Chronic soft stools/diarrhea

[Tofu]

5.5yo spayed female, Flora, has been having soft stools on and off for about the last six to seven months. (Starting weight was ~800g, weight until recently was in the 770's.) Went to the vet back in February, she felt it was overfeeding of wet veggies, or a certain veggie was not agreeing with her. She recommended I feed only hay for a month to see if that would resolve it. They also sent me home with some probiotic paste (bene-bac).

I cut back on veg, and the bene-bac seemed like it did help, for a bit. But her stools have been soft on and off ever since, and over the last month or so it has gotten worse. I called the vet and got a 5-day course of Panacur (antibiotic). As I was giving her the first dose, I noticed her soft stools had turned into diarrhea. This continued for about 36 hours. She improved but still has soft stools which are better or worse depending on the day. Fecal culture found entamoeba cysts, which my vet told me was normal. My vet also shared Flora's case with a vet info resource, VIN (https://www.vin.com/vin/), who came up with the following suggestions:

After some discussion on VIN, the general conclusion is that she may be suffering from lack of vitamin C (I explained that she definitely gets it, but they insisted that it is still a likely cause), or dental disease. The logic of the dental disease is that differences in chewing result in changes in hay particle size in the gut, which can in turn lead to diarrhea. I am only mildly convinced of these options, but that is what I have to share from the VIN world.

She followed up with:

Options to consider if things persist: Anesthetized oral exam and/or skull rads, bloodwork, rectal fecal transfer.

I'm fairly underwhelmed by these suggestions, so I'm hoping someone here has some ideas I can share with my vet. Here's a list of things I've done in the last three weeks or so:

-Stopped feeding all veggies for ~96 hours, stool consistency did not improve and she lost about 80g (796->710) in weight
-Reintroduced individual veggies in 48hr periods; no change in stool consistency with cucumbers, carrots, and green peppers
-Removed pellets (KMS) from cage for week, no change seen
-Fed exclusively blue grass hay for a couple weeks, switched to exclusively 3rd cut Timothy for a couple weeks. No change.
-Gave daily vitamin C tablets
-Ordered some Bio-Paste, and gave ~0.4cc daily for 5 days. On the first day, Flora's stools looked GREAT! Dry, solid, normal in shape. No poop shoes!! Unfortunately, by the 5th day, they were back to being mostly mush.

Current weight is 736g, she had diarrhea a few hours ago so I've restarted the bio-paste and am keeping a close eye on her.


If you're still here after reading all that, I'm now going to throw a bit of a monkey wrench into the mix. Flora has been hooting/wheezing on and off for a long time. It generally occurs after she eats particularly wet veggies, and to my untrained ears, sounds like she has fluid in her lungs. It does not happen consistently, or even that often, though I've been watching her like a hawk these last few weeks and am hearing the hooting so the possibility that this could all be heart related is back on my mind. Years ago I had my vet take xrays to rule out heart issues. I don't think she's had any experience with heart pigs, so she referred the xrays to the same VIN group I linked above, who did not seem to think there was an issue. Ultimately, she's never been treated for potential heart issues.

I've done a lot of reading on heart pigs, and a lot of reading on diarrhea/gut upset but I'm not finding much of an overlap. Maybe there is no connection and I'm just reaching, but I think I'm going to send my vet the GL Heart page and describe in detail my concerns about the hooting, and see if maybe I could start a trial run of lasix and an ACE inhibitor. But I'm really more concerned with the on and off diarrhea. Could another round of antibiotics help? Send out another fecal for the full culture?

Thanks for reading, and any suggestions or advice you have. I really appreciate this site and its users who have definitely saved my pigs more than once over the years. :)

The current herd L-to-R: Flora, Oolong, and Mavis('s butt).

[bpatters]

I'd want her to have a course of metronidazole (Flagyl) to see if things would improve. Panacur is a de-worming treatment, not an antibiotic. Flagyl is both an antibiotic and an antiparasitic, and is generally pretty effective against intestinal organisms without being too hard on the pig.

It sounds like a trial of heart meds might help her. It won't hurt, and may well help.

Are you seeing an exotic vet?

[pigjes]

I had a pig who got antibiotics for her bowel issues, which made it a lot worse. It was given without my consent by a vet with little knowledge of pigs. Since Kooky and I shared the same issue with antibiotics ruining my bowels since I was a baby, I was keen on finding a solution for her, as it would serve me as well.

I too did all the available options, including the hay diet, Flagyl, etc. She even got diarrhea from human probiotics, just like me, which is extremely rare, but confirmed by a human bowel specialist that this can happen.

By the way, a hay diet for a month is out of the question, a pig needs several vitamins, I never go over 2-3 days of a hay only diet after diarrhea, that should fix it. If not, there is another problem that needs looking into.

In Kooky's case, a careful dosage of vegs, plenty of hay, and normal dosage of pellets worked, in combination with a 1 daily dosage of 1/4 of the total daily dosage of Bactrim for the rest of her life. She lived to 6.5 years perfectly like that.

