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Ovarian Cysts, can anyone offer advice?

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GuineaGuy

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Hello All,

Our little sow unfortunately has ovarian cysts.

We had a round of hormone treatment - 5 injections over 5 weeks - which really did help to reduce the size of the cysts and one disappeared altogether (she had them on both sides), but unfortunately they are back - she has crusty nipples and is pear shaped once more and a bit sexually aggressive.

Due to the fact she is a very nervous pig and 5 years of age we have ruled out having her spayed. We simply cannot bear to put her through surgery.

I'm interested to hear from anyone with experience with cysts. Due to her positive response to the hormone treatment I am favouring the hormone implant - its been suggested this may be able to be done without the need for anesthetic - is this correct?

I have also seen people suggest leaving them - I'm unsure about this as I am worried they would rupture. How likely is this and would it harm our little piggy?

We are going to discuss it with our vet in a few days but I do like to have some background knowledge.

Thanks in advance.
 
We have had one of our previous girls Treacle treated with hormone injections when our vet thought she had gone cystic and they helped sort everything out.

As you quite rightly point out at 5 years old I wouldn't even consider a spay either.

Here is a links a thread on Ovarian Cysts and implants, I haven't had time to read through them all but there is information available
http://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/showthread.php?82037-Ovarian-Cysts-and-hormone-implant/page2
there are a few others, I will try and point an experienced member in your direction but hopefully someone with some experience of the implant will pop along shortly.
 
Thanks for the reply sport_billy - you always come up with the goods :)

Did Treacle's Cysts come back after the injections? We only had our last one just over 4 weeks ago and they are back already. Do you think the timecale was ok? I have seen others spread over a longer period of time?

That is a promising story in that thread, it seems the implant is a really good option, but I'd love to hear from anyone who has tried it, especially as to whether it has still proved effective over the medium term.
 
No Treacle's didn't but they were tiny. I don't know if you could try the injections again.

I am pretty sure the implant is more used in the US so it may be worth having a look on the guinea lynx website forum to see what their members may have to say about it, its an excellent US medical website http://www.guinealynx.info/forums/ and here is the guinea lynx link to Ovarian cyst page http://www.guinealynx.info/ovarian_cysts.html

Hope that helps
 
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I have just had my 2nd pig spayed in the space of 2 months - both pigs (sisters) are 4 yrs old - The 1st was spayed 2 months ago ,and due to the fantastic vet was up and about eating pretty much as soon as she had the op - no hair loss,no aggression , no clues at all she was cystic apart from an odd bit of bleeding - there was no need to support syringe feed her at all - had her sister spayed this morning - dropped her off at 8-45 phone call before 9-45 piggy was awake and eating - both ovaries had gone cystic - a lot I think also depends on how experienced your vet is and how long they are under for the op - my vet has 24 pets of her own (including 8 pigs ) and spays all her females (she was also a vet at Bristol zoo and teaches other vets), so is very experienced with spaying,again it also depends how much the guts have to moved around during surgery ,and in my case not too much - depending where you are she is in Dursley nr. Stroud - Rachael Mowbray Vale Vet Referrals - it is also one of the few registered and approved animal hospitals in the *.k- cost me £80 and they charge £16 a night if you want them to look after them and keep an extra eye on them for your peace of mind.
 
Thanks for the reply.

As it happens we are not far from Dursley, I know the town well.

Was that 80 for the spay? I was expecting a lot more than that to be honest.

Was the option of hormone injection or implant discussed at all?
 
My girl has ovarian cysts- she is 7. She has had one course- 3 injections which shrunk their size and allowed her tummy hair to grow back in. Unfortunately, after about 3/4 months I believe they have started to come back as she is losing her tummy hair once more ( her only symptom) . I showed this to our vet last month and at that moment she couldn't feel anything- last time they were huge, so we arejust monitoring her for the time being. I wouldn't put my girl through a spay purely based on her age. I am likely going to give the injections another whirl next time I see the vet.
Because it is hormone related and based on their seasons, the vet said it may be a recurring problem.
 
Would these Cysts cause slightly heavier breathing?

We have noticed her 'rocking' back and forth as she breathes a few times recently - which we thought might just be her sleeping on her feet and I'm not sure if I am just worrying but her breathing seems slightly heavier.

That said she is eating and drinking well - she has just been at the nugget bowl and the hay and has been particualry active this morning, so I don't know if I'm worrying for no reason.
 
Yes definitely can cause heavier breathing, as the cysts can make all the organs squished together and make it more difficult to breathe. My Terk who has an ovarian tumour is doing this at the moment. She will be checked at piggy clinic on Saturday.
 
Hello

My oldest Sow who is coming up for 5 years has had OC for about 2 years, they have never ever been treated and the growth of them has been very very slow. She is still her happy normal baby like self.

xx
 
The rodentologists I see, who are specialized in piggies only, have managed to burst some of mine, and the rest, the piggies bodies reabsorb.
 
guineaguy said:
Thanks for the reply.

As it happens we are not far from Dursley, I know the town well.

Was that 80 for the spay? I was expecting a lot more than that to be honest.

