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Swollen testicles & not pooing

Little Ones

Little Ones

Adult Guinea Pig
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Another day, another piggy issue for us at the minute.
So noticed yesterday BB wasn’t as active, same again today but was very clearly off his hay as the day went on. Weighed him and he’s lost 116 grams since last week. We’ve started syringe feeding him about an hour ago, he only accepted about 17ml. We haven’t seen a poo from him all day (his cage mate is 4months old, BB is 14 months so big difference in poo size), unsure if they’ve not been happening or if he’s been eating them all. I’m trying to see if I can organise a lift to get to an exotic vet on an emergency appointment.
We’ve also noticed that his testicles look swollen. When I’m trying to sort of press open his anus to look for any poops or smegma, it won’t open because of the swollen-ness and squishiness of his testicles, so I’m just pushing those around rather than getting any grip on the anus:
E5A7A479-66C4-443D-A9DB-5482D07059A3.jpeg
Do they look swollen to anyone else? Any idea what it could be?
I’m also trying to figure out if I can get to an exotic vet, how ‘good’ they need to be. If he has GI stasis, then I’m guessing some emeprid will do the job? Whereas if we’re looking at another issue, for if the testicles are swollen, then I want to see if I can find a good place. If that makes sense?
 
This has just come out of him!
0BD8F4AC-EDEC-49EF-901D-8812B0F31738.webp
Does this mean we have just narrowly avoided GI stasis? Is this still classed as an out of hours emergency?
 
This is what my boy looked like when I first noticed his impaction. Can you give him a warm bun bath and gently rub around the outside of the anal sack, and see if anything moves/comes out? My Gibson only seemed to poop about once in a day, small and dry ones, but that’s because it was all getting stuck in the sack..
 
Not impaction unfortunately, I have an old piggy with impaction-like problems so it was the first thing I checked for. There’s no poos at all!
Anyway, we just got done at a local emergency vet and they said he had no gut sounds. He’s had an emeprid injection and we will be taking some emeprid home with us! We will reassess what caused the GI stasis in a day or two when his guts become a bit more normal.
 
Little Ones said:
Another day, another piggy issue for us at the minute.
So noticed yesterday BB wasn’t as active, same again today but was very clearly off his hay as the day went on. Weighed him and he’s lost 116 grams since last week. We’ve started syringe feeding him about an hour ago, he only accepted about 17ml. We haven’t seen a poo from him all day (his cage mate is 4months old, BB is 14 months so big difference in poo size), unsure if they’ve not been happening or if he’s been eating them all. I’m trying to see if I can organise a lift to get to an exotic vet on an emergency appointment.
We’ve also noticed that his testicles look swollen. When I’m trying to sort of press open his anus to look for any poops or smegma, it won’t open because of the swollen-ness and squishiness of his testicles, so I’m just pushing those around rather than getting any grip on the anus:
View attachment 167701
Do they look swollen to anyone else? Any idea what it could be?
I’m also trying to figure out if I can get to an exotic vet, how ‘good’ they need to be. If he has GI stasis, then I’m guessing some emeprid will do the job? Whereas if we’re looking at another issue, for if the testicles are swollen, then I want to see if I can find a good place. If that makes sense?
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The testicles look perfectly normal to me but please see a vet of you are worried because we cannot check them for you and we definitely don't have a comparison basis as to what is your boy's normal. Problems in testicles typically only affect one of them. it is not uncommon to notice all kinds of things when you are worried and have a closer look than usual.

GI stasis varies quite a lot in extent (from partial to total) and in severity, depending on what has been causing it. But if you are seeing poos, then it means that the gut has kick-started again. You should also hear the gut gluggling again. However, any piggy that is not well and off their food should be seen and checked promptly by a vet and should be supported by you in terms of feeding support care.

It would be very helpful if you could keep all threads on the same piggy and the same ongoing case together - for your piggy's sake. The more people see and comment only on aspects of it, the less good any advice will be because they lack the overall perspective.
 
Wiebke said:
The testicles look perfectly normal to me but please see a vet of you are worried because we cannot check them for you and we definitely don't have a comparison basis as to what is your boy's normal. Problems in testicles typically only affect one of them. it is not uncommon to notice all kinds of things when you are worried and have a closer look than usual.

GI stasis varies quite a lot in extent (from partial to total) and in severity, depending on what has been causing it. But if you are seeing poos, then it means that the gut has kick-started again. You should also hear the gut gluggling again. However, any piggy that is not well and off their food should be seen and checked promptly by a vet and should be supported by you in terms of feeding support care.

