Should I worry? Lazy "rag doll" pig

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poppypiggy

Post   » Sat Jun 13, 2009 7:02 pm


Thank you, pinta! I suspected that. I will definitely insist on the hormone treatment first, and hopefully that will help Poppy. She is such a sweet pig, and deserves the best treatment I can find for her. Besides I have spent so much money on her that I want to keep her with me for a long time yet ;-)

pinta

Post   » Sat Jun 13, 2009 9:26 pm


It does help if the pig can be placed in a sitting position to take the pressure off the heart. That makes it riskier for heart pigs

Should be less riskier for heart pigs

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poppypiggy

Post   » Mon Jun 22, 2009 7:11 am


Should be less riskier for heart pigs
Thank you for the clarification, Pinta. I was pretty sure that was what you ment, but good to have it written out.

Since my last update Poppy has not been doing quite as well as before. She has been gradually more quiet and inactive, and looking like she feels uncomfortable. Yesterday her breathing was heavy too, so I put her back on furosemide, and she is better today.

My vet, Kirsti, is specializing in exotics, and was away for one of the required courses last week, so Poppy hasn't seen her since last update. But I got a long e-mail from Kirsti last night, where she told me that my little girl was discussed on the course. And the lecturer, a professor from the Royal Dick in Edinburgh, suggested a spay, as this is the only permanent solution to growing cysts, in his opinion. According to him hormones will not stop the cysts from growing, and Poppy's cysts are rather large, I think.

As previousely mentioned my vet wanted to spay Poppy herself, but now she tells me she has second thoughts about that, as she now realizes that spaying pigs is not the same as spaying cats. So you were absolutely right there, Pinta, and now I trust your judgement even more than before!

Kirsti's suggestion is that she calls around to find another vet that is willing to spay my girl, but she also tells me that I have to decide what I think is best for Poppy. I am very nervous about the whole thing, because I feel I have to act rather fast, since Poppy is not well as it is now, even if the furosemide seems to work well.

When looking at the Reference and First Hand Accounts I found this post from Cara: https://www.guinealynx.info/forums/viewtopic.php?t=10197 that tells about a treatment with a "new" hormone, gonadotropin-releasing hormome (GnRH), in stead of the more commonly used human chorionic gonadotropin (hcG). Among other advantages with the first mentioned treatment is that it reduces the size of the ovarian cysts.

Cara is not a member anymore, and her e-mail adress is removed from her profile, so I can't mail her to ask for more references. Has others had any experience with this treatment? Is it a "real" treatment, or just some short lived idea by Cara's vet back in 2004?

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Mon Jun 22, 2009 9:10 am


Sorry I can't answer your questions about Cara's experiences.

If the cysts are fluid filled and very large, it is also possible to use ultrasound to guide a needle to draw out some of the fluid and relieve the pressure temporarily.

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poppypiggy

Post   » Mon Jun 22, 2009 1:01 pm


I didn't know that, so thank you for your input, Lynx. I'll discuss with Kirsti if that is a possibility for now.

pinta

Post   » Mon Jun 22, 2009 4:54 pm


In our experience, the hormone treatment we used did reduce the size of the cysts. To be honest, I don't think many vets have tried the hormone treatment on pigs and suspect many are surmising how it works based on other animals rather than on real experience with this species. The tendency is to advocate the tried and true.

Treatments often work differently for different species. Something that can help a dog, will kill a cat; something that has no effect on a dog will have a dramatic effect on a pig.

My vet will go for the hormone treatment first in senior pigs. Sometimes the cysts shrink enough to no longer be an issues and sometimes they shrink to the degree a spay will be easier. The bigger the item you are surgically removing, the more risk there is to the surgery.

If it was me, I'd go for the homone treatments in the hopes the cysts would shrink enough to make surgery easier or - even better - shrink to the degree surgery is no longer necessary.

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poppypiggy

Post   » Mon Jun 22, 2009 5:07 pm


Thank you so much, Pinta! Your input is really helpful and supportive! You know many vets, do you? ;-) I imagine you are right that they often just go with what they think is right and not investigate further to see if it is true.

Something has to be done for Poppy now, so I'll go for the hormone treatment and hope it will help her.

pinta

Post   » Mon Jun 22, 2009 6:04 pm


Known of many vets thru here, thru hearsay, and a few in Vancouver. Been to the exotics vet who turned out to be completely useless with pigs which landed the whole thing back in my vet's lap much to her chagrin as she was forced to become an expert which required thinking outside the box as there was almost nothing written about pigs in the med books.

