Osteodystrophy and Satins

[Mum]

The reptile lamp has worked very well for Heddwyn. I relied on that alone to take care of the Vitamin D aspect.

But note, this is an expensive light - $50 for the bulb. Still cheaper than dealing with a sick pig :-p I don't think the cheaper bulbs had the same ratings, which is why I went with this one.

I need to rexray Heddwyn and see what his bones look like now. I'm hesitant to remove all calcium. Becky, do you remember Dr. N's suggestion as to the amount of calcium? Is there a maintenance dose?

[Piggster]

Cavyhouse - I'll contact you through the mailer tonight about getting in touch with his owner in Oakland. I'm starting a new job today so I'll be in touch after 6pm tonight. leebee from Cavy Spirit told me about Palo Alto performing neuters - that is great since SFACC isn't currently doing them.

Hopefully they do neuters on Saturdays so I can coordinate to get him neutered on the weekend. I spoke to my friend who so graciously is my " pig emergency" person and he is more than happy to help me get him neutered. I will be SO happy again when I have a car, which should be by the end of June.

[Becky]

I was giving him 75mg, but Nakamura wanted about half of that amount once we saw a reversal of the bone loss. I did cut it down to 50 shortly before the stone.

[Mum]

I was giving him 75mg, but Nakamura wanted about half of that amount once we saw a reversal of the bone loss. I did cut it down to 50 shortly before the stone.

Was that once daily?

I ask, because Heddwyn is now on 75mg once daily. If your advice was for once daily, I'll cut it immediately.

[CavyHouse]

I picked up the Calcium lactate today. It's the TwinLab brand called "Calcium Lactate Caps". They are 200 mg caplets. I mixed it in with the Critical Care that I was feeding Zeuss. A lot of the Critical Care ends up on the towel normally so I put the whole caplet in. It was easy to mix.

He's been losing weight so I thought I should supplement with Critical Care. I think more than half of the Critical Care made it into Zeuss so that means I'm getting more than the recommmended 75 mg in probably. Should I switch to another method of getting the calcium in him.

I noticed someone on the Hollister thread mentioned mixing the calcium lactate with Odwalla Superfood. Is that liquid? Would that work better?

OUr vets are still out of town so I'm using the advice on this GL forum until they get back. You have all been so helpful!

[CavyHouse]

ONe reason I tried the Critical Care for the Calcium was the comments on the Hollister thread about it being hard to get the calcium out of the pasty form so it could be syringed. I had no trouble with the consistency mixing it with Critical Care but obviously an accurate dose it hard to get if you have a messy feeding with Critical care.

[Tracis]

This is Odwalla Superfood.

I usually see it in the refrigerated section of the produce department at the grocery store.

[Mum]

Calcium lactate is dreadful to dissolve. I used to heat it up a bit in the Odwalla, then it would finally liquify.

I also gave 75mg twice daily for the first 18 months - but the OD was very severe.

[CavyHouse]

The calcium lactate caps I am using comes in those caplets that you can pull apart and dump the powdery contents right into whatever you are mixing it with. Do you actually have to get it into a soluble state before feeding it or is it ok if the powder just mixes with the Odwalla Superfood (or whatever is being used)?

[Mum]

I found if it wasn't dissolved propery it just plugged up the syringe. I don't think it matters how much it's dissolved, as long as you can draw it up into a syringe for feeding!

[CavyHouse]

FYI: www.PetGuys.com is selling the light Mum showed on the previous page. They have a sale right now for $33.59 as opposed to $41.

We use PetGuys.com a lot. It is located in the San Francisco bay area so shipping isn't bad to us since we live here. The stuff usually shows up in 2 days. But they don't have a lot of recommended guinea pig products but are cheap for the stuff you do find. (No - we aren't on commission)

[Mum]

Crud!

I just ordered a new one a couple of weeks ago from Big Apple Herp, and I paid much more than that :-p

Usually I shop around, but I'd found their prices to be consistently lower on these - ah well.

[CavyHouse]

Don't feel too bad - the first item you ship has a high shipping fee - but then subsequent items are pretty cheap. For instance, when I checked the lamp, the shipping was $9 (very expensive) but then to add an 11-lb Midwest Playpen for guinea pigs was just $2 more.

So it definitely pays to group your order together.

[peter94087]

CavyHouse,

We've been struggling to find out what's wrong with our 3 year old Winnie (an American, not satin) and have decided to try the same treatment as your piggie; the UV lamp and 75 mg of calcium lactate twice daily.

The diagnosis of OD has not been made by a vet since dr. Nakamura is gone till next week (as you know), but some nice people gave the OD suggestion in a different thread (search for winnie in this forum).

Good luck to you and your piggie. We'll update here when/if we see any breakthrough.

[CavyHouse]

Good luck with your Winnie. It's tough when you don't know what's wrong. I do remember seeing peoople warn NOT to do the calicum supplements unless you know it's OD because of the bladderstone risk. I have no idea how much calcium they would have to ingest for what period of time before it's an issue.

I think Dr. Nakamura is going to be quite busy when he gets back April 8. I have never seen a vet's vacation so well documented!

[CavyHouse]

On a recent thread, someone asked if I could get some x-rays of guinea pigs with Osteodystrophy from my vet, since he's treated a fair number of cases. Dr. N was great and provided x-rays of 3 piggies with OD that have come through my rescue. (I have received permission to post the x-rays from the owners. I'll split them up to help avoid confusion.)

I asked Dr. N about the calcium supplements for treatment and he indicated that it really neede more study to make any conclusions.

Acorn was a female Satin, who didn't develop OD until she was adopted by one of the GL members. You can get details here:

http://www.guinealynx.info/forums/viewtopic.php?t=62978

Her xray:

[CavyHouse]

Sunset was an adult Peruvian Satin that came to me for boarding. It was obvious as soon as I picked him up that something was wrong. His joints were so stiff that it was hard to imagine him being comfortable. There was fur caked around his feet from not being able to move around.

When I asked the owners about this, he replied that he had just been to the vet a few weeks ago for something unrelated and got a perfectly clean bill of health. (I was in shock). He had been taken in for getting urine soaked. I explained to the owner that this was quite related to his immobile joints because he couldn't move around well. It was a sad situation because the owner cared enough about the piggy to see something wrong and take him to the vet, only to receive a clean bill of health. I can't remember if this was a dog/cat vet or one trained in extoics.


I received permission to take Sunset to my vet who knows how to recognize OD. X-rays showed a very advanced case of OD and joints that were almost fused(Hopefully I remember that part right). I can't remember if the fused joints were related to OD or not. Metacam was prescribed to see if the piggy could be kept comfortable.

Sunset's x-rays are below. My vet mentioned that they weren't real clear.

[CavyHouse]

Augusta is a female American Satin guinea pig that was adopted from my rescue around October 2008 as a young piggy. She was diagnosed with OD in November 2010 and was treated with Metacam, calcium supplements and UVB light until June 2012 when the treatments were no longer effective.

Her x-rays:

[Lynx]

Thanks so much for adding these!

I had sent you links to the large sizes too so people could examine them more closely:

Acorn
http://www.guinealynx.info/pics/CavyHouse-10_lg.jpg

Augusta
http://www.guinealynx.info/pics/CavyHouse-11_lg.jpg

Sunset
http://www.guinealynx.info/pics/CavyHouse-12_lg.jpg

[CavyHouse]

Thanks. I misunderstood what the second set of links was for.