It would be very helpful if you could keep all threads on the same piggy and the same ongoing case together - for your piggy's sake. The more people see and comment only on aspects of it, the less good any advice will be because they lack the overall perspective.
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Hi, thank you for the advice. Also this is BB’s only thread.
I agree, I might’ve been seeing things that aren’t there in a panic!
BB has since seen a vet about an hour ago. There was little to no gut sounds. He has had an emeprid injection and has been prescribed emeprid too. Hopefully his guts start going again soon. Then maybe we can figure out the primary cause of the stasis. Fingers crossed it’s not a dental issue that has triggered this. Having a third dental piggy in the space of a year and a half would just be bad luck!
 
Little Ones said:
Hi, thank you for the advice. Also this is BB’s only thread.
I agree, I might’ve been seeing things that aren’t there in a panic!
BB has since seen a vet about an hour ago. There was little to no gut sounds. He has had an emeprid injection and has been prescribed emeprid too. Hopefully his guts start going again soon. Then maybe we can figure out the primary cause of the stasis. Fingers crossed it’s not a dental issue that has triggered this. Having a third dental piggy in the space of a year and a half would just be bad luck!
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Please keep syringe feeding BB round the clock until his gut is working again and then adjusted to the degree he is eating by himself again. That is crucial. Here is our GI stasis Care guide: Digestive Disorders: Diarrhea - Bloat - GI Stasis (No Gut Movement) And Not Eating

My Beryn likely suffered a short or partial GI stasis as the result of a temporary event last month (blood clot in the spine?)
She went from being suddenly very lethargic and having very little gut movement to being bloated by the time I got her seen soonest by my local vet squeezing her kindly in and then she had a temporary back leg paralysis on the following day with one leg regaining movement more quickly than the other. Things took several days to normalise, during which she needed extra support feed. Anyway, she has thankfully made a full recovery again.

Sometimes you end up with several cases of a certain issue in a row, even if they are purely coincidental; I had three salivating piggies in 6 weeks in 2017 - one had to be pts becauase of a blockage in the gut; 2 days later one of his wives developed a large swelling at the back of the throat (not visible from the outside), which was the end of her and the third seemed have lost the ability to swallow. It inevitably makes you rather jittery. Please be aware that you may never quite get to the bottom of what is going on but for your own sake I hope that it is one of the more straight forward cases.
 
Wiebke said:
Please keep syringe feeding BB round the clock until his gut is working again and then adjusted to the degree he is eating by himself again. That is crucial. Here is our GI stasis Care guide: Digestive Disorders: Diarrhea - Bloat - GI Stasis (No Gut Movement) And Not Eating

My Beryn likely suffered a short or partial GI stasis as the result of a temporary event last month (blood clot in the spine?)
She went from being suddenly very lethargic and having very little gut movement to being bloated by the time I got her seen soonest by my local vet squeezing her kindly in and then she had a temporary back leg paralysis on the following day with one leg regaining movement more quickly than the other. Things took several days to normalise, during which she needed extra support feed. Anyway, she has thankfully made a full recovery again.

Sometimes you end up with several cases of a certain issue in a row, even if they are purely coincidental; I had three salivating piggies in 6 weeks in 2017 - one had to be pts becauase of a blockage in the gut; 2 days later one of his wives developed a large swelling at the back of the throat (not visible from the outside), which was the end of her and the third seemed have lost the ability to swallow. It inevitably makes you rather jittery. Please be aware that you may never quite get to the bottom of what is going on but for your own sake I hope that it is one of the more straight forward cases.
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We will definitely be syringe feeding, I think little and often is the way to go with him. He isn’t fond of having a lot at once. We just managed to get 11ml in him, so not a great deal but it’s something. He’s a very timid piggy, hadn’t had a great start in life and hadn’t ever been handled until we adopted him in November so I dont want to push him by forcing him too much. One thing we know he will eat too is readigrass, he doesn’t want his hay at all though. But then today, he hasn’t felt up to eating much anyway.
I’m glad to hear Beryn made a full recovery, that sounds like it was quite a frightening experience for both of you! Even with all your experience, I bet you were very panicked.
I’m very sorry to hear about the 3 piggies that passed, it’s heartbreaking. I can’t even imagine how it felt to lose them all so close together, all presenting with the same symptom. I think I would’ve driven myself mad with worry. With piggies, everything seems to come at once. I often worry the vet we use will think I’m a bad owner because we seem to be there every two weeks or so at the minute, but everything really does seem to happen in close successions to one other.
 
