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Swollen Paw

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Sue_P

Sue_P

Teenage Guinea Pig
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My 5 ½ year old boar has developed a swollen front foot pad. For the last week I’ve been using antiseptic wash on his foot, drying it, and then applying Bepanthen (nappy rash cream) daily, although I sort of believe this is a pointless exercise as there is no visible open wound to the skin, it’s just swollen. It’s been like that for about a couple of months.


He’s showing no distress, is active and walks on it fine. If necessary I could try Baytril but if there’s no clear evidence that that will shift it then I’d prefer not to as I know my rodent detests being force-fed it and I always have a highly difficult fight on in getting it into his mouth.


Has anyone had a rodent with a similar swollen foot? Do you think he can live out his days with it as it is, or in other peoples’ experience would it become more swollen and become worse with time?


As I say, he’s old, he’s had various health problems in his life. It could be down to poor circulation, his brother had poor circulation. He also took a turn for the worse a few months ago and was unable to get up and was in pain. I thought I’d have to put him to sleep and dug him a grave in preparation but he made a miraculous recovery a couple of days later after I gave him some old pain relief medication. I think he’d strained himself and like pulled a muscle in his back but there’s a possibility he’d had a heart attack. I personally think he’d just strained himself badly as he used to fall over whilst grooming and roll over at times. He's not as flexible as he used to be.


Another possible cause of the swelling could be due to bearing his weight unevenly whilst stood. As you can see from this pic, one of his back hips looks out of place. It’s looked like this for a year or more but he uses all his legs fine and can run.





From the top pictures would you say it’s definitely bumblefoot? There’s no sore. It's a slightly crusty but his other healthy front paw is a bit crusty too. The healthy one has a spur on. & the swollen foot may have had a spur on it the past (I can't quite remember). I had wondered if an infection got in whilst trimming down a spur once.

Apart from the usual advice of taking him to see a vet for their thoughts - has anyone any experience on this sort of thing to share please?
 
Ok so I see his nails curled back... It looks like they are touching his foot pads so give his nails a trim. It is very painful for a guinea pig to walk on curled back nails heres a link to how to trim his nails...
http://www.guinealynx.info/nails.html

Hope This Helped :) Ask me for any questions
 
Hi again Sue. My first thought would be Bumblefoot as you mention circulation issues and one of the main causes of Bumblefoot can be a heart issue. You're right that it is doesn't look like I would expect though.

However, we can't rule out infection or some other reason for the swelling. I would get him checked by a vet and would ask about:

- Anti-inflammatory pain relief to help the swelling and also his hip
- Investigation of potential heart issues - preferably an xray to see if there is any fluid around the heart, though occasionally heart problems can be picked up on the stethoscope if the vet knows what to listen for (they don't always)
- Possible antibiotics and probiotics if the vet does think it is infected
 
@ Gizi – Yeah thanks. I too realised his front claws have grown longer than they should be and I trimmed them after I took these photos. I usually trim claws once a month but I have always erred on the side of caution and have gone for taking not too much off, rather than cutting back too much and making my rodents squeal. Sometimes I get the odd squeal, no blood yet although I made my rabbit bleed once years ago, hence why since then I’ve trimmed back less. I don’t like Fudge’s front claws as the quicks aren’t visible. His back claws are easy to do. But I admit, his front claws need to go back a bit further, they’ve become too long and from now on at claw cutting time I’ll be taking off more than I used to.


@ Helen – If I can squeeze his swollen foot and he doesn’t appear to be in pain then I’d presume he’d not need pain relief at the moment.


It’s interesting what you say about checking for a heart condition though. Thanks.
 
Hi Sue, I agree with Helen, it looks like bumblefoot to me.

We've had two piggies with bumblefoot and although they didn't always seem to mind being touched they preferred not to move around - I'm pretty sure it must have been uncomfortable for them.

We used Baytril and Veroflox for treatment. Baytril worked really well in one case and the bumblefoot receded within about a month. For the other piggy, we switched to Veroflox because Baytril didn't have the desired effect. They were also on an anti-inflammatory.
 
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