Broken back leg advices and experiences request

Guineapig7777

Post   » Thu May 22, 2008 1:06 am


Hi.

I saw other topics about broken legs but I wanted to get your general experience (positive or negative) about this.
My young guinea pig girl got her back leg broken and it seems that it's very hard to treat this. Two options, surgery and add pin (but doctor says it's dangerous to anesthetize) or some kind of plaster. But apparently plaster are for fractures not far from each other (??).
I did choose plaster so now she has one and i must go back today to the doctor for change it and do X-ray again (fourth time...).
After i must go back maybe each weeks for check.
If i'm lucky and doctor could successfully join broken parts (and if she doesn't separate them again while moving), it may heal. But doctor didn't seem confident about it.

So what about you guys, for the ones who got this problem of broken leg, can you tell if you could heal it or if it didn't work.
I just need to hear if i can have hope or no. If you have any advice too.

Thank you in advance.

HollyT
Get on your bike.

Post   » Thu May 22, 2008 1:10 am


My vet would do surgery and pin it. Do you have an exotics vet?

User avatar
Amy0204
We miss our sweet Oreo

Post   » Thu May 22, 2008 1:14 am


Where was the leg broken? I've never heard of plaster being used, but my guinea pig broke his hip high up. We just basically confined him to a small cage where he couldn't move around much and just let nature heal it. He did fine. He's not all that fast moving around these days (but he's 3 now). I think the hip gives him a little trouble although he doesn't appear to be in pain.

As for anesthesia, it's not a big deal if the vet is experienced. Guinea pigs undergo it frequently for problems as simple as getting an xray taken. I lost a pig last fall who wass extremely ill, but during her last weeks, she was anesthesized several times and always recovered ok from it, despite the fact her health was so compromised.

I see you're in France. I have no idea how knowledgeable the vets are there, but does yours have a lot of experience with guinea pigs? Do you have options to find one who is?

Good luck with everything.

User avatar
Mum
I GAVE, dammit!

Post   » Thu May 22, 2008 1:14 am


A cavy-savvy vet wouldn't have problems with anesthesia, but many vets aren't experienced in treating guinea pigs.

If your vet isn't comfortable with anesthesia, then you might try to find a vet who has a high success rate with this.

Ditto on HollyT's post.

Guineapig7777

Post   » Thu May 22, 2008 1:14 am


what do you mean by exotics vet? The ones who treat more small and exotic animals than dogs and cats?

User avatar
Amy0204
We miss our sweet Oreo

Post   » Thu May 22, 2008 1:15 am


Exotics includes small animals like guinea pigs, ferrets, chinchellas, rabbits, as well as birds and lizards.

User avatar
Mum
I GAVE, dammit!

Post   » Thu May 22, 2008 1:16 am


I know a well-known 'exotics' vet who treats birds. She doesn't know much about guinea pigs though.


Guineapig7777

Post   » Thu May 22, 2008 1:29 am


My vet treats more the dogs and cats but when we talked about surgery he told he wasn't able to do it so he showed me one doctor (on a medical book) who could. And there were pictures of how they would proceed.

My plaster is made of some kind of scotch-tape and bandage. Doctor said it may be dangerous if bandage becomes dirty. My guinea pig could get sick or something like this.
But my girl is quite young (and it's a girl) so maybe it's more dangerous to anesthetize?

User avatar
PinkRufus
Contributor in 2020

Post   » Thu May 22, 2008 2:54 am


If your vet is not confident about anesthesia, don't do it. I don't know if we have any members in France who could recommend a vet who is knowledgeable with guinea pigs.

How old is your girl? Where is the break? How much is this limiting her movement and is she in pain? Sometimes they can heal on their own, but it depends.

I have a boar Henri (named after Toulouse Lautrec because of his leg) who broke his ankle before I got him. It healed wrong, but he still gets around fine. My vet said that she would have to re break it to put it right and recommended against that.

Guineapig7777

Post   » Thu May 22, 2008 3:09 am


but my guinea pig broke his hip high up. We just basically confined him to a small cage where he couldn't move around much and just let nature heal it. He did fine.
I don't know so much about bones healing but mine, her leg and foot are not joined together anymore so for healing, first we must join the two parts. If we let like this, she maybe can live but it's like if she didn't have leg (because she cannot use anymore).
How old is your girl? Where is the break? How much is this limiting her movement and is she in pain? Sometimes they can heal on their own, but it depends.
She is a little more than 2 months old.
For the break, here is the X-ray. Left is first X-ray, before we did something, right is with the plaster. As you can see it's not perfectly joined together. But as i change it today, doctor may arrange it i think.

Image

User avatar
PinkRufus
Contributor in 2020

Post   » Thu May 22, 2008 3:27 am


That looks very much like Henri's, exactly the same place (even the same leg, they could be twins). My vet said that a splint would have corrected it if it had been done right away. But the vet of the person I got him from said he needed surgery, which is why he didn't get a splint soon enough.

Even if it doesn't heal exactly normal, she should be okay with that. Henri's is worse than the corrected one with the plaster and he can run and jump with no trouble.

Post Reply