My pigs were her guinea pigs.

"Let's try it", "Nothing left to lose", "well, it works on cats...", "If this was a dog...", "are you insane? - that would kill it" became treatment buzz words. It helps she's an excellent diagnostician and very intuitive.

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poppypiggy

Post   » Sun Oct 18, 2009 5:06 pm


A long planned update on Poppy, and a few questions:

Since my last posts back in June Poppy has been doing fine all summer. Kirsti (vet) is definitely willing to work with me when I have suggestions to problems she don't know how to solve herself. I showed her the "Reference and First Hand Account" on GL and the post about GnRH, she sent Jorg Mayer an e-mail right away. In a few days whe got an answer back, and then felt she had enough documentation to be willing to try the GnRH on Poppy.

We had some difficulties with the doseing, as the drug here is not the same as on the US market. When we just went by the active ingredient we came out with a cow dose for poor Poppy, so in the end we just had to guess, and enden up giving her two reasonable injections with GnRH about two – three weeks apart (I don’t remember exactly how much or how far apart now). After the first dose her appetite was very low, and I had to give her some CC for a few days, but she seemed to take the second does much better, and shortly after her hair started to grow back nicely. At first it was a short, shiny, black plush, but now her fur is more greyish, like it was before. Still shiny, though.

In early September I came across two piggie girls that were to be given away for free. They had been housed outside all year round; the oldest, Polly, for two years, the youngest, Phoebe, for about 6 months.

I just couldn't let them live like that, and adopted them. They were terrified at first, but after two weeks of quarantine they were much more relaxed, and I wanted to introduce them to the other four during grazing time on the lawn (inside Poppy was, and still is, housed with Molly). First everything went really well – a lot of sniffing and talking, but no biting or anything.

But then, just as I started to relax, Poppy and Polly started to rumble for a few minutes, and then they ran towards each other and jumped high up in the air like I have seen rabbits sometimes do. I don't think they bit each other, as I could find no marks on either of them.

Unfortunately I didn't separate them at once, and after a short while they did the same thing again. This time Poppy looked as if she didn't feel quite well afterwards, and I suddenly realised that this had been too much for her and separated them. From then on she grazed with Molly alone, and I kept a close eye on her.

The next few days she was very quiet and sat much in her house, and on the third evening I realized that she was breathing heavily and that her heartbeat was very fast and unusually strong, so I got her to the vet the next morning. Vet could just confirm my observations, and suggested to double the dose of Fortekor, as the routine is with dogs and cats.

After a week on this high dose (2.5 mg twice daily) Poppy seemed better, and I gradually lowered the dose back to 1.25 mg twice daily, but after just a few days realized her breath was heavy again, and went back to 2.5 mg morning and evening for another week or so. As she has been doing well since then I now give her 2.5 mg in the morning and 1.25 mg in the evening. She has also been given 4 mg Furosemide twice daily, but I plan to reduce that to 3 mg doses to see if that is enough to keep her going.

I have been discussing Pimobendan with Kirsti as some pigs, like the now passed Lady Bug, and maybe some others, too, have been on Fortekor and Pimobendan at the same time. Kirsti thinks Pimobendan is to substitute Fortekor, though. Does anybody have any comments on that? She is also unsure about how to dose Pimobendan in guinea pigs – with our without Fortekor. Any experiences or suggestions?

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Sun Oct 18, 2009 5:20 pm


Hopefully, Bugsmom will see this post and comment.

Sounds like you are very observant and in tune with your guinea pigs. Glad to hear the hair came back after the GnRH injections.

pinta

Post   » Sun Oct 18, 2009 6:01 pm


No, Pimobendan is not a substitute for Fortekor and can be used in conjunction. All my heart pigs are on both Fortekor and Pimobendan. One heart pig improved on Fortiekor but when we added in Pimobendan she did even better.

You should try her on both at the same time.

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Bugs Mom

Post   » Sun Oct 18, 2009 7:49 pm


Ditto Pinta-very different and definitely can be successfully given together. Lady Bug got 1/4 of a Pimobendan tablet twice a day and it definitely helped extend her life in addition to her Lotinsen and Lasix.

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