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Mites or ringworm

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Pug_in_a_bed

Pug_in_a_bed

Junior Guinea Pig
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Hello all,

Got back from hols to find poor old betty pig with a baldy backside and the other two with a small bald area on the back. All itchy and a bit raw.

They've been to the vet who has taken a sample to confirm but she thinks its ringworm but not 100%. They have had invermectin (sp) one spot and given surolan to put on the sore areas. Betty is wearing a jumper made from a sock to stop her itching. Hers is by far the worst. Cage has been cleaned out thoroughly and will continue to be. They are all eating fine but Betty has lost some weight.

Is there anything else I can do for them, especially betty, at the moment? If only to make her more comfortable :(
 
An antifungal shampoo would work wonders and make them feel better. but not sure where you would get one. Try gorgeous guineas online, they have some nice soothing shampoo's for skin problems. Are they eating ok? There isnt a huge amount else you can do.

x.
 
They are eating ok, although Betty has lost some weight. I might try nizoral shampoo as I've seen some info on line about peopel using it for pigs.

I've just ordered some treats from gorgeous guineas aswell :)
 
Definitely anti-fungal shampoo might help. Other than that there isn't much you can do until the anti-fungal medication kicks in and clears it up. Ringworm look really nasty but it usually clears up in no time and your piggies should heal fine. One of our boars came in with ringworm and he had a totall bald ear that was really crusty. It healed up within about two weeks.

Fingers crossed for your little friends :)
 
Any suggestions how to stop betty itching a bit? She has two scratchy areas she keeps going at and making them bleed. I've had her dressed in a sock (!) but she has cunningly figured out how to take it off!
 
Please be aware that you will need the ivermectin treatment at least twice, spaced 10-14 days apart for a full course of mites, otherwise it is just money out of the window. You should not bathe within 48 hours of spot on treatment, or it won't work properly. quite often, the case between mites and fungal is not as clear cut as you may wish, which is why many vets will treat for both.

Have you got steroid cream from your vet to treat open sores?

Here is more information about treating both mites and ringworm:
http://www.guinealynx.info/mites.html
http://www.guinealynx.info/fungus.html

alternatively, you can contact Chrissie from Gorgeous Guineas: http://www.gorgeousguineas.com/photogallery.html
 
Thats the thing the patches are neither v shaped or round like ringworm, so untill the vet gets the results on Tuesday I won't know. Ive got the ivermectin all ready to go again once 14 days are up, but I should know if it was mites before then anyway.

Theyv'e only got surolan to have on at the moment but nothing else; the younger two are much better and hardly itching at all now, although Betty is worrying at two or three patches.

Ony one pig, Bella, has what may be a typical ringworm mark, ie. rounded red area.

I'll post a link to a pic so you can see the extent of Bettys hair loss shortly. I bathed Betty with gg stuff at the beginning ofthe week and a lot of hair from the affected area just fell out. However this has ceased now so that looks like good news anyway.

I've read that canestan cream can help with the itch?
 
That looks quite sore - i can see why you are worried - having had no experience with mites (ive treated several pigs for a fungal infection and have used both Surolan and Nizoral with good results) - i would be very cautious about using 'too many' different medications/ointments/shampoos at one time. Personally if it were me i'd be taking her back to your current vets for a second opinion or trying to find another vets.

That is quite a large area to be treating with Surolan - you do have to be careful of your piggie licking and digesting it!

Keep us updated of her progress :)
 
WillowDragon said:
If the bald patch is on the back end in a V shape, its lice, not mites.
Click to expand...

WillowDragon, I'd be interested to know where you heard/read that as I could be wrong but I've always understood v-shaped baldness on the back end to be a classic 'textbook' sign of mites.
 
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Pug_in_a_bed said:
I've had her dressed in a sock (!) but she has cunningly figured out how to take it off!
Click to expand...

Perhaps you could try making a 'dress' out of a tubigrip style bandage. Looking at your photo her sore is pretty low down on her body but you might still be able to cover some, if not all, of the itchy bit this way:
http://www.oginet.com/pgurney/itching.htm

What are you using to clean her cage? I've heard that F10 veterinary disinfectant is very good, especially in fungal cases. Also what kind of bedding are you using? If you're washing fleeces etc then I'd check that you're washing them hot enough to kill off anything nasty.

Good luck with it all x
 
Thanks for all the suggestions, all very much appreciated.

They are on Megazorb and being cleaned out and spritzed every day at the moment. Going back to the vet at lunchtime today to see what can be done.