Later, I had Plucky, same issues, antibiotics after her ovary cysts surgery ruined her bowels as well, and she was already prone to bloat since she was a baby. Unfortunately, she could not stand Bactrim, so we were so desperate, as she had diarrhea constantly, I kept force feeding her, and then, I was advised by one of our great members here to buy Oxbow Digestive support, which turned her back to normal within a week! I was so impressed, I was depleted of options myself, so even I ate a tablet a day and it cured me from most of my issues I had for decades.

Current pig has the same issues after antibiotics. The Oxbow tablets worked, but not perfectly, so I decided to try a new human probiotic which contained a large variation of gut bacteria on top. That did the trick for him, so now I take it too. Every week, I open a pill, add some water, fill a bit in his syringe and I drink the rest. Perfect.

Regarding heart issues, possible allergies, etc, it is obvious that you need a knowledgeable vet, as yours is not, sorry to say. This page offers excellent info about the heart. https://www.guinealynx.info/heart.html

[Tofu]

I'd want her to have a course of metronidazole (Flagyl) to see if things would improve. Panacur is a de-worming treatment, not an antibiotic. Flagyl is both an antibiotic and an antiparasitic, and is generally pretty effective against intestinal organisms without being too hard on the pig.

It sounds like a trial of heart meds might help her. It won't hurt, and may well help.

Are you seeing an exotic vet?

Hrm, I guess my Google-fu failed me on Panacur, thinking it was an antibiotic. I probably will ask my vet for a course of Flagyl next, I had read other accounts of it helping in similar situations before posting this thread.

My vet has experience with exotics but when I bring in a pig with a complicated medical issue, she will refer to VIN for assistance more often than not. She is, at least, extremely receptive to ideas and recommendations that I have (mostly gained from this site, and my further reading). I have been to a couple vets in town over the years, and if there is one out there that is truly a guinea pig expert, I have yet to find them. The closest rec I found on this site looks to no longer be practicing.

pigjes: what kind of probiotics did you use for your current pig? I forgot to add the Oxbow digestion supplements to my list up there, tried that after my initial vet visit in February and unfortunately they didn't seem to make a difference.

[GrannyJu1]

I used Bio-Sponge successfully on my pig with soft stools. She'd had soft stools most of her life and the older she got, the softer the pellets got. She reached the point of messing up all the nighttime hideys every night. I was afraid I was going to lose her to dehydration. I spoke with Lucca (see Fuzzbutt's Medical) at Bio Sponge and she said if necessary Fuzz could have the Bio-Sponge every day, even for the rest of her life, so that's what we did. Bio-Sponge every day, first 3 times a day then twice a day, off and on for a couple of weeks. Fuzz took it very well, and eventually the soft stools vanished. Her pellets are now back to normal, if a little lighter colored. I'd swear by Bio-Sponge to all. She's been off it for several days now and still normal stools, MAYBE one messed up hidey per night, but not all 3 every night!

[Lynx]

Did you read www.guinealynx.info/diarrhea.html ? That page mentions the drugs bpatters lists.

I was not very impressed with VIN's suggestions. The fecal transplant sounds interesting but as far as I know has never been done. We emphasize probiotics and point out that the special cecal poops (green, stinky, not usually seen but eaten directly from the anus) are the best. There is some thought the digestive enzymes make oral intake of probiotics not as effective but it may still be worth trying.
www.guinealynx.info/probiotics.html

[pigjes]

I bought Darmplus on Amazon, but various brands have similar bacteria. It contains this: acidophilus, rhamnosus, longum, Breve, bifidum en lactobacillus lactis. At first, I gave it for 10 days in a row, it started to work in 5 days, and after 10 days, I now give some weekly. What I noticed was that his poo used to smell, and since then, no odor.

[Schenck]

Is the odorless poo supposed to happen with Darmplus? Seems like just what I need for my piggy if so.

[Traudl64]

Hyperthyreosis, hyperthyroid has his symtoms: chronic soft stools, loss of weight, haar loss, tachycardie,eating a lot, drinking a lot and a lot of infections. If you are seeing more than 2 of this symptoms, please think about this

[pigjes]

I agree, a thyroid issue could also be a cause, as many other things, by the way. I achieved odorless poos with a probiotic mix of several gut bacteria indeed with Binky.

[Tofu]

I've sent an email off to the vet with all the suggestions here, and haven't heard back yet. While holding Flora tonight, I found an area of hair loss on her underside. This definitely is new, at least since the last time I gave her a bath ~1 month ago. She's real pissed off at me right now (I dared to wash the poop off her feet), but I'll try to take a photo of it shortly.

[GrannyJu1]

Without reading back, did you check her for fungal issues? That can often cause hair loss. Look for crusty areas around the missing hair, the tips of the ears... Just a suggestion.