sorry for your loss I’ve never lost a piggy straight after an operation but my very first piggy, Connie was very poorly for several months with bladder problems even though scans and xrays all came back clear. She then had another xray which showed abnormalities The vet opened up her bladder expecting there to be tumours but it was absolutely full of grit and sludge. She also had an unusually small bladder. The vet gave her bladder a thougher clean and flush. Connie recovered very well from the operation and was the best she had been for months but sadly she died 5 days later

You did everything you could xx

 

[SpookySundae]

Thank you all for the stories and kind words, it has helped me tremendously.
We miss her dearly every day.