Paisley's Eye And Tizzie's Bladder

[Dilly's Piggies]

My sweet sow Paisley suddenly came out with a rather nasty eye injury 2 days ago, she went to the vet tonight and it turns out she has torn her 3rd eyelid, what should be on the lower lid is now on the upper lid and there's a red lump protruding which looks to be torn membrane. It doesn't look that bad at a glance but when the vet pulled the eyelid down, holy moly it looked terrible, she must be in so much pain with that and the entire eyelid all the way around is affected and inflamed. He stained the eye and luckily there is no damage to the eyeball itself. Paisley was so well behaved, she didn't move or complain, I'm so proud of her given how much pain she must be in with it. She has some eyedrops to take for the next week, if it doesn't clear up she will have to go for a biopsy to see if this is a tumour, I sincerely hope not! The vet said since she was so well behaved he may be able to do the biopsy with just local anaesthetic, usually they would be anaesthetised for this kind of thing, anaesthesia absolutely terrifies me, I've had two pigs die under it and I obviously do not want to lose a third, so I'm all in a panic now as you can imagine, my poor sweet girl. If the lump is cancerous then she will have to have her eye removed, which again means anaesthesia, wah! I really hope the eyelid is just an injury and it will heal by itself or without a serious procedure.



And then my girl Tizzie, she has been back and fourth from the vet for 4 months now with a UTI that will just not clear up, she has had 3 ultrasounds, all are clear (including ovaries), 7 weeks worth of antibiotics (1 week of baytril and 6 weeks of septrin) and it still won't budge. We have to get two urine samples from her and send them in to the vet to be cultured, she had this done when the problem first appeared and she had a large amount of blood present, obviously, and the blood is still present now although it seems to be intermittent, sometimes it will look normal, others it will be bright red, and others a watery pink. On all 3 ultrasounds Tizzie has had a very small bladder, and I've noticed the blood is brighter and more obvious after she has gone back home after cuddles, so therefore she has had to hold her bladder. Could a small bladder be the problem? Maybe holding her urine in is causing the bladder to tear or become irritated? I'm just not sure what's going on and my vet seems to be puzzled also, he said that she may not even have a UTI anymore and the red urine we're seeing may not be blood at all? So anyway getting a urine sample from her should be fun!


Oh what a stressful time, I can't seem to catch a break, these poor piggies.

 

[Flutterby]

I understand how you feel right now. Sending hugs and lots of healing vibes!

 

[pig in the city]

Sorry to hear this. Her eye doesn't look too worrying, it could just be the start of a 'fatty eye' which is a harmless condition, I wouldn't rush into having biopsies unless it's getting a lot worse.
As for your other piggy, it could be interstitial cystitis, this is aggravated by stress and tends to cause a small bladder. The bleeding can be very intermittent, (it definitely looks like blood on your photo). It's best treated by metacam and supplements such as cystophan, together with increasing fluids, and restricting calcium in the diet. Antibiotics don't help!
Good luck

 

[Toots33]

So sorry to hear about what's going on for your piggys at the moment. We've had the same problem with Sven that you've had with Tizzie and she's been backwards and forwards to the vet with blood in her urine for about five months.

Like Tizzie she's had ultrasounds, x rays, antibiotics and two urine cultures. Our vet was stumped but from the research I did on the forum, the vet agreed that it was interstitial cystitis as there was no infection, womb / ovary problems but the blood continued to be present.

We have completely changed her diet to a low calcium one. She doesn't have any pellets and has Timothy hay which is lower in calcium than other hay. We also filter her water.

I got some great advice re medication from the forum and took this to the vet who agreed we could try what had been recommended. Sven currently has Metacam, cystease and potassium citrate. We finally seem to be getting on top of things and have recently been able to reduce the Metacam dose which is really positive. I really don't think she would have made any progress without the advice I got from the forum and as the vet was stumped they were happy for us to try things as long as we checked with them first.

I really hope you manage to get things sorted. Wishing you lots of luck x x

 

[Dilly's Piggies]

So sorry to hear about what's going on for your piggys at the moment. We've had the same problem with Sven that you've had with Tizzie and she's been backwards and forwards to the vet with blood in her urine for about five months.

Like Tizzie she's had ultrasounds, x rays, antibiotics and two urine cultures. Our vet was stumped but from the research I did on the forum, the vet agreed that it was interstitial cystitis as there was no infection, womb / ovary problems but the blood continued to be present.