Going to look into the f10 cleaning stuff now as well
 
A lot of helpful and well-intentioned suggestions posted but I'm afraid some of them are not appropriate in view of the medication you are already giving.

Surolan contains an anti-fungal (mycanazole) , an anti-bacterial (polymyxin- to treat any secondary bacterial infection of the wounds) and a steroid to reduce the itching so is the best thing to use at the moment until the results come back. As it should be applied once or twice daily according to vets intructions there is no point in bathing your guinea pig as you will wash it all off.

Also, unless you have discussed it with your vet, please do not apply other antifungals in addition to the surolan, be they shampoos or creams (such as canestan -which may or may not contain more steroids depending upon which type of canestan you buy) as you could either overose the piggie or the drugs could interact badly, causing more harm than good (including immunosupression. gastric ulcers or liver damage).

The ivermectin spot-on for mites should as Wiebke says, be applied every 10-14 days and in view of the intensity of the infestation this should be done thee times. If the culture comes back negative for fungal it may be better to consider ivermectin injections instead in view of the severity.

HTH
x
 
Its definately not lice then. I'd go with burrowing mites personally, which ivomectin will treat, but you will have to do it three times every 7 to 10 days or so to kill all mites and eggs.

I wouldnt say it was fungal, since it doesn't look flakey, but then, i could be missing it from the picture. Though it would take fungal a long time to get that bad, and i'm sure you would have seen it.
 
Yes the more i look at the pigs and look on the net etc I'm thinking mites too. Obviously off work now its the weekend so I can keep an eye on Betty and discourage too much scratching.

I'm clearer about what the surolan does now as I rang the vet yesterday, they're going back for a checkup monday so we'll see.
 
missy said:
WillowDragon, I'd be interested to know where you heard/read that as I could be wrong but I've always understood v-shaped baldness on the back end to be a classic 'textbook' sign of mites.
Click to expand...

People often mix up lice and mites, and people often think that ivomectin will kill lice too, I have seen this written on various webpages, and even older books too.
But I promise you, the V shape of baldness towards the end of the back, onto the bum is a classic sign of running lice, and the baldness is caused by biting rather than scratching.
Thinning hair, bald patches slightly further up, nearer to the shoulders can be a sign of surface mites, which is caused by stratching with their back legs.

Little known fact... Ivomectin can actually make a case of lice much worse, as ivomec causes dry skin and this is what running lice feed on!
 
Betty has been a lot better but I have just had to drop her at the vet as she starting having some kind of seizure. They are keeping her in to see if they can stop it; its awful as all three pigs have been doing great, no more itching or bloody scabby areas etc, eating well and so on.

Vet suggested it could be a reaction to the ivomectin, although her last dose was Monday night.

:(
 
I'm just wondering if anyone has any experience of this. The vet nurse took Betty home over night, apparently she is still a bit twitchy so they are keeping her in today again

It wasn't like a seizure in that it ended shortly; she was still twitching when i arrived at the vets and when i left (about 20 minutes) - sort of leaning her head to one side and shaking it with her eyes going all over the place. Vet gave her diazepan (sp), but if shes still twitching this morning what can be going on?

She has been eating and drinking though apparently
 
Poor Betty. Sorry to hear this after she was doing so well and healing up nicely. I could be completely wrong but I wonder if she has a bad case of ear mites perhaps? If so, I don't think that the topical (spot on) Ivermectin would clear these.

Hopefully someone else can advise. Fingers crossed for the little one x
 
missy said:
I could be completely wrong but I wonder if she has a bad case of ear mites perhaps? If so, I don't think that the topical (spot on) Ivermectin would clear these.
x
Click to expand...

This would be my thoughts too - ear mites can cause head tilt, twitching, head shaking and nystagmus (rolling eyes). Often you see a build up of dark-coloured wax/grot in the ear as a first indiction plus the piggie will scratch their ear/eye/shake their head (and if living as a pair you may see their mate grooming the ear/eye too).

Missy is right in that topical ivermectin won;t work on ear mites becuase of their location....Ivermectin injections plus an ear drop..(surolan congtains anti-fungal, anti-bacterial and a steroid medication to soothe the infalmmation and prevent secondary infection)... would be appropriate. If the vet is worried about a reaction to ivermectin then doramectin can be used as an alternative injectable - three doses in total one every 7 days.

Ear mites are usually a different species to mange mites and your piggie may have both.

