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Protein and blood in urine

Cittycat

Cittycat

Junior Guinea Pig
Joined
Dec 30, 2015
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Location
Plymouth, UK
Hi guys

I know there are some incredibly knowledgeable forum members around so wondered if you would be kind enough to give me your opinion on what might be going on with my guinea pig.

About three weeks ago I noticed one of my pigs had blood in her urine. She was also squeaking and looked uncomfortable while passing urine (other than this she seemed absolutely fine - eating normally, active, etc.). I took her to see a vet the next day, although couldn't see my normal exotic vet as I wanted an appointment as soon as possible. I was prescribed baytril and metacam, and treated her with those for about a week.

I didn't see any improvement at all regarding the blood or squeaking, but had a follow up appointment with my usual vet. He x-rayed her to check for bladder stones, but the x-ray came back clear so he changed her medication to sulfatrim and a higher strength/dose of metacam. He requested a urine sample and I booked a follow up appointment about 10 days after her new treatment started.

I had that appointment yesterday, while there's no visible sign of blood in her urine anymore the test on her sample revealed there was still a small quantity of blood in it. The squeaking has also decreased in intensity, but she does still squeal a little bit in discomfort when passing urine. Weirdly, the rest of the time she is a very perky, happy pig. The urine test also revealed a high level of protein in her wee.

My vet's decided to take her off the sulfatrim, but keep her on the metacam to keep her as comfortable as possible, and booked her in to have more scans and tests done. I've been told the problem could be an issue with her kidneys, a very stubborn infection, bladder stones that were missed on the original x-ray, possibly even a growth in her bladder. Does this sound right? Has anyone else experienced anything similar? The presence of protein through me quite a bit as I hadn't heard of that before in guinea pigs.

Thanks!
 
@Cittycat A small amount of blood in urine is normal if the vet had to press on the bladder to make them pee.

I had a pig with bladder issues who had high protein in his urine. To rule out kidney issues you need to have her blood tested.

My boy didn't have high protein in his blood, so it was determine that his kidneys were working fine and the excess protein was being excreted through his urine.
 
Jaycey said:
@Cittycat A small amount of blood in urine is normal if the vet had to press on the bladder to make them pee.

I had a pig with bladder issues who had high protein in his urine. To rule out kidney issues you need to have her blood tested.

My boy didn't have high protein in his blood, so it was determine that his kidneys were working fine and the excess protein was being excreted through his urine.
Click to expand...

Hi @Jaycey

Thanks so much for your reply and I hope your boy is doing well now! Just to clarify, I took the urine sample from home so it wasn't expressed by the vet.

I think/hope blood tests will be part of what's going to happen when she goes in - I get a bit of information overload sometimes when I'm at the vets, but I will definitely check if that's one of the things they're going to do, thanks for the advice.
 
@Cittycat In a weird way having blood in the urine that you took in might be a good thing. Hopefully it's "just" an UTI that can be cleared up with some more antibiotics. We used Sulfatrim for my boar.
 
@Jaycey I wonder if we should have persisted with the Sulfatrim for a bit longer... That was an option, but my vet lent towards getting her in for scans and tests rather than continue with the Sulfatrim. Hoping it does turn out to be a stubborn UTI though.
 
I’ve had a pig on Septrin (the child’s version of Sulfatrim) for 4 weeks before to clear a stubborn uti. High levels of protein in the urine rarely indicates a problem with the kidneys
 
Thanks @Claire W It's reassuring to hear the likelihood of it being kidney related is fairly low, but now I'm really wondering if we should have just kept going with the Sulfatrim for a bit longer!
 
Cittycat said:
Thanks @Claire W It's reassuring to hear the likelihood of it being kidney related is fairly low, but now I'm really wondering if we should have just kept going with the Sulfatrim for a bit longer!
Click to expand...

You could always ask your vet that that’s what you’d like to do :) Good luck and please keep us updated
 
Just wanted to give a quick update, as I'm pretty sure we've got to the root of the problem. The protein it seems was a bit of a red herring - when my guinea pig went for further x-rays a large stone was found stuck in her urethra! :( Happily the stone has now been removed and fingers crossed she'll soon be feeling lots better.

I'll definitely be reading up on bladder stones and changing her diet to one that's lower in calcium. The vet also doesn't think she drinks enough, but I'm not sure how you can encourage a guinea pig to drink more?

The other thing the vet said, which surprised me a lot, was to add Vitamin C to her water - I must have looked rather shocked because she clarified that I should use two water bottles, one with plain water, and one with water with Vitamin C added to it. I thought this was a big no no? If she does need extra Vitamin C however, beyond what she gets from her diet, are there any drops or tablets that are safe to use that aren't given by adding to water?
 
Oh wow, poor girlie, that must feel a whole lot better.
I’m linking you the diet guide which includes low calcium recommendations.

Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets

Most of the calcium comes from water, pellets and leafy greens.

If you follow the low calcium diet recommendations, switch to grain free nuggets and filter water then you are reducing as much calcium as possible from their diet.

Vit C is best not in water bottles. It degrades in sunlight and piggies can refuse to drink it. I feed Oxbow vit c tablets which my piggies are happy to eat.
 
@VickiA @Claire W

Thank you so much for your advice and support! I've been out today and bought a grain free pellet food and a new water filter jug. It turns out her diet wasn't especially high in calcium anyway, but I'll be extra careful about that too. Haven't managed to find the oxbow vitamin C tablets yet, but will keep looking as that sounds SO much better than mucky around with her water!

Thanks again!
 
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