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Weird sounds and noises

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Bia

Bia

Junior Guinea Pig
Joined
May 17, 2011
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48
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11
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145
Location
Nowhere Land aka Romania
Hello again,
don't know if I should have started a new thread, but I'm kinda freaking out right now. Here's Trica's new problem:

1. She's eating fine, popcorning, acting happy, pooping normally

2. She sneezes occasionally but I don't worry about that

3. Sometimes she makes a choking noise, just once at a time. It can happen when she eats, after grooming, while she's enjoying her floor time, but it doesn't seem to be bothering her. She makes the sound and then picks up where she left off.

4. Trica sometimes hiccups

5. I have listened to her chest every other day and there was nothing distinctive until today. She made the choking noise, coughed I guess and then I heard something weird....I can't describe it exactly....it's a mixture of moan and heavy breathing. I picked her up, listened to her lungs and I could hear a 'breathing in a paper bag-breathing with your nose in a t-shirt' kinda sound. Rushed her to the vet, she kept on moaning every now and then while in the car. The vet listened to her lungs, said there was something going on, but decided to allow me to keep her under observation until later this afternoon.

While back in the car she coughed again, I picked her up and the lung sound was gone.

I have just arrived home and she started moaning again. I don't know it moaning is the exact word, I am trying to be as precise as I can. Try to imagine she sound guinea pigs make while being held - not purring- but coming from her nose, or better said the kinda sound us humans make when we drink water and it goes in on the wrong side. She ate something and then stretched and went to sleep. She moaned a couple of times again. I let her be but when I listened to her lungs again, the sound was back.

6. She has been on a course of antibiotics two weeks ago for her ear, she isn't in a drafty place, I haven't given her a bath, I haven't placed her in the air conditioning area, I haven't placed bottles of cold water in her cage in order for her to cool off. It's almost close to impossible for her to have caught a cold.


As I have mentioned before, she isn't in any distress...she's having a snack as I am writing.....The vet I have taken her to is a normal vet, not an exotic animal specialist. There aren't any available anyway.

Any advice or suggestion other than taking her to the vet would be very helpful. Or maybe one of you has come across this scenario. I really don't know what to do.

Thank you and sorry for an extremely long post,
 
my piggies 'choke' when they eat too quickly... greedy pigs...

I had a piggie who would get the hiccups (also from eating too quickly) regularly. The first time I saw that, I thought he was having a heart attack and I just sooooooo totally freaked out! I scooped him up and hugged him and cried 'no, no, no, no' to the ppoint my OH thought something had actually happened. I scared the poor mite with my OTT-ness so bad the hiccups stopped!

Hope this is reassuring
 
Thanks,
but it's not the hiccups or choking that worries me, it's the moaning and heavy breathing.....
 
Glynis said:
Bia without freaking you out.............
http://www.guinealynx.info/heart.html
Click to expand...

Ok:0 you DID freak me out (I was already)....I am willing to take everything into consideration, though it doesn't seem like a heart condition. As I said, she eats, drinks, plays, runs, stretches, purrs.

But then again, can a heart condition show no signs and 'pop out' all of a sudden?:(

I am taking her to the vet again later today....but it's a normal vetenerian and I can't find a specialist - it's impossible in Romania-.....
 
oh no please............... :red
I was just trying to help you by seeing if it was this sound? it's just that it's best to find out now and give your Trica the best chance xoxo

OMG i'm sorry i just wanted to help xx>>>

I'm not a vet, just a concerned piggie parent wanting to help x
 
Bia said:
Ok:0 you DID freak me out (I was already)....I am willing to take everything into consideration, though it doesn't seem like a heart condition. As I said, she eats, drinks, plays, runs, stretches, purrs.

But then again, can a heart condition show no signs and 'pop out' all of a sudden?:(

I am taking her to the vet again later today....but it's a normal vetenerian and I can't find a specialist - it's impossible in Romania-.....
Click to expand...

Maybe by doing as much research as you can, you can help your vets :)

HUGS for you and little Trica xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
 
Thank you once again....
You do know that mommies and daddies tend to worry about every single possibility, and since Trica is my cub and I don't have kids yet, I guess you get the picture.

