Henry - crusty eyes, lethargic

[maremma]

D-mannose is not a sugar, sugar like you are imagining. It is a simple sugar. It is the UTI fighting ingredient in cranberries (ALL food breaks down into blood sugar to be carried through the blood stream and used for energy but fruit breaks down into a higher blood sugar count than veggies, pellets, hay etc)

Because it is a simple sugar it is so quickly metabolized and excreted in the urine it does not affect the pancreas and cause an insulin reaction like a complex sugar would. The blood sugar levels remain the same making it far safer than the complex sugars in cranberries themselves.

Cranberries change the PH of urine and cause it to be more acidic. This can even be a good thing in a guinea pig that has a normal bladder since some bladder infections can actually cause stones and the acidic nature of their urine while eating them daily makes stone formation much harder.

In a guinea pig that has interstial cystitis this is a bad thing because the bladder wall itself is not normal and the acidic urine can cause further pain and inflammation.

D-mannose just cuts out the less desired parts of eating cranberries every day and only keeping the active ingredient instead to ward off bacteria sticking to the urinary tract walls.

I found it mentioned here when I first looked up chronic UTI's but couldn't find much else her on it and so had to do a pile of my own research and then take it to the vet.

Bactrim didn't clear it , baytril didn't do it but the D-mannose did. We are finally at least down to only the intersitial cystitis to deal with.

Of course I just said to please do research for yourslef to try to find ways to protect her kidneys. The fact that she already has damage broke my heart for her. Perhaps there are other ways that you would prefer.

At this point in time I only had three options. The cranberries were no longer one of them once we were sure he had the interstitial cystitis.

One, the every other or every third day of bactrim. I did not feel comfortable with that. I want bactrim left in the arsenal if he ever needs it for something else and fear his body will become to used to it and then it will not be effective for him when he gets a URI or something. Given Henry's history I am thinking that is not an option for her either?

Two was to do nothing but metacam and shillintong and pray another bacterial infection does not set in. After the long horrible antibiotics ordeal that failed miserably anyway and seeing Joey suffering so badly I couldn't in good conscience choose this option for Joey. Perhaps this could be an option with very frequent urine cultures to check if there is bacteria in the urine though for Henry?

Three was to go ahead and give him the D-mannose but in much smaller doses and a modified schedule. He gets 1/8 of a child's dose one time daily as a maintanance dose. I may decrease this to every other or every third day shortly since he is doing better and that would have been the course for antibiotics to prevent infections. He got it twice day while he had the active bacterial infection.

[Sef]

I did find quite a few blurbs on the web today about D-Mannose for use in dogs, and particularly cats who have recurring UTI's. The information states that D-Mannose isn't metabolized, so it doesn't affect blood sugars (supposedly even in Diabetics). Also apparently doesn't mess up gut flora.

Interesting.

[Lynx]

Interesting indeed. If you find some reputable links, you might want to post them. We can ask Josephine if she's at all familiar with it.

[Sef]

I'll go back to some of those websites tomorrow and pick out the ones that seemed most credible (you have to weed through a lot of ads/sites selling products containing D-Mannose). I'd like to get Josephine's take on it, too.

[pinta]

It seems a lot of pigs have trouble with sutures. One of mine who rejected her sutures and a pin in a broken leg was also violently allergic to mites. Makes me wonder if pigs that reject sutures have other sensitivities casuing complications.

[somechick]

Thanks for everyones input, information, and link finding. Right now I'm going to stick with Dr. D's plan. Metacam once a day and if the sutures don't magically disappear in 2 weeks, we'll take them out. Once they're out, then we can truly tell if it was that causing the crying, or this irritated bladder.

I've ordered Shilintong, I probably won't do anything about the D-mannose, we'll just take this day by day for now. I'll update if anything changes.

[maremma]

This is one of the articles I had read that made me realize guinea pigs do have strains of e coli in them just like we do.

http://jcm.asm.org/cgi/reprint/10/4/477.pdf

[salana]

Suzi had PDS sutures sitting in her abdominal wall for 6 months until the vets took them out.

[barb5417]

No posts for a while.

How's Henry?

[somechick]

Not too much change to report unfortunately. We're pretty much in the same place. We got the sutures removed and for a very short while we stopped feeding her since her weight (while lower than I would like) was stable. She was also crying less.

But today we are back to handfeeding 2x a day since her weight dropped again and she is crying more.

I don't really know where to go from here or what to do. She's active and happy otherwise. I don't know what kind of pain she's having, if it's really bad or kind of bad. I don't think I should put her to sleep because she *is* normal otherwise, but is keeping her in pain not fair? I don't know. The handfeeding - while inconvenient - isn't really my issue. It's the crying.

I don't want to keep her on Metacam long term so she's not on that. I tried the Shillintong for one day - but could barely get it into her. She does NOT like it, and I can't blame her, it smells (and probably tastes) nasty. I squirt it into her mouth but she'll dribble it out and make a huge fuss. I might try it again tonight if she'll even take it, but I don't know if it would help.

She's not getting any peppers or carrots, which are her favorite, but that seems to not matter. Not sure what my options are.

[somechick]

I have a vet appointment tomorrow. Not sure what she'll say. Henry is crying more than ever while going potty and her weight is dropping. She was really great and stable for awhile. Then lost an ounce, and then another, and now she's slipping more. I'm handfeeding and giving Metacam, but nothing's doing.

Suggestions? I'm all out of ideas or options.

[barb5417]

I'm so sorry to hear that Henry isn't doing well.
You both have been through so much.

I have no suggestions, but I do send good thoughts your way. Please let us know what the vet says.