Little Ones said:
We will definitely be syringe feeding, I think little and often is the way to go with him. He isn’t fond of having a lot at once. We just managed to get 11ml in him, so not a great deal but it’s something. He’s a very timid piggy, hadn’t had a great start in life and hadn’t ever been handled until we adopted him in November so I dont want to push him by forcing him too much. One thing we know he will eat too is readigrass, he doesn’t want his hay at all though. But then today, he hasn’t felt up to eating much anyway.
I’m glad to hear Beryn made a full recovery, that sounds like it was quite a frightening experience for both of you! Even with all your experience, I bet you were very panicked.
I’m very sorry to hear about the 3 piggies that passed, it’s heartbreaking. I can’t even imagine how it felt to lose them all so close together, all presenting with the same symptom. I think I would’ve driven myself mad with worry. With piggies, everything seems to come at once. I often worry the vet we use will think I’m a bad owner because we seem to be there every two weeks or so at the minute, but everything really does seem to happen in close successions to one other.
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No, I wasn't actually panicked because my Pili Pala had a much worse GI and I have been through a couple of temporary back leg paralyses before (again, different causes) so I knew that hanging in there and dealing with it as it happened was the best way forward.

Losing three in a row that presented with the same symptom was tough and worrying but the following year things became even more memorable when I lost three of mine within just two weeks and my hub needed a blue light ambulance for a suspected heart attack right in the middle of it all and we ended up mostly stuck at home for the rest of the year in a kind of dry run for the pandemic... :(

Just concentrate on your side of the care; the rest is beyond your control and you have to tackle it as it happens. In most cases, a piggy bounces back from a GI pretty quickly and none the worse for wear.
10 ml in one session is very respectable under the circumstances. I am usually happy to get 5 ml or hopefully a little more in one go into a piggy that is really off their food in a crisis when every single ml is a fight against lethargy and them not feeling like food at all.

You may find the piggy whispering tricks helpful especially with piggies that are nervous. As soon as they realise that you are actually helping them to get better again, you will make huge strides forward.
Understanding Prey Animal Instincts, Guinea Pig Whispering And Cuddling Tips

All the best!
 
Sorry to read BB’s been worrying you, you definitely aren’t getting much of a rest with your boys atm! Hope he’s had a good day and you’re not too stressed :hug:xx
 
Bill & Ted said:
Hope BB is alright, is he pooping yet?
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He did two poos 40 minutes ago! They were pretty formed, smaller and thinner than usual but still formed.
We’ve been keeping him syringe fed, he’s been having some grass too which he really enjoyed. We noticed when he was eating, every now and then he would sort of make a noise and lurch forward. We aren’t sure what this means, we’ve noticed his eyes are perhaps a bit crusty but he’s been cleaning his face a lot more frequently so not sure if that’s why, like it’s just dried cleaning fluid?
We’re going to take him to an exotic vet either later on today or tomorrow. Maybe he has a URI? Not sure though as he hasn’t had any sneezing or noisy breathing.
We also have an appointment booked with Simon for Monday as a precaution in case we haven’t been able to sort him out by then.
 
alpacasqueak said:
Sorry to read BB’s been worrying you, you definitely aren’t getting much of a rest with your boys atm! Hope he’s had a good day and you’re not too stressed :hug:xx
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Thank you, now he’s done some poos I can relax a bit! I was worrying about how I’d know the emeprid was working so I’m relieved to see evidence of the guts moving again xx
 
Aw sounds like you are good on the vet appts for all options. Hope things start making their way through. Don’t know what the lurching is? Is it only when he is eating, has he got anything stuck in the back of his mouth?
 
Bill & Ted said:
Aw sounds like you are good on the vet appts for all options. Hope things start making their way through. Don’t know what the lurching is? Is it only when he is eating, has he got anything stuck in the back of his mouth?
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No, we noticed it when he was eating the grass we picked. The noise he made with it was only faint so I couldn’t hear it enough to place the noise and what it could mean. My wonder was that maybe it’s like him trying to get breath? So if he has a uri, then it’ll be harder to breathe which is what puts them off eating so maybe it was him getting some breath between eating his grass? I’m really not sure.
I haven’t seen him do it any other time, but he’s spending all his time in his hidey not really moving much.
I checked his mouth earlier before we noticed the lurching and before he ate grass, everything inside looked normal. Maybe looked a bit more salivary than it does in Little’s mouth for example but I wasn’t sure if it was normal. But also if BB didn’t have any food stored in the back of his mouth, I think this in itself can cause excess saliva. I could be wrong though.
 
