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Mollie Has Cystitis

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JackJack1 said:
Thanks biscand matt, it really helps that everyone here understands how it feels to see your little one poorly. When you have to hand feed and give meds and get him special food and worry about his weight, some people do not understand how upsetting it can be. That's why this forum is great support. Cystitis seems to be a common problem for guinea pigs. Even though I have had guinea pigs for decades, this is the first guinea pig with interstitial cystitis and it has been quite a journey. I am hoping that he gets better soon. We have just been out to buy him some Timothy Hay as this was recommended by the vet, so hope he like it.
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mollie is our first IC experience aswell. i've had others with bladder issues but not like this IC so it's all new and you're having to be responsible for this little ones health and beable to manage things for them, and i have to admit that sometimes it feels like alot of pressure for me because i so desperately want to get everything right for her. it's so great to have the support of people who understand, definitely :luv:

my two love their timothy hay. they're having the 2014 batch from timothyhay.co.uk at the moment and it's lovely quality x
 
biscandmatt said:
mollie is our first IC experience aswell. i've had others with bladder issues but not like this IC so it's all new and you're having to be responsible for this little ones health and beable to manage things for them, and i have to admit that sometimes it feels like alot of pressure for me because i so desperately want to get everything right for her. it's so great to have the support of people who understand, definitely :luv:

my two love their timothy hay. they're having the 2014 batch from timothyhay.co.uk at the moment and it's lovely quality x
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I know what you mean about the pressure of it all. We can only do our best for them and give them lots of cuddles and encourage them to get better.

My Joe is munching through his Timothy hay at the moment, so he seems to like it. He was a bit quiet earlier, as he had had 2 injections, Metacam and Baytril at the vet, but he has perked up a bit now and is munching away.

I hope Mollie gets better soon. I am sending my best wishes and healing vibes to you both.
 
JackJack1 said:
I know what you mean about the pressure of it all. We can only do our best for them and give them lots of cuddles and encourage them to get better.

My Joe is munching through his Timothy hay at the moment, so he seems to like it. He was a bit quiet earlier, as he had had 2 injections, Metacam and Baytril at the vet, but he has perked up a bit now and is munching away.

I hope Mollie gets better soon. I am sending my best wishes and healing vibes to you both.
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glad the timothy hay is approved of :tu: all the best for him, and thanks for the well wishes for mollie aswell. x
 
damn, she just did the uncomfortable noise again. it can't be the cucumber can it? it's low calcium and the vet did say she could have little bits, but today she had half of one slice, and yesterday she had one full slice, a thin one. but she's done the noise last night and today. probably just coincidence but it's hard not to start getting all paranoid about everything!

at least it's nowhere near as bad even when she does do that noise. it was quite mild again compared to what it was. just hard not to get disappointed and start over-analysing every little thing. i know there will be ups and downs along the way.
 
We have been battling similar to what you are experiencing now for a few months. It tends to come and go and just when you think you have a good patch, it does come back again. I have learned from experience now that this is long term health care, so do not get disappointed, if she seems to be having a less than perfect day. So long as you are doing the best you can with the treatment you have been given, that is all you can do. There is a positive in all of this, in that it is not be as severe as it was. It does mean she appears to be getting better and moving in the right direction, so this is good. So take each day one day at a time and this will help you to cope with little relapses.
 
JackJack1 said:
We have been battling similar to what you are experiencing now for a few months. It tends to come and go and just when you think you have a good patch, it does come back again. I have learned from experience now that this is long term health care, so do not get disappointed, if she seems to be having a less than perfect day. So long as you are doing the best you can with the treatment you have been given, that is all you can do. There is a positive in all of this, in that it is not be as severe as it was. It does mean she appears to be getting better and moving in the right direction, so this is good. So take each day one day at a time and this will help you to cope with little relapses.
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thank you. i do feel like she's alot better than she was so that's a step in the right direction. it's not been that long since she started on the correct course of treatment for her, and had her diet changed so overall she's still doing really well :) x
 
