Stinklepig
Junior Guinea Pig
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2009
- Messages
- 167
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 195
Two days after Pimple passed away I noticed her father, Jet, was a bit off his food. He'd been fine earlier in the evening, snatching salad and munching away, but a couple of hours later he had no interest in seconds. I feared there'd been a bad bit of food so got Infacol in him, and the following day got him to the vet for metaclopromide. The vet listened to his guts and diagnosed hypermotility, tying in with the bit of bad food theory.
On the drive back (20 miles from that vet) he passed a small number of reasonably healthy poos, and that evening he seemed generally quite happy and healthy although I did syringe feed him a little to be on the safe side.
The following day he was more bright and eating better for himself, so I stopped with the syringes and just kept an eye on him. Had a box set up on the bed so I could be sure what was going in and out, and if there was a problem in the night I knew I'd wake up.
On Friday evening he was doing well enough for me to be happy to put him back in his cage with his sister, he was still not eating with the pasion of a healthy pig, but was munching quite well and his poo was OK though not brilliant. Saturday and Sunday he came out to go in his box for a few hours each day just to check, and things seemed to be going OK. Sunday night he seemed a bit off again though, so first thing Monday morning it was box time. From 7am till 2pm he passed three or four tiny poos, so it was off to a local (and much cheaper) vet for another metaclop jab. This again appeared to help, though not as much as the first time round, and in the evening when the little that was coming out of him was hard and dry and tiny I gave him some liquid paraffin, which really did free things up in a good way. I also got back on the syringe 6pm that evening.
Very early Tuesday morning he stopped being so keen on chewing the syringed food, which was a huge concern. Over the morning he seemed to slow down again, and from being very active and happy Monday morning he was now much more reluctant to move, and showing no interest at all in food. Another metaclop trip saw a stick test done on his urine, which showed blood (even though visually the urine was crystal clear). As a UTI can put them off their food, and not eating properly can cause gut problems, we went with that being the probably cause and treated as such.
Wednesday he was markedly worse, another metaclop and stick test, plus specific gravity test on his urine. The gravity was good, very dilute (I was giving plenty of dilute cranberry), but he was getting worse. I feared a stone, I've seen similar eating/ pain issues due to that in the past.
Wednesday night he took a major turn for the worse, and pretty much stopped moving at all, even when prompted to get back in his box. He had been sitting hunched for a couple of days, and that became more pronounced too.
First thing Thursday morning I rushed him in for an x ray to be sure if there was or wasn't a stone. The x ray was taken around 12pm in the end, and the finding was very strange, and very very bad.
His bladder was fine, a little clouding showing the usual level of sludge, but no stones whatsoever. However, it did show unusual clouding apparently around his intestine. This is where things went from severe to what the hell. The vet could only know what was going on by performing surgery, which she was unsure would prove useful. As I said to her, he wasn't going to survive without surgery, and with surgery there was a chance we'd find out what the problem was and have a chance of treating it. Sadly, we did find out what the problem was, and we couldn't treat it. He had a sizeable tumour on his pancreas, and the vet knew it wasn't fair to wake him up :...
Now, the pancreas being so vital for digestion (never mind a large tumour fighting for room in there) would explain so much about his digestive issues over the last few days. The vet had never seen this problem in a guinea pig before, but as she admitted, vets have little chance to perform surgery as it seems too few people fight for their animals. He started with all the symptoms of a "routine" digestive upset, this developed into "classic" UTI/ stone symptoms, and all of these were down to the real, far more sinister, cause.
It's heartbraking as of all the piggies here, he was by far the most friendly and loving to other piggies (so long as they were girls!), and still bounced around like a baby even though he was approaching 4. I know this time we had no chance of saving him, so I don't feel I can shout at vets and myself, but that doesn't make it any easier to not have him here.
I've put this post up not as a memorial (I still don't have the words), not as a request for help (we're 34 hours too late for that), but as something that may hopefully be of use to others some time.
On the drive back (20 miles from that vet) he passed a small number of reasonably healthy poos, and that evening he seemed generally quite happy and healthy although I did syringe feed him a little to be on the safe side.
The following day he was more bright and eating better for himself, so I stopped with the syringes and just kept an eye on him. Had a box set up on the bed so I could be sure what was going in and out, and if there was a problem in the night I knew I'd wake up.
On Friday evening he was doing well enough for me to be happy to put him back in his cage with his sister, he was still not eating with the pasion of a healthy pig, but was munching quite well and his poo was OK though not brilliant. Saturday and Sunday he came out to go in his box for a few hours each day just to check, and things seemed to be going OK. Sunday night he seemed a bit off again though, so first thing Monday morning it was box time. From 7am till 2pm he passed three or four tiny poos, so it was off to a local (and much cheaper) vet for another metaclop jab. This again appeared to help, though not as much as the first time round, and in the evening when the little that was coming out of him was hard and dry and tiny I gave him some liquid paraffin, which really did free things up in a good way. I also got back on the syringe 6pm that evening.
Very early Tuesday morning he stopped being so keen on chewing the syringed food, which was a huge concern. Over the morning he seemed to slow down again, and from being very active and happy Monday morning he was now much more reluctant to move, and showing no interest at all in food. Another metaclop trip saw a stick test done on his urine, which showed blood (even though visually the urine was crystal clear). As a UTI can put them off their food, and not eating properly can cause gut problems, we went with that being the probably cause and treated as such.
Wednesday he was markedly worse, another metaclop and stick test, plus specific gravity test on his urine. The gravity was good, very dilute (I was giving plenty of dilute cranberry), but he was getting worse. I feared a stone, I've seen similar eating/ pain issues due to that in the past.
Wednesday night he took a major turn for the worse, and pretty much stopped moving at all, even when prompted to get back in his box. He had been sitting hunched for a couple of days, and that became more pronounced too.
First thing Thursday morning I rushed him in for an x ray to be sure if there was or wasn't a stone. The x ray was taken around 12pm in the end, and the finding was very strange, and very very bad.
His bladder was fine, a little clouding showing the usual level of sludge, but no stones whatsoever. However, it did show unusual clouding apparently around his intestine. This is where things went from severe to what the hell. The vet could only know what was going on by performing surgery, which she was unsure would prove useful. As I said to her, he wasn't going to survive without surgery, and with surgery there was a chance we'd find out what the problem was and have a chance of treating it. Sadly, we did find out what the problem was, and we couldn't treat it. He had a sizeable tumour on his pancreas, and the vet knew it wasn't fair to wake him up :...
Now, the pancreas being so vital for digestion (never mind a large tumour fighting for room in there) would explain so much about his digestive issues over the last few days. The vet had never seen this problem in a guinea pig before, but as she admitted, vets have little chance to perform surgery as it seems too few people fight for their animals. He started with all the symptoms of a "routine" digestive upset, this developed into "classic" UTI/ stone symptoms, and all of these were down to the real, far more sinister, cause.
It's heartbraking as of all the piggies here, he was by far the most friendly and loving to other piggies (so long as they were girls!), and still bounced around like a baby even though he was approaching 4. I know this time we had no chance of saving him, so I don't feel I can shout at vets and myself, but that doesn't make it any easier to not have him here.
I've put this post up not as a memorial (I still don't have the words), not as a request for help (we're 34 hours too late for that), but as something that may hopefully be of use to others some time.