As for helping the vet, she already has tons of publications and she seems to research guinea pig conditions ever since I have brought Trica to get a check up. On the other hand, I might simply become the insane guinea pig owner in her eyes. I'm not a vet - though I wanted to-, I'm an economist and that might make me look freakish.

By the way....Trica hasn't made any more weird sounds ever since I starded this thread. Right now she's enjoying some hay....while in an extremely lazy position: on her belly, with her hind legs spread out; after a good old stretch of course. x>>

We'll just have to wait and see what the vet says later today. Unfortunately my husband is going to take her because I have to have my phd thesis looked over by my tutor and I could bet my money that he's gonna forget everything the vet tells him.
 
Well that's great that Trica isn't doing the sound anymore........i wonder if she'd had some food that had dislodged or something? :{
LOL @ Insand Guinea Pig owner :(|) i think you'll find most of us on here are over protective and try to be aware of anything out of the ordinary!
Hope your hubby can remember what he's told rolleyes you might have to call the receptionist for an update ;)

Good luck for your phd thesis xx>>>

Oh and please get a pigture of Trica in that position i think it would be ever so cute! drool
 
Mornin'

Sent him off to the vets with a note and with a printed version of the information you suggested I read. The vet said that Trica is far too young to have a heart condition bursting out all of a sudden. Had something been wrong I would have noticed from the day I got her - some sound, some sort of behavior -. Also, due to the absence of any other symptoms indicating a heart disease she claimed it is definitely rhinitis and suggested I change the bedding. Furthermore, Trica was given a course of antibiotics which should have definitely affected her heart if there was something wrong and the symptoms wouldn't have taken 3 weeks before being obvious. I was kinda skeptical but had to deal with the idea.

Last night Trica, while on the kitchen floor, managed to squeeze herself past my obstacles and ended up under the furniture. It's quit dusty there (I really don't dismember the furniture every other week just to dust underneath it) and she started sneezing, hiccuping and coughing. I totally panicked when I heard her breathing like a person with asthma, but as soon as I blew the dust from her snout and wiped it clean with a damp cloth it stopped.xx>>>So she must be allergic after all.:<> I'm so relieved.

As for the photo....I did take some pictures of her, but it seems that I am not allowed to upload attachments on this forum:0. I only managed to post the avatar, showing Rontzi, my first guinea pig. He was soo in love with the camera....:p
 
My older guinea pig died yesterday; he was four and I simply can't understand why.

He had time on the floor the previous evening, played and popcorned, played hide'n'seek with my dad as usual, ate right etc. He sang for his meal the next morning, had TLC time during morning coffee, purred....then we all left for work and when we came back at around 16:00 he seemed 'asleep' in a stretched out, normal position but something drew our attention: almost all of his bedding had been thrown out of his cage; there were 'bald' patches in his cage as if he had dug for something.

We wanted to pick him up but he was numb....still warm though. He looked normal: no foams at the mouth (which could indicate poisoning), no popped out eyes (stroke)... nothing abnormal, except the fact that he had gone beddy forever.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with him, nothing that any of us could have noticed. He ate, drank, pooped, played, purred.... The only thing that seemed a bit odd was the fact that he had started to sleep deeper than before for the past year; the vet said that he might be going a bit deaf and the deep sleep is due to his age but nothing to worry about.

Don't imagine that he slept all day long: he was home alone while the family was at work from 8 to 16 and he spent that time sleeping, so we assumed that due to that fact he had a certain timetable. He was very active while all of us were at home and all day on weekends.

Does anyone have a clue as to what could have happened? Father didn't even want to hear anything about taking him to the vet for an autopsy...so I was left guessing.
 
MrsM said:
my piggies 'choke' when they eat too quickly... greedy pigs...

I had a piggie who would get the hiccups (also from eating too quickly) regularly. The first time I saw that, I thought he was having a heart attack and I just sooooooo totally freaked out! I scooped him up and hugged him and cried 'no, no, no, no' to the ppoint my OH thought something had actually happened. I scared the poor mite with my OTT-ness so bad the hiccups stopped!

