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Peer support for interstitial cystitis piggies owner?

R

Rhinocerotidae

New Born Pup
Joined
Nov 27, 2021
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Location
Sweden
First of all, english is not my native language, so I'm sorry if there's lots of grammar errors in my text.

I have a 6 months old neutered boar, who has very severe ic. Symptoms are:

- Blood in urine
- Frequent peeing

I'm a exotic specialised vet tech myself so luckily I can easily do wide labs often to rule out bacteria and other reasons for his symptoms, so I know 100 % it's ic.

He's really happy boy, but like many abyssians, he's also little easily exited and little nervy too. He gets ic flares obviously when he's having any kind of excitement (it doesn't need to be "bad stress") and also most of the foods and excess calcium causes him flares.

At the moment he's having the worst flare so far and even too quality/rich timothy hay is bad for him, but of course he needs his hay. Although he can't have any veggies, so now it's only hay (which I struggle to find "not so rich") and little amount of spesific pellets (most of the pellets are bad for him too). As he can't eat any veggies (only cucumber is okay), he gets his vitamin C in his drinking water (and luckily he drinks MORE when there's vit C in his water), but as we know, supplement vitamin C is also really bad for ic patients, so I need to be really careful that he gets enough vitamin C but not that much it worsens his bladder's situation.

All the medicines (meloxicam, CBD, Cystease etc etc) don't make any difference.

This flare he has now has been active about 3 weeks and even though he is happy boy and eats well, it breaks my heart and worries me because of his bad hematuria. Soon I have to start iron supplement for him that he won't get anemia because of the chronic blood loss.

I don't really need any advices, because I know all the treatment methods and he gets the best care possible, but I could appriciate some peer support from other ic piggie owners, since this affects my mood every day. I love him (and his healthy companion) so much.
 
Hello. I’m so sorry your piggy has IC. I don’t have any experience of this but wanted to offer my support. You sound like you are doing an amazing job. It’s so stressful when piggies are ill. We do blame ourselves for not being able to make them better. A member with experience of this will be along soon to offer any help they can. Take care of yourself too. ❤️
 
Hello and welcome. My old lady abyssinian piggy (Holly) is an IC sufferer, too.
We have managed to get her condition under control most of the time but she did have a bad flare recently and I got very worried for her. It is now back under control again.

She lives on a diet of:

Unlimited hay

Grain free pellets

Filtered drinking water

Vegetables - limited to cucumber, peppers, green bean and coriander. We never vary them as when she gets anything else it can cause a flare. I also soak her veggies in filtered water to make sure that she gets sufficient liquid each day

She has daily cystease and loxicom.

Is there a reason why your piggy cannot have vegetables? We have found that the above combination of veggies gives sufficient vitamin c without needing to supplement.
 
Thank you all for your support. I really appreciate it.

At the moment he can't have any veggies, because everything seems to worsen the symptoms or cause a flare (expect cucumber).

Herbs, broccoli, green beans and leafy greens like romaine salad = too much calcium or "too rich" -> worsens symptoms even with small amounts
Bell peppers even with really small amount = caused him severe bloody diarrhea (=probably allergic reaction)
etc etc, so at the moment there's only "bad choices" left to try (apple, banana etc) and those are the choices I don't even want to try, because they are too high in sugar and not really good choice for guinea pigs anyway.

Even with cucumber I have to be really careful, because although he can eat cucumber, he gets too excited when he knows cucumber is coming on his way and all the excitement can worsen the symptoms.

He is a runt/runtish boy, very small and when I got him (as a pup) he was really, really skinny. Even the vet who neutered him said that he is "something made on Monday". I don't know if that is a phrase in english, but it means that he is a little... "special boy".

Yesterday evening he was little better (not that much blood in urine, only visible on Multistix), but today = visible blood again. My next step is to find less rich hay (I don't have much stores left to seek though) and maybe do a control ultrasound, although that can also stress him and I'm quite sure all we can see is thickened bladder wall. Last ultrasound was 1,5 months ago and nothing was found then (no stones or anything else).
 
About the pellets: he was in excellent condition for awhile when I removed every other pellet brand and he was fed only Versele-Laga Complete Cavia pellets, hay and cucumber. But -God knows why- all the sudden over three weeks ago he all the sudden had a flare again and it just keeps on going. And as I wrote earlier, he is only 6 months old so this is really concerning. But I'm happy he has gain mass and weight after he arrived in to my home so I must do something right.
 
