HollysKingdom
Junior Guinea Pig
Good morning, this isn’t urgent, but I could do with some advice please.
Bandit has been getting treatment from our vet since the Friday after Christmas when she was doing red pees.They’ve checked a urine sample and there were no crystals or bacteria (this is a new level to me, I’d previously understood piggy bladder problems were infection or stones). She had cat metacam for a week, seemed fine, stopped for a week, more red pee. Consulted vet again, was advised to continue metacam for 10 to 14 days and get a supplement. She suggested Oxbow urinary support (except there’s supply issues) but not Cystease as it’s designed for cats, there’s no scientific research using it for guinea pigs and we don’t know the dosage (her words, not mine).
Anyway, we’re now on day 10 of 1kg cat-sized loxicom dose every 12 hours, and. day 4 of sliding from Science Selective Grain-free nuggets to Piggie Parcels joint and bladder support pellets. Bandit seemed fine again, enjoys taking metacam from a syringe and seems somehow calmer and more relaxed since eating the new pellets.
But, about 10pm yesterday she went to bed and sat there squeaking. I sat her on a white towel on my lap, and there was more red pee, her tummy was very sore, squeaking “don’t touch”.
This morning she is fine again, popcorns and zoomies to say good morning, eating, drinking, had her metacam dose, behaving normally. I’ve phoned the vet and they are giving me more metacam to use for another week before they will want to see her again.
I’m now wondering if starch/sugars in her diet are a cause. The issue started after they’d had a carrot cottage for Christmas (Minx’s carrot and nugget mine
) and yesterday’s pain was after they’d had green oat readigrass in the afternoon, I don’t know if these piggies have had that before, and they don’t normally get carrots.
So, questions…
Is it likely to be diet-related? Maybe she is sensitive to something that doesn’t affect the other two.
Should I ignore the vet and try Cystease anyway?
Will cranberries help, if I can get her to eat/drink them?
Apologies for the amount of text, needed to explain xx
Bandit has been getting treatment from our vet since the Friday after Christmas when she was doing red pees.They’ve checked a urine sample and there were no crystals or bacteria (this is a new level to me, I’d previously understood piggy bladder problems were infection or stones). She had cat metacam for a week, seemed fine, stopped for a week, more red pee. Consulted vet again, was advised to continue metacam for 10 to 14 days and get a supplement. She suggested Oxbow urinary support (except there’s supply issues) but not Cystease as it’s designed for cats, there’s no scientific research using it for guinea pigs and we don’t know the dosage (her words, not mine).
Anyway, we’re now on day 10 of 1kg cat-sized loxicom dose every 12 hours, and. day 4 of sliding from Science Selective Grain-free nuggets to Piggie Parcels joint and bladder support pellets. Bandit seemed fine again, enjoys taking metacam from a syringe and seems somehow calmer and more relaxed since eating the new pellets.
But, about 10pm yesterday she went to bed and sat there squeaking. I sat her on a white towel on my lap, and there was more red pee, her tummy was very sore, squeaking “don’t touch”.
This morning she is fine again, popcorns and zoomies to say good morning, eating, drinking, had her metacam dose, behaving normally. I’ve phoned the vet and they are giving me more metacam to use for another week before they will want to see her again.
I’m now wondering if starch/sugars in her diet are a cause. The issue started after they’d had a carrot cottage for Christmas (Minx’s carrot and nugget mine
) and yesterday’s pain was after they’d had green oat readigrass in the afternoon, I don’t know if these piggies have had that before, and they don’t normally get carrots.So, questions…
Is it likely to be diet-related? Maybe she is sensitive to something that doesn’t affect the other two.
Should I ignore the vet and try Cystease anyway?
Will cranberries help, if I can get her to eat/drink them?
Apologies for the amount of text, needed to explain xx
. And… the stones that were there on Thursday have vanished! She seems to have peed them out and lost them.
that’s reassuring. I’m in the process of switching to the piggy parcels joint support pellets (low calcium and high glucosamine, yay!). The vet doesn’t want me to use cystease. 
And then later this afternoon I found this…
because of the advice here. How much should she be having?
)
Just to say, not to feed cystease along side the pellets. 10g of the pellets already contain a high level of glucosamine, much more than you will find in one capsule of the cystease. So if you are feeding the pellets, don’t give another glucosamine supplement 
and as mentioned, it can take 6 weeks for the glucosamine to build up and start supporting the bladder wall. 