Finally - plenty of extra Vit C to boost the immune system/imrpove skin and coat condition to help them fight off the infestation- at least 50mg per day - if they won;t eat tablets directly then grind them up with some water and syringe it to them.

HTH
x
 
thanks some really good suggestions there, I'll mention these to the vet. I'd been googling frantically to try and find out what it could be.
 
I've just read some info here on guinea lynx re: ear a
mites, which is making an awful lot of sense. It mentions torticolis (wry neck) and that is exactly the situation Bettys neck seems to have been in, almost like it was stuck to one side. Although I haven't noticed discharge etc from the ears. The rest seems to match her recent symptoms though.

The nurse has taken Betty home again but I don't think they will have treated her for this, and now the flipping vets is closed so I'll have to wait untill Monday.
 
Pug_in_a_bed said:
I've just read some info here on guinea lynx re: ear a
mites, which is making an awful lot of sense. It mentions torticolis (wry neck) and that is exactly the situation Bettys neck seems to have been in, almost like it was stuck to one side. Although I haven't noticed discharge etc from the ears. The rest seems to match her recent symptoms though.

The nurse has taken Betty home again but I don't think they will have treated her for this, and now the flipping vets is closed so I'll have to wait untill Monday.
Click to expand...

How frustrating for you.....The practice should have an emergency number for out of hours....Hopefully, you should be able to ring through and speak to the emergency vet who in turn should be able to contact the vet nurse and advise appropriate treatment.....

You won;t actually see a disharge physically coming out from the ears (unless there is a bacterial infection/abcess with pus that drains out). What you will see sitting inside the ear is some dark coloured grot like dirty ear wax.

Personally I would not wait until monday given the fact she has already developed seizures/head tilt.........because if the ear has also developed a secondary infection then antibiotic drops should be administered without delay.

Fingers crossed that ear mites is the (easily solvable) problem and that she gets the necessary treatment for a full recovery.

x
 
I've just been round, luckily the nurse who is looking after her was there. She had brought Betty in so I was able to give her a love. I didn't want to leave her!

Head tilt is not as bad but her eyes are still going,although when I picked her up her head was still at a funny angle.

I explained about the mites and she said it was being considered but the vet was concerned as the anti seizure drugs are actually stopping the so called seizures. They had phoned the exotics vet but he is away until Monday. Vet has had look down her ears and can see no mites either.

I do trust them and its not that I think they aren't doing the best for her, but I still feel a bit helpless.

She was munching away on some goodies which is a good sign I suppose.
 
Just thought I would update. Betty has made a fab recovery, her hair is growing back even silkier than before she lost it and none of the pigs are itching and all their sores have healed. Betty has put on some good weight with the help of science recovery liquid food which she loves.

The vets took c bhacne and didn't dose up the pigs with any more invermectin - I am pretty confident I've broken the mite cycle fingers crossed. The consensus is that Betty might have had some kind of stroke, and still has a little head tilt but doing well.

Thank you so much for all your kind words and helpful suggestions :)
 
More help please

Needing some more help with this please guys.

As the thread says, my pigs all suffered with losing hair and looking fungally.

They healed up fine with the use of surolan from the vet and two pigs are fine. A ringworm test was negative. They were also treated for mites in case but they didn't actually have the classic signs of mites. The patches had a small white area which I know can be a classic fungal infection sign. Betty, who suffered the worst, had a head tilt which has cleared up completely after a course of antibiotics.

I went through a rigorous regime over a number of months of cleaning and disenfecting and all wooden items were disposed of.

Bella, my youngest pig, suffered the least at this time with only a tiny patch.

However, in October Bella developed a small patch of hair loss again with the white circle in the middle. Treated her again with surolan from the vet. After a few weeks I felt there hadn't been as much improvement as I had see in the first bout in the summer. I got some advice from gorgeousguineas and treated her with bathing and creams for another few weeks.

After lots of reading, and a few more weeks where I felt there still wasn't decent improvement I then used dactarin gold which seemed to help a lot.

She' s been fine but now it has come back with a venegance!
Another ringworm test is again negative and the other time have been completely fine.

Bella has lost a little weight but eating/drinking normally and not scratching.

My feeling now is that is something systemic that needs treating with something internal, has anyone any experience with this?

My vet in Liverpool is very good but I am thinking of going to Village Vets in Woolton as I've heard one of the vets is great with pigs.

Photos below, you can just see the white centre in the second pic.

photo.jpg


bhuh.jpg
 
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The other two pigs are fine and have been since around october
 
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