Hope this is reassuring
Click to expand...

LOL I did EXACTLY the same thing the first time Rodney did that :(|)
 
Need Advice

The fallowing thing just happened a couple of minutes ago and I'm totally freaked out: Trica was in her cage resting and all of a sudden she started moving her head in a 10 degree tilt as if she had very minor neck muscle spasms. It's not a head tilt like those found on youtube and from what I researched it's not a seizure, it lasted for about 3 seconds, it consisted of 4 movements, then she froze for another 5 seconds and then came to lick my hand.

The consistency of the movement was that of a slight hiccup but with her neck/head, or better said it looked a lot like a muscle spasm that humans experience.

She's alright now....but I'm totally panicking....I can't find a video to post for you to get a good idea.. Please help.
 
This looks a bit like Trica, but the movement is not so obvious and there is no body movement, and while the dogs' neck seems limb Trica's seemed stiff.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8io1S2R7Qg&feature=related[/ame]
 
The head tilt could mean that the ear infection is coming back. In that case the sooner you act the better are your chances.

Have you considered that Tia may have a dust or hay allergy? Perhaps that is the way to go with her.

I am so sorry that your lost four year old boy!
Sadly, sudden heart failure seems to happen quite frequently at the moment. It always strikes without warning to seemingly healthy and well piggies. It is very distressing and leaves you befuddled as to what happens!
In the very last stages (when a piggy is already very much out of it and no longer fully aware), they tend to have seizures. A former forum member used to describe it as "running for the Rainbow Bridge", which I think is very good way of describing it.
I have just lost my second piggy (one that had just turned 2 years old) to sudden heart failure myself. She passed away within hours of showing the first symptoms and despite having been seen by a vet asap. My only consolation that she didn't suffer much or for any length of time.
 
first_time_piggie_mum said:
:( :( Would Rodney have had 1 of those when he died :(

I wasnt with him so i dont know
Click to expand...

He may have - I know that both Telyn and Llewelyn had them shortly before they passed away. Knowing that is just a normal reaction of the body in the process of shutting down made it a lot less disconcerting, if not any less heartbreaking for me. By then, neither piggy was fully conscious anymore and it didn't seem to hurt them.

It is not easy to watch a piggy die, but it is one of the prices we have to be prepared to pay for all the joy they give us. Dying can be a lot more earthy and bodily than our usual politically correct concept of just "falling asleep" - but it is the same for us humans, you know! Whenever one of my piggies showed signs of real discomfort and pain when in the process of dying, I have always had them pts. At least, we have the possibility to give them that mercy.

I hope that I have not upset you too much! With dying being so much one of the taboos, many people don't learn how to cope with process and are then quite shocked when it happens.
 
Thank you guys,

Trica is :<> fine; I've been keeping a close eye on her since this morning.

There are no other signs of ear infection, she doesn't scratch any of her ears and unlike the time she did have an infection she now loves my tickling her ears (stretches, purrs and licks my hand when I stop). As for the mites, I would consider that totally out of the question since she hasn't come in contact with anyone other than my husband and I and of course 'grandma and grandpa' while we were on vacation.

I'll be keeping a close eye on her till Tuesday when the vets reopen after the holiday weekend and if anything is to be wrong I'll rush her in.

In the meanwhile, let me tell you something funny: while in Greece last week, 'Trica's grandparents' kept on calling like crazy on both my cell and my husbands'. With about 8 missed calls, any normal person goes :{ 'Something is definitely wrong at home'. So I called home, my mum answered but I could hear my dad in the back yelling 'DO NOT TELL THEM! Give me the receiver!'

I instantly thought of something being wrong with Trica since both my folks were obviously ok...

Dad: 'Trica's watching animal Planet with me at the moment and we were eager to tell you that she's very smart: it only took an hour for me to teach her how to open her cage....I'll be buying a new cage for her tomorrow, one with a more secure lock: she escaped and chewed the curtain in the dining room8;)'
 
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