Was the option of hormone injection or implant discussed at all?
Click to expand...

Hi
Yes estimated cost £80 - £96 all in for the spay and that includes a gut stimulant &,baytril for several days afterwards etc - I will be picking her and her cage mate up tomorrow at about 5 ish - I always pay the extra few pounds (or the insurance company does ) and keep my piggies in for a day or two as I am rubbish at syringing meds (unless its the banana flavour septrin they all love ) - gives me peace of mind and makes sure they are less stressed - we did discuss implants and injections with both pigs,but my vets general opinion was that these things quite often fail,and as soft tissue surgey is her speciality (and having quite a few of her own) I have always been guided by her,but she will always do what you want - she is working at the pet rehabilitation unit tomorrow (Saturday) and will be discharging my Poppett tomorrow afternoon around 5 ish - why don't you give her a ring and have a chat - she diagnosed my Noodles ovarian cysts with just a manual examination,and she showed no symptoms - no loss of hair on her sides - no change in shape or weight gain - I cant praise her enough - she was the only vet who could diagnose my boar with spinal disease - the poor woman lives there if she is not lecturing somewhere. Rachael Mowbray 01453542092 - just say Nuggetts owner with all the piggies told you to give her a call - good luck
 
Thanks for the replies, all very interesting. We were hoping to get her to the vet to book in for an implant today but the vet who has been seeing to us is off so it will be next week.

Tan - I will give her a call tomorrow, will she talk even though I am not registered there. I hope it isn't seen to be going behind my vets back though as they have been brilliant so far on this one!

The reason we are edging towards the implant over a spay is largely due to her age and the fact she is so nervous. I will admit though (and this could be selfish of us) that the pain we suffered when we lost 2 of our piggies this year, 1 of which through surgery, was so bad that we just cannot bear the thought of it again.

I have heard that the implant may fail or may not even be effective, but if it does fail and we are only left with spaying as an option then at least we have tried.

Thanks again for the replies.
 
I hope it is a success please keep us updated with your little girl, all paws and fingers crossed
 
[QUOTE=guineaguy;

Tan - I will give her a call tomorrow, will she talk even though I am not registered there. I hope it isn't seen to be going behind my vets back though as they have been brilliant so far on this one!


No - it will not be seen as going behind your vets back - they are a referral service for other vets and handle complex cases that other vets need help with (this is how I found them - my great vet Ian said he needed Rachaels expertise on reading the ultrasound as she had much more experience with piggies and spaying (he has only spayed 3 piggies and they were all straight forward - Noodles was quite complicated - but she was still up and eating peeing and pooing almost straight away) - go on the Vale Vets Dursley website and watch their new youtube video - Rachael can be seen working on the Rabbit. Good luck and let us know how she gets on.
 
My pig Pumpkin was diagnosed with ovarian cysts about 3 years ago, she had the injections and all was well. Every spring time the cysts came back with a vengeance though (to do with coming into mating season I suppose) and they caused URI after URI which got progressively worse.
It got so bad she was constantly rocking and grunting, and she was looking rather bald. In the end no amount of Baytril, Metacam and Chorulon was making any difference so despite her being 5 and a half, we decided to bite the bullet and get her spayed.

This was June earlier this year and she's been perfectly healthy since! It's given her a new lease of life; honestly if you have a good vet and the pig is otherwise healthy, I wouldn't be too hasty as to rule out a spay. Considering over the years I spent over £400 on the chorulon, as well as treating all the problems the cysts caused I wish that I'd just got her spayed sooner. It would have saved a lot of discomfort for Pumpkin, as well as grief (and money!) on my part!

I've heard of the implant, so I really hope it does the trick!

Best of luck to your girl xx
 
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I was always very anti-spay in the past because of stories about spays that other pigs had gone through.I have a totally different opinion now though.
 
I wish I had spayed my beloved piggy. I believe her cyst squashed her organs which resulted in her premature death. the hormone injection was short lived and your piggy will only get older! I spayed her sister who recovered amazingly after womb cancer. I was crushed for a time after losing my piggy because if only I knew what I did now I would have made other decisions. My word of caution is to make sure you have a very experienced vet.
 
I know it's been a while but I wanted to update.

TAN - we spoke to Vale Vets at Dursley, but it was proving problematic to see Rachel as we could only do evenings or weekends. However due to problems with another pig, we have now registered with an exotic specialist vet and although they are an hour away, we couldn't be happier and the vet we have been seeing is absolutely fantastic.

Now for our Piggie Marie's cysts - They are large - our new vet feels they are about the size of golf balls, and we basically have 4 options:

1. Leave them and see how they go. However they are causing her some level of discomfort and are possibly slightly painful - If they increase in size there is a danger they could press on her gut making her think she is full and she may not eat, basically starving her to death.
2. Drain them. However they will refill. It could be 6 months, but it could be 6 days. As it requires anaesthetic, it is quite a risky procedure for an unknown outcome.
3. More hormone injections - they did have an effect in reducing the size first time around, but it was temporary (a week at best) and this was after 5 weeks of injections, and she hates being injected. This isn't fair on her as a long term solution.
4. And that just leaves a spay. I hate the thought of it, but we have booked her in for next week. The vet is confident she is strong enough to cope with the operation and she has lots of experience with spays in a high spec surgery.