We have completely changed her diet to a low calcium one. She doesn't have any pellets and has Timothy hay which is lower in calcium than other hay. We also filter her water.

I got some great advice re medication from the forum and took this to the vet who agreed we could try what had been recommended. Sven currently has Metacam, cystease and potassium citrate. We finally seem to be getting on top of things and have recently been able to reduce the Metacam dose which is really positive. I really don't think she would have made any progress without the advice I got from the forum and as the vet was stumped they were happy for us to try things as long as we checked with them first.

I really hope you manage to get things sorted. Wishing you lots of luck x x

I'm sorry that you're having the same problem with Sven, what you're having really does sound similar to what is going on with Tizzie. Tizzie hasn't had any xrays yet but with having 3 ultrasounds I don't know if there's any point in getting one done? Tizzie is already on a low calcium diet, her water is brita filtered and she has the Oxbow vitamin C supplements (I've been told vitamin C makes the urine more acidic and helps prevent infections forming) Tizzie doesn't eat her veg so she has to have a supplement anyway, but I think that's helping for her blood problem. She's fed Oxbow timothy hay and also Oxbow adult pellets, I may be switching to orchard grass soon though as I've had some snuffly pigs from the timothy hay. Tizzie loves her pellets although I do only give 1/8 of a cup daily, she lives with 2 others so it would probably be hard for me to stop giving her pellets completely, maybe I can lower the amount of pellets and see if that helps? Oxbow pellets are the best in my area, but they do have a scary calcium content, 0.35-0.75% where piggies on a low calcium diet shouldn't have more than 0.4% calcium, so the fact Oxbows pellets do not have a set calcium content you never really know how much calcium you're feeding, so it could may well be the pellets causing problems. All my piggies also have the Oxbow urinary support hay tablets to help with bladder function, although these supplements are expensive so usually I alternate them, one day vitamin c and the next day urinary support etc...

It's somewhat annoying when you're doing everything you can but yet they still get poorly. I have read all about interstitial cystitis and the only thing that makes me question whether it's that or a UTI is that when on antibiotics her symptoms go away, it's after they're stopped that the symptoms come back, every time, it's like she needs to be on antibiotics permanently for the problem to stay away, and with IC antibiotics are said not to make a difference, although I could be wrong. It's just a big mystery, I'm not sure what to do with her, poor little piglet

 

[Toots33]

It might we worth having an x ray as our other piggy Elsa did have a stone that was right at the bottom at her urinary tract and I don't think that would have been picked on an ultrasound. Both Sven and Elsa had conscious x rays so no need for anaesthetic which is good.

It is more difficult if she doesn't eat veg as the first we were told was to stop the pellets because of the added calcium. We were also really nervous about stopping the antibiotics but we had two cultures done, one when she was on antibiotics and one when she'd been off them for about 3 weeks and there was no infection present in either. We didn't want to carry with the antibiotics if it wasn't helping her because she was on so much other medication as well.

We've been really lucky with Sven as she's quite a greedy pig and will eat any veg that we give her so she's taken really well to changing her veg to low calcium ones. She's also maintained a good weight throughout all of these problems. One thing never did was drink and we had to syringe extra water to her. She has recently started to drink and I think this might coincide with medication starting to work. I think my lowest point was being told by the vet that we might just have to accept that she'll always have blood in her urine but I'm not willing to do that as it's not normal or nice for her.

I really hope that you can start to get this under control and I really would recommend discussing cystease (it's a medication used for cats) and potassium citrate with the vet as these have definitely been the turning point for us.

 

[Dilly's Piggies]

It might we worth having an x ray as our other piggy Elsa did have a stone that was right at the bottom at her urinary tract and I don't think that would have been picked on an ultrasound. Both Sven and Elsa had conscious x rays so no need for anaesthetic which is good.

It is more difficult if she doesn't eat veg as the first we were told was to stop the pellets because of the added calcium. We were also really nervous about stopping the antibiotics but we had two cultures done, one when she was on antibiotics and one when she'd been off them for about 3 weeks and there was no infection present in either. We didn't want to carry with the antibiotics if it wasn't helping her because she was on so much other medication as well.

We've been really lucky with Sven as she's quite a greedy pig and will eat any veg that we give her so she's taken really well to changing her veg to low calcium ones. She's also maintained a good weight throughout all of these problems. One thing never did was drink and we had to syringe extra water to her. She has recently started to drink and I think this might coincide with medication starting to work. I think my lowest point was being told by the vet that we might just have to accept that she'll always have blood in her urine but I'm not willing to do that as it's not normal or nice for her.