I hope your guinea pigs flare will come to an end soon. I have IC myself, and very little can help me sometimes so I really feel for piggies!
 
I am so sorry that your piggy has IC. I’ve had two past piggies who had it. Their condition was managed with Metacam and a cystease tablet daily increasing the metacam dosage when they were having a flare.

Their diet consisted on cucumber, peppers, green beans coriander and little gem letttuce. Unlimited hay and filtered drinking water

I’m sorry that yours is so bad she can’t have any veggies. Your English is excellent by the way
 
Hi and welcome

Flares do unfortunately happen. The more you reduce your diet, the stronger a piggy can react. :(

Try and see whether doubling the amount of glucosamine (cystease) for a few days will bring symptoms back under control; it usually does the trick for my Breila who has medium strength IC. If that doesn't work you and your vet may want to look at cartrofen. I have a low maintenance glucosamine and metacam dosage (as low as I can go between flares without triggering acute symptoms), which I can then step up more whenever needed. This means that I can get a flare under control more quickly. It is more the glucosamine than the metacam that is key in managing the flares.

In our forum experience, it is less the veg and fresh herbs that you feed than any changes to the diet that can trigger a flare. We recommend to remove any root veg, fruit and grain products from the diet but keep to a green and leafy diet and in summer re-introduce fresh grass very slowly again in order to prevent a flare up.
Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets (see chapter special diets)
 
Liz47 said:
I hope your guinea pigs flare will come to an end soon. I have IC myself, and very little can help me sometimes so I really feel for piggies!
Click to expand...
Thank you for your support. If you don't mind me asking, what usually triggers your flares? Are you painful during flares or is it similar feeling than people might have when they are suffering from UTI?

---

His history has proven that unfortunately more variety in diet = more severe symptoms, and most veggies are the worst. I've never met a piggie who reacts so bad to bell peppers even with teeny weeny amount. So he really is special, probably something went wrong during his development during womb time.

His best period was when he got only timothy hay (specific brand), Versele-Laga Complete Cavia pellets and water (with vitamin C). But yet again, he is only 6 months old so we don't have a long history to look on, so it's impossible to say where this goes.

Today I woke up little later than usual and there was lots of blood in his urine and he was peeing really frequently. When I cleaned his "cage" (well, it's actually almost a whole room), he was even more anxious than usual, running and wheeking happily, so I was wondering if this morning's bad situation is related to me waking up later (= stress for him because routine changed a little). During my career on veterinary medicine field I've seen IC lots in cats (Feline idiopathic cystitis FIC) and oh boy, they get flares sometimes when a bird flies in front of the window.

I just booked appointment to our exotic vet to the next week, we'll do a control ultrasound and xray just to be sure he hasn't developed stones on top of everything else. Last urine culture just came back negative, so still luckily no bacterial infection.

Thank you again for all of your support.
 
For me I have pain almost 24/7 and am on daily pain killer which helps, feels like the start of a UTI (frequency, pressure, burning) but with a flare I get increased bladder awareness and soreness in general with increased burning on going to the toilet. For me instillations of a GAG layer replacement help, so I'd say cystease/similar supplements ought to help. I get flares from cold weather, eating acidic food, alcohol, caffeine so mostly diet.
 
I also have IC piggies here. Kept under control with certain veggies and cystease. One of my girls who gets IC quite bad is on metacam, cystease, septrin and potassium citrate. This seems to help quite a lot x
 
Also I've found that dandelion leafs can sometimes help with flare ups aswell x
 
Quick hello...I had a sow with many bladder issues which was finally treated as IC after a year. And my absynnian Sugar is new to this. She's had two flares and we're watching her closely, as she may have a bladder growth/polyp/tumor.

Great advice on here!
 
I changed the location of the cage and good news: after long severe IC period he is now much better (at least for now). Last week I also started Cartrophen injections for him to support bladder recovery (he was already better before this, so I think the cage thing clearly had an effect). His diet also seems to be in balance now.

I hope this good situation continues!
 
Glad to hear he’s doing better!

We also have an IC pig, Luna, who has gone through a lot of different vets before we found a combination that worked on reducing her symptoms (Cat & Rabbit truly are as excellent as everyone says!). We’ve been giving her daily cystease, metacam and a diuretic.

One thing that Kim recommended that has really made a difference is covering up at least one water bottle with a blanket so they feel safer drinking. I was surprised to see how much this helps, considering how confident Luna is, I assumed she wouldn’t have a problem with drinking out in the open but I refill that bottle twice as much as I was before and her symptoms are always much better with it covered.
 
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