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Guinea Pig Mouth Abscess

Brandy

Brandy

New Born Pup
Joined
Oct 13, 2015
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I came home from vacation to find my poor CC not able to eat, very willing to eat, but not able. I took her to the vet the next day. They trimmed her back teeth and the doctor said her mouth filled with puss as they trimmed so it must be an abscess. She was sent home with Critical Care, NSAIDs, and antibiotics. The doc said I should syringe feed her every 4-6 hours and keep her on the antibiotics for 2 weeks and see if anything changes. Otherwise we'd have to make a decision to either do a $600 dental treatment which I can't afford, or euthanize. This morning she refused to eat for me. The side of her face has swelled immensely, and she seems in a lot of pain. She's regressed dramatically in just one day, since the day before she was managing to eat some solid food. We just finished week 1 of antibiotics, but I don't know how to give her any more meds without any food in her stomach. I'm starting to get very worried. I want to do what's best for her but even if I was able to pay for the dental procedure, the doctor said guinea pigs don't typically do very well after dental procedures and there's a possibility we'd still have to revert to the latter option. It's all very stressful. She's only 2 and still has so much love to give. I just feel rather helpless. I guess I'm looking to see if anyone has any similar experiences or advice to give.
 
Furry Friends on the forum runs The Excellent Adventure Sanctuary that specialises in helping pig's with dental issues.

With her fantastic care along with an amazing vet the success rates are brilliant.

The Excellent Adventure Sanctuary – Providing life-enhancing care for Guinea Pigs with extra needs

Dental issues are not a death sentence if you can find the right vet.

I don't know a massive amount about dental issues but my first instinct is that your vet is not very experienced with guinea pigs with dental problems and abscesses. I would expect the abscess to be left open to drain and instructions given to you on how to open it and flush it daily, or they would operate and remove the whole thing where possible.

I use the same vet as Furry Friends and he has brilliant results with dental pigs. Of course it's not 100% guaranteed success but no surgery is.

If you are able to provide the after care that is needed such as regular, almost hourly syringefeeds and cleaning the abscess site then I would recommend seeking out a more specialist vet. Alot of the time guinea pig vets are classed as exotic vets. Have a ring around your area to see who else is available for your piggy.

Good luck and keep us updated.
 
It sound as though your vet might not have a lot of experience with abscesses in guinea pigs. Throwing antibiotics at a dental abscess is not enough in animals like guinea pigs, as their pus is extremely thick and the body cannot clear it out. Simply trimming the teeth is not enough (they may grow unevenly as the guinea pig cannot chew in a normal motion) and simply giving antibiotics is not enough. The abscess needs to be lanced and drained, generally through the cheek, and then left open to continue to drain and to heal from the inside out. It would be worth your while to seek out a vet who specializes in exotic animals (guinea pigs are considered an exotic.) It can be hard to find these vets in North America (I'm in Canada where it's also difficult to find exotic vets, but well worth it when you find them!) Call and ask who has experience treating guinea pig and rabbit dental problems (the issues are similar) and see if you can get an opinion there. A competent vet can be the difference between life and death with this kind of issue. I've had it go both ways... I lost one pig to a dental abscess (the vet that I had at the time didn't really know what he was doing and didn't give her adequate antibiotics and didn't file her teeth very well, though I didn't know it at the time because I had pretty limited knowledge about guinea pig dental problems at the time.) I also had one piggie who was treated by my wonderful current vet who made a full recovery and lived to old age (abscess issue happened around age 2 or 3, she lived to be almost 7.) Exotic vets are not necessarily more costly than less experienced vets (my exotics vet's procedure was actually cheaper than the inexperienced vet, who probably charged for more units of time because he didn't know what he was doing and took a long time trying to do it!) Best wishes!

Edited to add: Keep on syringe feeding as much as you can. Guinea pigs can go into shutdown if they do not keep food in their digestive tract. Offer small amounts often. There are syringe-feeding guides in the stickies at the top to give you pointers and advice on how best to do this.
 
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