What Could Have Been Wrong With My Guinea Pigs?

[Sian25]

Okay so when I first got Milan and Hugo 2 years ago (both from a pet shop- although I obviously don't regret my beloved boys, I now know more about guinea pigs and rescues etc), they both had some health problems.

Milan was having floor time and ate a piece of the bag that his hay was stored in.. My fault as at the time I didnt realise that it would be such a tasty thing for him to want to eat.. Anyway a few days later, he seemed to be in pain pooing. I started to panic and assumed that the plastic bag had caused a blockage so I rushed him to the vet. This was not an exotic vet as this was before I discovered the forum and admittedly did not know much on guinea pigs.

From what I can remember, the vet prescribed emeprid and metacam for a few days and to bring him back. This did not stop the pooing in pain. As I was so insistant that there MUST be a blockage, they did a barium study on my little Milan. The results showed that there was no blockage but he had a spinal injury. He said that because pigs arch their back when pooing, this was the cause of the pain. The vet was hopeful that it would heal on it's own. He was on metacam for a while and gradually the squeaking while pooing stopped. The vet assured me that the spinal injury must have healed, so no further X-rays were done at this point. I'm wondering what could have been the cause of this. I'd had Milan for about a month when this had happened and I'm still to this day so mind boggled how he could have injured his back.

Another thing that the vet said when the xray was taken, was that Milan could have problems with his teeth later in life- but the vet did not explain anything in detail. When the boys saw Molly varga in march, she also mentioned milans teeth seem a bit longer but she advised to leave them alone while he doesn't seem affected. I'm wondering how an xray of Milan taken as a baby can suggest teeth problems in later life? Also although I completely forgt about milans spinal injury 2 years ago, Molly did xray him and didn't mention anything to do with his spine so hopefully it did heal correctly.

Now onto Hugo. He seemed completely healthy then suddenly one day he seemed a bit unresponsive in his cage. I picked him up and he had what I am 90% sure was a seizure that lasted about 60 seconds. I called in sick to work and rushed him to the vets (again a general vet as this was also 2 years ago) and he checked him over and couldn't see anything wrong with Hugo. He checked his ears and said they seemed clear but prescribed ear drops anyway and I was to keep a close eye on him and return if anything happened again. It didn't happen again (to my knowledge) and with his ears seeming clear and he was only about 3 months old, I doubt it was an ear infection. Does anyone have any ideas?

Sorry for the mammoth sized post! Thanks to anyone who has the patience to read through it haha.

 

[Swissgreys]

Firstly I am far (far!) from an expert but for what it's worth here are my random thoughts.

Firstly the back injury. This could have occurred while running, jumping off stuff, pop corning, or during any one of the random wild movements that happy guinea pigs seem to make. If you had had Milan for about a month then I am guessing he was still a baby and probably well settled in his new home, and feeling very happy. It also sounds like your boys have a wonderful life, so the back injury may have been just a random incident as a result of guinea pig high spirits!

As for the seizure, we had a rescue rabbit once who had seizures. I happened to be in their shed when he had what we think was the first one, not long after we got him. It didn't last long (although it seemed to go on forever) and I quickly bundled him into the carrier and rushed him to the vets. Of course by the time we got there he was fine - just a bit dazed and sleepy (which is apparently normal after a seizure). The vet did some basic checks, and found nothing obvious wrong with him, so she just told us to keep an eye on him. We suspect he had other seizures, due to the state of his cage sometimes, but we never saw them.
He continued to have regular health checks throughout his life, and we never did find the cause of his seizures, but he lived for a reasonable number of years (we were never sure of his exact age because he was a rescue).

I think you are doing an amazing job with your boys, and I just love the photo of them in their cozies

 

[Sian25]

Firstly I am far (far!) from an expert but for what it's worth here are my random thoughts.

Firstly the back injury. This could have occurred while running, jumping off stuff, pop corning, or during any one of the random wild movements that happy guinea pigs seem to make. If you had had Milan for about a month then I am guessing he was still a baby and probably well settled in his new home, and feeling very happy. It also sounds like your boys have a wonderful life, so the back injury may have been just a random incident as a result of guinea pig high spirits!

As for the seizure, we had a rescue rabbit once who had seizures. I happened to be in their shed when he had what we think was the first one, not long after we got him. It didn't last long (although it seemed to go on forever) and I quickly bundled him into the carrier and rushed him to the vets. Of course by the time we got there he was fine -just a bit dazed and sleepy (which is apparently normal after a seizure). The vet did some basic checks, and found nothing obvious wrong with him, so she just told us to keep an eye on him. We suspect he had other seizures, due to the state of his cage sometimes, but we never saw them.
He continued to have regular health checks throughout his life, and we never did find the cause of his seizures, but he lived for a reasonable number of years (we were never sure of his exact age because he was a rescue).

I think you are doing an amazing job with your boys, and I just love the photo of them in their cozies

Thank you for all the info! I didn't think of the back injury being caused by himself. The vet at the time suggested he could have fell from a height but he had nothing in his cage that was particularly high except for something like this..

I did see him ontop of it a few times but didn't think it was high enough to cause injury. My partner and I have no kids that could have dropped him so that was not a possibility. I suppose he could have injured his back getting off the hay bed awkwardly but at the time i didn't think so.

I'm sure if Hugo had regular seizures then I would have seen as I spend a lot of time with them but I've not seen anything again. I just hope it's not an underlying problem that's going to affect his health in the future but I supposed he's lived 2 healthy years (with the exemption of unrelated post neutering problems) so hopefully it's nothing to worry about now. It's always been in the back of my mind though, the same with milans back and teeth!