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Signs of heart problems in piggys.

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Joey&Gizmo

Joey&Gizmo

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Ive just been reading about health issues that guinea pigs can get just so i can brush up my knowledge and look out for symptoms.
I was just wondering what are the signs of a heart problem in guinea pigs and wanted to know if anyone had a pig that has heart problems. Just because I'm curious to know.rolleyes
 
Wiebke said:
http://www.guinealynx.info/heart.html
http://www.oginet.com/pgurney/heartproblems.htm

If you are interested in reading up, I recommend that you earmark guinealynx and Peter Gurney's pages (which are a bit older, but still valuable). They are the two best piggy health websites around!
Click to expand...

Thank you for the useful sites.

Now I'm starting to become paranoid that one of my pigs may have a heart problem as he has different breathing than my other pig but his chest sounds fine and his breathing rate is normal. He doesn't have any signs of a uri but sometimes has noisy breathing, but he does have a shorter snout than my other pig which i thought may be the cause? He does breath heavy than my other pig but is active and sleep soundly like the my other pig. I hope its just me being to paranoid.:{

What does laboured breathing mean? I mean how does it look or sound?

I would be interested in a members story if anyone has a pig with heart problems.
 
My piggie, Skye, became very lethargic and had laboured breathing just over a year ago. The first thought was that it was a URI, but after examination with a stethoscope my vet found her to have a heart murmur, plus a very irregular heartbeat. She was immediately prescribed Fortekor 2.5 mg tablets (benazepril), at a dose of 1/4 of a tablet once a day. The improvement was almost immediate and she has been taking the tablets ever since.

A few months ago Skye's sister Poppet started to demonstrate the same symptoms. Her ears, that are normally pink, had become rather a muddy looking colour too. However, on examination her heart sounded fine. It was decided to try her on the tablets too, and again the improvement was literally overnight. She too will take the tablets for the rest of her life and has returned to the lively piggie she was before.

In both these cases the piggies had similar symptoms, but only one piggie had a noticeable heart defect.
 
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Heart problems are possibly the most common cause of death in pigs.

Take a look at the "I think I know what's up with Ralphie" thread, it will save a lot of duplicate typing!
 
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I just found out that my 6+ year old girl has a small heart murmur too! i took her to the vet today, and the vet was checking her chest and said... oh she has a heart murmur.
omg! i almost died lol. i had no idea, and yet i have owned her for more than 6 years. she never complained once!
the vet checked her all over, and luckily she has normal coloured skin, nice and pink, but come to think of it, i have noticed that occasionally she breathes oddly... the murmur explains that then.
 
I've not had any pigs diagnosed with heart problems, but I do believe one of my past pigs did have something going on. Her symptoms included:

- Two bouts of severe respiratory infection/pneumonia (18 months apart);
- Blue-ish tinge to her pink nose and mouth;
- Increasingly fatigued behaviour;
- Malocclusion problems.

Despite presenting the vets with fairly convincing information in regard to heart problems and Tuppy's symptoms, they said her heart "sounded fine" so it was very unlikely that anything was wrong with it and it was too difficult to examine a guinea's heart deeply enough to diagnose anything as their hearts beat so fast. Tuppy died a couple of days into her second bout of pneumonia, in January this year. I remain totally sure she had heart trouble.

Heart problems are treatable if caught early. The usual medication is Fortekor (benazepril) or Enacard (enalapril), but for pigs with frequent build ups of fluid in the lungs Lasix (frusemide) has also been given routinely.
 
So they have to show signs of a constant uri such as runny eyes/nose and tend to have a blueish tinge to there mouth. My pig went to the vets last year and said his heart sounded good.

I shall read 'i think i know whats up with ralphie' thread, thanks.
 
They don't necessarily have to show obvious signs. The "URIs" may not be constant but they may develop frequently and without obvious cause. There are subtle symptoms too - someone mentioned tiny jolts of the body, which could very easily be overlooked or attributed to something else.

It's just a case of listing all the symptoms and keeping a detailed medical history so you can look at all the signs in as constructive a way as possible.
 
Thank you Laura. My piggys haven't had any URI's since ive has them,so maybe its me reading up too much on illness and then thinking he may have one.

He did have snuffly breathing but i put that down to the carefresh as when i switched back to megazorb he was fine and never sneezes etc. He also has a short snout so i thought maybe this could cause a problem. But i will keep records on him.
 
Renin is a hormone produced by the kidneys, this hormone regulates blood pressure. When the kidneys fail, this is when kidneys function drops below 75%, renin is no longer produced, or not as much as the body requires, this causes irregular heart beats and heart problems.
 
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