Found A Lump

[waughy123]

Hello all... hope you're all having a great weekend!

So I'll cut straight to the chase, I have just today discovered a lump on my 5 year old guinea pig about 2cm below her armpit. It is about 1.5cm by 1.5cm and protrudes from the body by about 0.5 cm. I am rather worried as quite a few of my guineas had died from undiscovered cancer. Has anyone had anything like this before? If so what did you do?

Thank you!
waughy123

 

[Pebble]

Hi waughy - sorry to hear this.

Lumps can be one of a number of things - e.g. abcess, cyst, fatty lipoma (harmless), infected or swollen lymph node, tumour (benign or mialignant)

With any such lump - especially in close proximity to an arm-pit - a cavy-savvy vet visit is required for them to perform a through exam and a needle aspirate of the lump to identify what is going on.

HTH
x

 

[Anya]

Hi,
I just found lump like that on my pig as well and tomorrow am going to call the vet. If you had experience with cancer before you should
immediately go to vet as well. This lump can be anything, but am hopping is nothing serious.

 

[Lady Kelly]

It could be a harmless fatty lump that may not grow any further and not affect your pigs quality of life but it may be something more sinister. A cyst/abscess may be fairly easy to treat despite your pigs age but obviously, as you have already experienced, cancer is a whole new ball game.

If you aren't sure about your vets experience with exotics or even small animals (guinea pigs are classed as exotics) then we do have a vet locator in the top bar which may help you find an experienced vet. Any good small animal specialist will refer on to a local exotics specialist if they feel it is more serious.

Obviously there may be many things you need to take into account before agreeing to treatment such as your pigs age but first you need a vet who can discover what it is or give you a good idea as to what it is so that they can talk you through the options

 

[waughy123]

Thank you all for your concern. Diagnosed with cancer today but not given up on her yet! Planning on giving her a great summer out in the garden while she's still up and about

 

[Lady Kelly]

Thank you all for your concern. Diagnosed with cancer today but not given up on her yet! Planning on giving her a great summer out in the garden while she's still up and about

Very sorry to hear this. My Peter has fat lumps and on another one getting too big I took him to the vets to look at my options, he's over 5 years so an operation is far from ideal and the vet also found all the lymph nodes are enlarged so again I have been told he has cancer. It's heartbreaking (especially as I lost one of my pigs in January already) but all we can do is treasure every moment we have left with them and keep them comfortable. Peter's still going strong despite the diagnosis a couple of months back.