Chief Guinea Pig said:
How is Mollie moo today?
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she's well thank you. we're currently trying small amounts of other low calcium food hoping that she will be ok with it aswell. obviously her main fresh food will still be lettuces but if she could have small amounts of other things aswell then that'd be good for variety. so she's had a small amount of green pepper and a couple of vitakraft pellets aswell. max one per day at the moment but so far so good :tu:
 
i've got a strange feeling that cucumber makes mollie worse?! that makes no sense with it being low calcium and mainly water, but my notes appear to be showing a pattern with when she has it and when she makes that noise again... :hmm: it might be coincidence but i stopped the cucumber whilst we tried the green pepper, just because i could monitor her better that way because i know for sure she's fine with lettuces, and she hasn't done 'the noise' at all, and then i gave her one small strip of cucumber again last night and she did the noise. anyone had any experience of this before?

the good news is that she's still bright, and yesterday she did some lovely little popcorn turns! :)) she seems fine with small pieces of green pepper, which are once a day at the moment, and she seems fine with the vitakraft pellets aswell. again, just one per day at the moment. lettuces she's fine with aswell. she hasn't had grass in a while because of all the rain we've had but today looks to be dry so i'll pick some for them later on :)
 
Joe has gone right off his cucumber, whereas before he used to go mad for it. Perhaps it is because it is full of water, so they end up weeing a lot, which then hurts them, so they are avoiding it. I think Mollie must be weeing more when she gets cucumber, so you may notice that she is making more noise when she is weeing more.

We are battling on, just like you at the moment.
 
JackJack1 said:
Joe has gone right off his cucumber, whereas before he used to go mad for it. Perhaps it is because it is full of water, so they end up weeing a lot, which then hurts them, so they are avoiding it. I think Mollie must be weeing more when she gets cucumber, so you may notice that she is making more noise when she is weeing more.

We are battling on, just like you at the moment.
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that makes sense. she has had it sometimes and not made the noise, but recently she has. but yeh, that does make perfect sense. x
 
mollie did a few groans in a row last night and her poops were slightly too strong smelling afterwards so the groaning obviously upset her. it was like she was holding them in because pooping hurt her and about five suddenly seemed to explode out of her! just to be clear, i don't think she has trouble pooping, and infact most of the time i see her poop normally, but it was just this episode of pooping she went to poop, tried to hold it because it hurt, groaned and then these five poops came out. obviously the pain is from her bladder area, but affects pooping aswell sometimes due to the areas being so close together.

i'm going to start her on avipro plus today aswell. she has quite a few syringes of water during and after her meds so i'll add a pinch to one of the syringes (so a pinch in 1ml) and give her that aswell. hopefully it may help.

not sure if i am going too fast with trying to introduce new foods because since the time she managed five days symptom free, she has since only managed 2-3 days at most. might go back to basics with her today and see how she gets on. so hay, lettuces, water, grass hopefully, and her meds and avipro plus aswell.

she's bright before and after the groan episodes and she's still eating and drinking normally. her poops are the right size, shape and consistency. but i'm keeping a very close eye on her of course just incase it's a sign her digestion is starting to struggle. usually with mollie, this is stress related, which makes sense with the groaning.
 
good news - mollie is very bright again now. she brightened up yesterday and today she is very bright! poops don't smell too strong now either so not sure what happened there. probably stress from the groaning.

she loves her avipro water aswell so i'll do a pinch in water twice a day after her meds. i do it straight after because she isn't on an antibiotic. assume that is ok?
 
it's a bit more up and down with mollie than it was. she seems the same whether she has just lettuces, or bits of other veggie too, so i'll let her have small amounts again. probably just cucumber and green pepper for now though. not sure about the pellets for now. might leave them out.

i've read that cauliflower leaves and broccoli are low calcium. does anyone know if that is correct?

she's a bit tender underneath this morning. already done some squeaking aswell when it's usually afternoon, evening or night she does it. although she has also done popcorns to confuse me!
 
