My daughters 4yr old guinea pig has had a very small tumor on his jaw/neck. The past few days, the tumor has grown to a pretty large size, making it harder for him to move his front left leg.
-Is there anything we can give him to help with swelling? So far the only thing I was told was 1 milliliter of Benadryl every 8 hours.
If that's the only thing, then we will keep on that. We are trying to keep him as comfortable as possible.
-Surgery is not an option.
Have you experienced a piggie with cancer/tumor? What did you do?
Tumors
Given the location,it’s probably an abscess and can be drained. We are going through something similar with our pig currently as well (in fact, he is at the vet right now).
Guinea pigs, like people, have numerous lymph nodes under the jaw, but in contrast to humans, the lymph nodes tend to abscess I guess, instead of just getting inflamed.
If you bring him to the vet, and they agree it’s an abscess, it can be treated. From what I understand (others can correct me if i’m wrong), solid tumors are pretty rare in guinea pigs.
Guinea pigs, like people, have numerous lymph nodes under the jaw, but in contrast to humans, the lymph nodes tend to abscess I guess, instead of just getting inflamed.
If you bring him to the vet, and they agree it’s an abscess, it can be treated. From what I understand (others can correct me if i’m wrong), solid tumors are pretty rare in guinea pigs.
I took him into our vet and it was examined and they did some different imagery things to look at it from "the inside" and said it was a tumor. I will see about finding another vet when I get paid next. This trip to the vet was a few hundred dollars.. eek!
The vet explained that it's not uncommon in older pigs and pigs that have inbreeding in their background or were a result of continued inbreeding. I adopted this pig from a rescue. His prior home, he came from an animal hoarding situation.. loose pigs, rabbits, cats ,dogs... etc.. LOTS of them at that, it was suspected the animal hoarding situation had been going on for several years, if not 10 or more due to the large number of animals and decay, etc. The rescue is pretty sure he and his brother were the result of inbreeding due to the hoarding circumstances.
No biopsy, said she didn't want to cause anymore stress for him. Syringe yes, no puss or sign of infection. I'm still going to try and find another vet.. not many in my area that specialize in "exotic animals" that have openings.
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