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Guinea Pig Head Tilt

L

Larissa98

New Born Pup
Joined
Oct 6, 2017
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Location
Ontario, Canada
Hello!
I have a very sweet 9 month old female guinea pig with a very troubling past. When I got her, she was under a month old and on the brink of death. She'd come from an outdoor herd, and was full of infection. She was underweight, had ringworm, was missing an eye -the other was infected- and her ears had been chewed to shreds.
She pulled through though, and now she is a spunky, adorable, and loving chub-nugget. She lives with a neutered male guinea pig, and they get along very well.
A few months ago I took SB (my female piggy) to the vet just to ensure that she had recovered well from her past illnesses, but also to address a very slight head tilt that she'd developed.
Basically, the vet wasn't too concerned about it, but gave me some antibiotics to give her orally, twice daily, as well as some eye drops for her empty socket, just to keep it clean. At that time the head tilt was so slight, it was hardly recognizable, I thought that it could have even been her overcompensating for the eye she was missing. Anyways, I gave her the antibiotics for about a week before she started to get quite sick, with diarrhea and excess shedding. So the vet told me to stop the antibiotics, and I did. It seems however that her tilt is getting worse. The vet has told me that there isn't much to do for a piggy with a tilt, and the only way that they can truely find the cause of it would be to run several VERY expensive test (talking 300-500 dollars). If it comes down to it, I'll spend the money, of course, but I was wondering if any of you piggy parents have had the same experience, and what you did. I am concerned that if it is infection, that it is spreading, and I know that once the infection reaches a certain point, it can lead to fatality. I'd really appreciate any help with this- thanks :)
 
Hi and welcome!

A head tilt can be caused by a variety of issues, ranging from most commonly inner ear infection (which in all cases needs to be excluded first), a blocked ear or rabbit ear mites, stroke or neurological problems (which can be very hard and rather costly to diagnose and are in most cases untreatable). If an ear infection has not been treated or undertreated initially (before you got your girl), then it can leave a permanent head tilt.

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My first thought would be to add in a course of anti-inflammatories too. If there is any infection it would be part of the treatment for that (along with antibiotics) and it would also deal with any inflammation from other issues like a stroke.
 
my piggie Lewis,had a severe head tilt at the beginning of this year.my vet did full body xrays under a general anaesthetic.Lewis had a severe infection of both ears,urine infection,and enlarged kidney.he was put on septrin for 3 weeks ,his urine infection cleared .so did his ear infection,but he has a permnant head tilt.he manages to get about well.my vet also wanted to ruleout E cunili,so panucur was given once a day for 28 days.i hope your piggie gets well soon.also metacam was given twice aday for 3 weeks.
 
With my own head tilt piggy, when one antibiotic didnt work, the vet put us on to another one (from baytril to septrin) We also got metacam for any inflammation and panacur in case of e.cuniculi, which is what it turned out to be. The anti inflammatories helped lessen the amount of neurological damage that was done and eventually the tilt righted itself quite a bit. She did require a great deal of syringe feeding, cleaning up what with the diarrhoea. She looked absolutely awful, the first day we took her down we were very sure she would be put to sleep and had she been a bit more lethargic, she would have been. But over a few months we got her back to almost normal. She still has a tilt, which gets worse and better as it feels like it.. but the main problem is dormant for now.

Good luck with your piggy, I hope you find a solution for her.
 
My pig who had a head tilt was caused by a neurological issue. But it was fairly obvious as I caught him in the middle of his seizure. He had the tilt for the remainder of his life and he did fine with it.

As your pig's tilt has progressed slowly I'd go down the route of trying different medicines first. You could try a stronger antibiotic like Zithromax, anti-inflammatories and fungal medicine like Panacur.

Then you could try x-rays etc to look at neurological issues.
 
Thanks for all your help you guys!
My guinea pigs will be going back to the vet for a check up in December and I'll discuss these options with my vet. I do want to avoid putting her under anestetic if possible just because of the risks, but am definitely interested in seeing if anti-inflammatories will help.
With appreciation,
LJ
 
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