Poor Mollie, just checked on here to see how shes doing. Brocilli is medium calcium, unsure about cauli leaves! Still sending her vibes x
 
mollie has dropped slightly in weight again. not a major amount but i wasn't expecting it. thought she seemed to be doing well the last few days. in herself she seems well. she's having cucumber regularly again now with no issues. hays, grass, lettuces aswell. loving her avipro water, still taking meds well. overall her symptoms are sooo much better but she's not managed to do more than the 2-3 days symptom free recently. usually though it's one or two small groans per day she does, which is still alot less than what she was doing at her worst. the actual squeaking she did before the groaning has completely gone, as has any hunching. her urine is alot less dark and gritty. it's just that groan noise that hasn't fully stopped but it might be on and off as she gets the excess calcium salts out of her body over time.

the cerenia is a pain! i can only get a small amount sent because it starts to crystallize. they send out 3x tablets mixed with 24ml syrup but i only get 15days out of that amount. so i'm ordering it every two weeks. bit annoying but oh well...

i've started to get a little nagging feeling that something is brewing though. maybe hormonal. cysts perhaps. the vet did discuss this with me previously so it was always a possibility but i'll see how she goes and see what he thinks next time i speak to him or see him.
 
I wish I had the magic answer, but all I can do is follow the thread and be useless in the background!
I feel for you though, having tried so hard to figure it out and it's still on-going. I really hope for a solution for her soon, poor little love.
 
Critter said:
I wish I had the magic answer, but all I can do is follow the thread and be useless in the background!
I feel for you though, having tried so hard to figure it out and it's still on-going. I really hope for a solution for her soon, poor little love.
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the support is really appreciated and definitely not useless :)

she confuses me because she will do the groan noise and be a bit quiet, and then not long after she'll be playing piggy train with benjie and doing popcorns! she's a funny little character though anyway :)) :luv:
 
thanks. least we know what we're dealing with mainly. it's just whether something else is going on aswell, like an ovarian cyst issue. but it could just be me looking too much at every little thing, especially having gone through chronic cystitis/ovarian cyst issues with maisie in the past.

mollie is bright the vast majority of the time though so that's the main thing :)
 
i wasn't sure whether to post this yet... but i said it on another thread now so it's been said already! but i over-panicked last time i posted and she dropped a little weight. the day before weigh day, the saturday, she didn't groan at all, and she had actually seemed really well. so when she dropped weight slightly on weigh day and seemed a little hormonal, i over-worried as per usual. but happy to report that she was just having a stronger season it looks like, and she's been fine since :)

today is day 6 of being symptom free! our first major aim for her was to get to 7-10days clear so i'm so pleased. something seems different with her recently - she's really bright and happy and talkative! :)) but at the same time... i don't want to get too ahead... but keep everything crossed for us!

the vet said i can reduce the cerenia from tomorrow if i want, but it's down to me and whether i think it's right yet. i have decided it's safer to get to the 10 days clear if possible before trialling a reduction in the cerenia. the vet said he reduces by approximately a third with doses as they go along, but that i can do it more slowly if i feel that would be better. so i think again, i will do it more slowly just to be extra sure.

i really hope i haven't tempted fate here and spoken too soon!
 
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Wiebke said:
All the best!
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thanks so much. i think i expected too much too soon really and when i think about it, she's done amazingly well when you think it's only been just over a month on this specific combination of meds. she had five days clear quite early on, and she's done some 2-3 days clear aswell along the way. all the symptoms except that groan went early on really, so overall she's probably responded extremely well to this treatment.

even if she does groan again before the ten days clear, she has still beaten her previous best of five days clear, so that has to be a great sign :)
 
so today is day 8 and mollie has done a little groan when pooping. it was that same thing as a while back where she went to poop, felt a little discomfort, held them, and then a few shot out of her at once, and she groaned when they did. disappointing but still, only one groan in eight days is still amazing and still a big improvement. so we're heading in the right direction overall i think. now we can start counting again!

when she urinates she's fine, so i think the diuretic is working very very well. i think there is still enough inflammation to cause some discomfort when she poops though, but not very often thankfully.

she's still bright and happy in herself though so that's the main thing :)
 
biscandmatt said:
so today is day 8 and mollie has done a little groan when pooping. it was that same thing as a while back where she went to poop, felt a little discomfort, held them, and then a few shot out of her at once, and she groaned when they did. disappointing but still, only one groan in eight days is still amazing and still a big improvement. so we're heading in the right direction overall i think. now we can start counting again!

when she urinates she's fine, so i think the diuretic is working very very well. i think there is still enough inflammation to cause some discomfort when she poops though, but not very often thankfully.

she's still bright and happy in herself though so that's the main thing :)
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Great news that Molly is getting a bit better each day and going in the right direction. There will be the odd groan, but overall it sounds really positive.
 
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