On top of 4 year old Cariad's emergency spay on Thursday, from which she is recovering well now, I have had a very scary weekend with 5 year old Ffraid.
After looking off for over a day without any clear symptoms (and the vet not finding anything on Friday afternoon), she started twisting and shivering with pain on Saturday evening. Her back legs became rather hot and very sensitive/painful to the touch for a time. Over the course of the next few hours, the twisting thankfully stopped. The back legs cooled but became totally paralysed for several hours instead. By five o'clock Ffraid thankfully started to be able to pull them under her body again and a couple of hours later she was able to wobble around a bit.
Unfortunately, her ordeal affected her digestive system quite badly with a partial stasis and gassing, and it has taken a few days of round the clock feeding to keep her going, hence my absence from the forum.
She is thankfully now back to eating on her own (including hay) and getting around, even though the reflex in her right back leg is still somewhat coming and going, and her guts are not quite stable yet - but I have been finally able to have my first decent night of sleep in a whole week!
I am happy to say that my local vet, who I saw again on Monday, was pretty impressed with what I did and how I coped; he said that he would have done exactly the same in that situation. I am very grateful for the support over the phone of a piggy person until the wee hours, to help me figure out what was going on and give the appropriate doses of the meds I had on hand (painkiller, gut meds). It was a very frightening experience!
Sadly, we will never know what it exactly was, as there is no research whatsoever for guinea pigs in that area. It could be a neurological problem (trapped nerve/sciatica?) or a blood clotting issue where the arteries for the back legs split off from the main artery (can obviously happen to cats and will cause comparable symptoms).
But I must say that two major emergencies so close to each other have rather taken it out of me!
After looking off for over a day without any clear symptoms (and the vet not finding anything on Friday afternoon), she started twisting and shivering with pain on Saturday evening. Her back legs became rather hot and very sensitive/painful to the touch for a time. Over the course of the next few hours, the twisting thankfully stopped. The back legs cooled but became totally paralysed for several hours instead. By five o'clock Ffraid thankfully started to be able to pull them under her body again and a couple of hours later she was able to wobble around a bit.
Unfortunately, her ordeal affected her digestive system quite badly with a partial stasis and gassing, and it has taken a few days of round the clock feeding to keep her going, hence my absence from the forum.
She is thankfully now back to eating on her own (including hay) and getting around, even though the reflex in her right back leg is still somewhat coming and going, and her guts are not quite stable yet - but I have been finally able to have my first decent night of sleep in a whole week!
I am happy to say that my local vet, who I saw again on Monday, was pretty impressed with what I did and how I coped; he said that he would have done exactly the same in that situation. I am very grateful for the support over the phone of a piggy person until the wee hours, to help me figure out what was going on and give the appropriate doses of the meds I had on hand (painkiller, gut meds). It was a very frightening experience!
Sadly, we will never know what it exactly was, as there is no research whatsoever for guinea pigs in that area. It could be a neurological problem (trapped nerve/sciatica?) or a blood clotting issue where the arteries for the back legs split off from the main artery (can obviously happen to cats and will cause comparable symptoms).
But I must say that two major emergencies so close to each other have rather taken it out of me!