Little Ones said:
Thank you, now he’s done some poos I can relax a bit! I was worrying about how I’d know the emeprid was working so I’m relieved to see evidence of the guts moving again xx
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So glad he’s passing a few poos, hopefully it’ll keep doing it’s job and he’ll pass lots more for his brilliant mum! ❤ Hope you both have a good night and he doesn’t struggle with his eating by himself. I know what you mean by the lurching, I’ve seen it a few times with the poorly chins (with teeth probs) and pigs, know URIs can cause them to have trouble eating and breathing at the same time. Hope the vets can give you some more answers. Massive hugs from us lot xx
 
Oh my, you really are having a time of it at the moment. But it sounds like things are moving in the right direction with BB’s guts.
 
yes, I think his bum looks very normal to me too. Can’t offer any suggestions health wise but they do say breathing is number one before eating so it may be a reason why he may not have eaten enough to effect BB’s tummy
Fingers crossed it all get moving very soon x
 
So we’ve been to the vets, we were there a while.
We told the vet about the GI stasis and what had been happening. The vet was very concerned as BB’s heart was slightly slower than usual. The vet did a conscious X-ray. BB is a little bloated in the intestines. His stomach is very compacted but not with gas - so I imagine with the food we’ve been giving him? His stomach lining was very dehydrated. He checked his back teeth and could see no obvious spikes.
BB has been give fluids. We’ve also been advised to stop the emeprid as the guts are moving now and he’s doing some poos. He said if we continued the emeprid then it would make the intestinal gas very painful, but the gas overalll wasn’t worrying. He was going to give BB some opioid painkiller but I asked not to due to a bad experience in the past with another guinea pig. We have been told to give metacam and also tramadol if we have any which we do have a small amount.
There was no obvious cause to what has started the GI stasis. As BB is happy to eat grass, we were told that if he stops eating grass then we need to bring him back urgently so that a proper X-ray can be done on his heart.
So the news overall isn’t great. Nothing immediately wrong that we can fix but also something had to cause the GI stasis and we could be looking at a heart issue.
 
Little Ones said:
So we’ve been to the vets, we were there a while.
We told the vet about the GI stasis and what had been happening. The vet was very concerned as BB’s heart was slightly slower than usual. The vet did a conscious X-ray. BB is a little bloated in the intestines. His stomach is very compacted but not with gas - so I imagine with the food we’ve been giving him? His stomach lining was very dehydrated. He checked his back teeth and could see no obvious spikes.
BB has been give fluids. We’ve also been advised to stop the emeprid as the guts are moving now and he’s doing some poos. He said if we continued the emeprid then it would make the intestinal gas very painful, but the gas overalll wasn’t worrying. He was going to give BB some opioid painkiller but I asked not to due to a bad experience in the past with another guinea pig. We have been told to give metacam and also tramadol if we have any which we do have a small amount.
There was no obvious cause to what has started the GI stasis. As BB is happy to eat grass, we were told that if he stops eating grass then we need to bring him back urgently so that a proper X-ray can be done on his heart.
So the news overall isn’t great. Nothing immediately wrong that we can fix but also something had to cause the GI stasis and we could be looking at a heart issue.
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Oh gosh, sorry for the awful time you are having, hope BB gets back eating normally now he is over the worst and there’s no further issues x
 
Wow - it never rains but it pours 😟 I'm so sorry for you all - but you were sharp to spot this when Little has needed so much attention. They do hide things so well and this has come out of the blue! Keep on truckin' and I hope things turn a corner for you 💕
 
No idea what to do. Something just happened, it’s hard to explain. Like his body started heaving rapidly for about 10 seconds and then stopped. He was eating his grass and then this happened and now he doesn’t want to eat. I don’t know what just happened and I don’t know what to do
 
Little Ones said:
No idea what to do. Something just happened, it’s hard to explain. Like his body started heaving rapidly for about 10 seconds and then stopped. He was eating his grass and then this happened and now he doesn’t want to eat. I don’t know what just happened and I don’t know what to do
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Do you think it’s something getting a bit stuck going down? So sorry it must be such a worry, hope he’s ok x
 
Bill & Ted said:
Do you think it’s something getting a bit stuck going down? So sorry it must be such a worry, hope he’s ok x
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It could be, I don’t know. Would the X-ray not have picked that up? I really have no idea. Maybe we should try and get an emergency appointment with Simon or Kim tomorrow :(
 
We are going to see Simon at 4:20.
BB has been okay, I was giving him grass through the night but he wasn’t overly bothered. He’s doing a bit better today, walking about a bit more and eating readigrass and grass here and there. Still no hay though.
The vet yesterday said he thought it was an abscess that may not have come up yet, a heart problem or it could be his teeth. It’s unfortunate that it’s nothing as simple as a URI like I was hoping. But who knows, maybe Simon will find something more treatable that the other vet missed.
 
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