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Need to pick brains before my vets appt

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yyoung

yyoung

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Hi everyone,

Off to the vets at 2.30 today as my mini zoo has a whole list of troubles at the minute.
I am particularly concerned about my Poppy. She got very sick around June (stroke we think) and she has been slowly recovering. I say slowly ... it has been months and she still hasn't gained weight. When she was healthy she weighed around 1000grams. She was 16 months old in June when the stroke happened so still very young. She dropped to 650grams and was skin and bone. She slowly gains weight and then drops some and hence she is now still only 670-710 grams and very very skinny. On top of that she has lost all of her hair uniformly from both sides of her body but nowhere else. Like she has a stripe of hair down her back and around the bottom half of her body but her sides are bald. Been to vets already and they are puzzled. Don't think hair loss is mites or skin infection as there are no skin problems at all. She doesn't scratch. Vet rang me back and said after doing some research that maybe it was an ovarian or hormonal problem.
Anyone have any experience of this that could shed some more light before I go back this afternoon. She is otherwise good. She eats and poops and pees normally and is lively and vocal. She is really struggling to maintain her weight though.
Any help gratefully accepted.
 
I was instantly thinking ovarian cysts as well!

Things have moved on since, and she can have hormone therapy instead of an spay, which is a major operation, and certainly not something for your poor Poppy! Somebody said that about two rounds of treatment would usually do the trick.

Here is the link to guinealynx: http://www.guinealynx.info/ovarian_cysts.html

http://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=39983&highlight=ovarian+cysts

The other avenue could be a fungus infection, if your vet hasn't already.

I hope that that can help you to explore less invasive avenues first.
 
I also agree that the hair loss could be hormonal; the pattern of loss sounds typical of that associated with ovarian cysts.

I hope the appointment has gone well!
 
Hormonal baldness is said to be more common in sows that have not had a litter.
 
Vet has agreed that Poppy has ovarian 'nodules' and that all the symptoms point to ovarian cysts. I had gone armed with the printout that wiebke had sent the link to and amazingly my vet read through the printout and agreed to look into it further and get back to me.

He rang me later today and said he had been on some forums and had been in touch with the Cavy trust (can this be true ?) and agreed that the best course of action would be to try the HCG injections first. He said she was too fragile to withstand a GA anyway so it would be his first line of treatment in this instance.

So off tomorrow for first HCG injection and then wait 1 month to see if anything changes. I do hope so as she is still very young and such a sweetie.

Can I just say that today I officially love my vet. I took 5 animals down and he gave me great advice for all of them and also gave me plenty of medication to see me through a long time ..... even with my mini zoo.

Any further information from anyone who has been in the same situation would be fab.

Does anyone know what the prognosis is for Poppy if these injections have no impact on her at all ?
 
Just in case anyone would like to see how this looks here are two pictures..... one from each side of Poppy. Notice how her lovely long hair is fine apart from down each side.

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The cysts can get quite/very large but can be easily drained, wthout the need of a general anaesthetic.
The photos are absolutely typical of hormonal baldness.
 
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How would they drain an ovarian cyst without the need for a GA. Forgive my ignorance but wouldn't that be very painful for my piggy ? Would you try the HCG injection first ? It seems like the least intrusive way forward initially.
 
It is good to hear of a vet willing to work with you and ask around, you are so lucky!

One of my sows had small cysts on her ovary, the HCG injections worked very well - the cysts were gone after the second 'course' . She had two injections spaced four weeks apart, counting as one course, and then it was repeated again a couple of months later due to more severe hair loss - which we eventually found was due to another condition! But the cysts were no longer present.

The good thing about these HCG injections is that they also correct the hair loss; even if cysts are not present and there is hormonal hair loss, the injections can help the problem.

I've not had a sow who's had to have the cysts drained before so can't comment on the exact procedure.
 
They can drain them using a syringe needle - like an injection, only backwards.
 
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