Whilst I don't want to have her spayed, I really see no other long term option for her. Even if we try options 1-3, we are likely going to arrive back at a spay anyway. I'm trying to convince myself that this is the best option for her - I'm sure it is, and I really hope all goes well.

Regarding the hormone implant, and this may be useful for anyone else considering this. The new vet no longer offers this as a treatment. Apparently there has been a lot of research done in this area, and the implants have been proven to be completely ineffective. The reason being is that the Guinea Pig completely rejects it as a foreign body and somehow 'encapsulates' it preventing it from releasing the hormones (I think that's how I remembered it!). This research is only just being released but it seems that leading vets are in agreement that it will not offer any benefit at all to a guinea pig with ovarian cysts, which is a huge blow.

There are a couple of reports of success but it seems this is perhaps coincidence and the cysts reduced naturally.

I'm really gutted about this, but it can't be helped and it does only leave one long term solution for cysts, and that is spaying.
 
So, our girl is booked in for her spay on Wednesday but I am having big second thoughts about all this. I cannot convince myself that we are doing the right thing. She is our little girl - I desperately want to do right by her, but I cannot stand to lose her. I didn't realise quite how much I love her and I think this is clouding my thoughts a little bit. Although I'm not generally superstitious, this has not been a good year for we have lost 2 piggies, our dog and fish. Both our piggies that we lost were taken into the vets on a Wednesday and passed at the vets.

I've been looking at hormone injections again and just wonder if we try another round before going for the spay.

Our previous vet administered 5 injections over 5 weeks and they did actually reduce the cysts but they enlarged again. I have done some reading and it seems that other vets have administered 3 injections, with the 2nd one being given 2 weeks after the first and the third one 3 weeks after the second.

I'm really keen to hear from anyone that has had success from hormone injections.

I know TAN and Phoebe have had success with spaying in their posts above, but I am so scared - I've read a lot of forum posts today on the procedure with many sad outcomes which probably isn't helping. She is clearly in discomfort and we need to do something soon - I almost think the injections could buy us some more time and get us through this year.

I'm just so confused and very scared right now.
 
Hi
Please don't worry - the reason there are lots of bad stories on here and on other places is that many vets do not have, or have very little experience of spays - as you have managed to find a good exotics vet who has plenty of experience she should be fine - Rachael at Vale can be hard to get hold of as she also does a lot of lecturing - I have just been lucky that she was around when I needed her.
Its usual to be scared,it just means you care xx
 
Thanks TAN - the receptionist did say Rachael was very busy. Dursley would have been that but closer for us, but Bristol is fine.

Over the past couple of days she has become a bit more 'hidey' - if me or my girlfriend are in the room, she just hides away, we think she is aware she is unwell and sluggish and keeping out of the way of any potential predators. Obviously she can't live the rest of her life like this and her cysts are large - if they were to keep growing she would have very little quality of life and could end up killing her.

So she is going ahead with the spay tomorrow (Wednesday) as planned - it's better to do it now whilst she is strong than have to undergo an emergency spay when she is really unwell.
 
Hi all,

Sorry for the lack of update - she had her op and it seems she is doing ok.

She was under for nearly 2 hours it seems and the cysts were very large - the vet drew 40ml of fluid from each one prior to operating. One of her Cysts had adhered itself to one of her Kidney's which added a complication.

My girlfriend has just spoken to them and they were happy for us to collect her this evening but we have asked for her to be there overnight as they have vets on hand to monitor through the night, and as she is an hour away we want to be 100% sure before we collect her. I also haven't been well myself today - I think the stress and worry of it and the fact I had to be up early has taken its toll - I have a stinking headache and feel sick - the headlights on the cars on the way home from work were making me feel really bad and dizzy so I'm not sure driving down this evening would be a good idea anyway.

We both have tomorrow off so we can go down and get her first thing.

Until we can see her ourselves I think we'll still be on edge, so we'd be really grateful if you could keep the healing vibes coming, and I'll update as soon as I can.
 
Thanks for the update...i am pleased she came round ok. Healung vibes for your beautiful girl and also hope your feelibg better soon. Stress can make us so unwell cant it? :-( Hope you are able to rest...have an early night and try and relax...(i know it is hard) she is in the best place and getting 24hour care at the vets :-) good luck collecting her tommorow x
 
Oh dear, they sound huge! I'm sure she'll be feeling much better with those out! I hope you feel better in the morning, she'll need you in top form to be chief piggy pamperer when she comes home!

Prayers to you all xx
 
So glad it went well - I kept Noodles in for an extra day as I am rubbish at syringe feeding (she is such a Gannet she was eating on her own within an hour of coming round) because i found it really hard and stressfull with syringing Nuggets after his op - and I kept Truffles in for an extra 2 days (it only costs about £20 a night ) so if you arnt feeling well,or she needs a bit of recovery food and you arnt used to syringe feeding it might be worth considering doing that xx
 
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