I really hope that you can start to get this under control and I really would recommend discussing cystease (it's a medication used for cats) and potassium citrate with the vet as these have definitely been the turning point for us.

You make a very good point about a stone possibly being out of view on the ultrasound, perhaps I should get her booked in for one. Out of curiosity how much did you pay for the xray? I'm struggling financially at the moment as most of my vet fund has been spent recently, although things always work out, I just want to be prepared for the cost as I've heard xrays can be expensive. My vet has said they will do an xray without anaesthesia just like your vet, so at least I won't have this worry!

Yes Tizzie not eating her veg is a concern but it's not that she's off her food, she eats all her pellets and hay but ever since I got her she is extremely picky with her veg, she only likes cucumber and romaine lettuce, and with not eating much veg she runs the risk of not getting enough water, so I water down her veg and feed her more cucumber and lettuce to make up for it, but this also could be a factor to bladder stones. Tizzie was also pregnant when I got her, so I had to feed her alfalfa hay and pellets, I only fed her this for 3 months though and her babies just got some herbs for extra calcium until 6 months old, but with having to supplement pregnancy that could also contribute to a bladder stone.

Tizzie has had 1 urine culture and it showed lots of blood, no crystals or sludge, no extras etc, but this time I've had to get 2 samples, one will be tested for blood and the other will be tested for infection, I'm not sure but I don't think the last culture was actually tested for infection, only blood, so it's possible there is no infection present. I may try syringing water to her, how much water do you give yours daily? And about Cystease, I looked it up and my local pets at home sells it, I could definitely pick some of this up, but I will discuss it with the vet first, it sounds like a good thing.

I will wait for Tizzies urine culture results and discuss having an xray done, even if her results are clear it would give me huge piece of mind to have an xray.

 

[DM030819]

Does she drink out of a bottle herself?

I had a pig with bladder sludge/stones problems and he never drank water out of a bottle. We watered his veg like you do but we did manage to get him to drink out a bottle too.

After discussion with my vet we gave him filtered water with a little bit of 100% fresh orange juice (Tropicana was his favourite). It needs to be changed twice daily as the orange can go off if left longer so I used to give him about 40ml of water with 3ml od orange in one of the small hamster sized bottles.

My vet preferred the frest juice option rather than a cordial like Ribena because they tend to have other additives in them that we don't know what effects they had.

He would have maybe 20-30ml a day himself and I would top him up with a couple of ml when I gave him his meds on a am and pm.

 

[Dilly's Piggies]

Does she drink out of a bottle herself?

I had a pig with bladder sludge/stones problems and he never drank water out of a bottle. We watered his veg like you do but we did manage to get him to drink out a bottle too.

After discussion with my vet we gave him filtered water with a little bit of 100% fresh orange juice (Tropicana was his favourite). It needs to be changed twice daily as the orange can go off if left longer so I used to give him about 40ml of water with 3ml od orange in one of the small hamster sized bottles.

My vet preferred the frest juice option rather than a cordial like Ribena because they tend to have other additives in them that we don't know what effects they had.

He would have maybe 20-30ml a day himself and I would top him up with a couple of ml when I gave him his meds on a am and pm.

Tizzie does drink from the bottle (I've tried a water bowl also and she does not care for that) but I don't think she drinks enough, I just went in to the pigs with a glass of water and syringe and she took 3ml, she then went to have a pee and was squeaking again, poor baby, it wasn't red though but there are lots of red spots around the cage like usual so she is still bleeding intermittently.

Juice sounds like a good idea, I remember when I syringed Tizzie vitamin C, it tasted like orange juice, she seemed to like that so maybe juice would be a big hit with her rather than plain water... Thanks for the idea

 

[Toots33]

@CavyConnoisseur The x ray cost about £35 without sedation, I found the urine cultures were much more expensive as we had to pay nearly £70 and we had two done. Like you, our vet fund has gone now and it's been really expensive trying to get to the bottom of things.

Sven didn't drink any water at all and she'd take about 6mls a day. We gave her 2mls in the morning, 2mls at teatime and 2mls before bed. I'm not sure if this was enough but it was all she would take. Since we started the potassium citrate last Wednesday we've seen her drink independently everyday. Not sure if this is a coincidence though.