Please help! My guinea pig has 3 Abscess and Blood in her poop

Moonandpudding

Post   » Fri Jan 26, 2018 10:05 am


Hello everyone,
I made this account so as to get help from any of guys. Please help me it would mean a lot.

My female guinea pig, Moon is very sick. I have already lost my other male one, Pudding and i dont even know how he died. He died while moon was undergoing her treatment for Abscesses. He stopped eating for 2 days. Second last day he just ate paper and ignore other veggies and hay. Last day he didn't eat anything. 3rd day morning I orally gave him grinded spinach leaves through syringe. He ate it and then i went to the vet. The vet told me it maybe is an infection and prescribed digyton syrup and gave him a vaccine named Neuroxin which was supposed to be vitamin B complex something. After an hour i was on my way to home. He was teary eyed from the morning so i just casually held him to clean his tears and suddenly he became jelly as if he has got no spine i started crying and returning on my way to see the vet again. He died in my arms after hiccuping (or something) for 8-9 times before dying. I cried a lot. I'm finding myself guilty as i don't even know how he died. He was healthy 2 days before.


But as Moon is alive i will talk about her. She developed an abscess around the beginning of this January. It was under her chin. I googled about it and realised that this may be because pudding bit her a while ago. And she squeaked for almost 10 times that time. Now that i saw this lump i got her to vet. One of the most famous vets here. Vet of dogs and cats. They said they treated gps also. So i went there. They removed the pus and didn't drain it. I asked them about it but they ignored as they were too busy with other animals (i know its weird but the vets treats many patients in one room this way only in this country). Also They prescribed antibiotic Cephalexin 3 drops thrice a day (i was in my doubts as this was a very strong drug and vets usually dont prescribe it to gps but the doctor got offended when i told him about how people on the internet treated their gps), Guinea pig multivitamins and a few syrups which are Polybione and Liv 52 both normally given to humans and dogs/cats. I asked him if i should treat her at home he told me not to. I live in India. And its not normal to find a exotic animal vet here. I am devastated right now. The culture in the abscess is Streptococcus. After 2 days of giving this, 2 more lumps developed, one behind the first lump and one on her chest. I immediately went to the vet he said its just fats (wtf) after a day it developed into big lumps. Again i went to him. He removed it with an injection like he usually does and squeezed the lump. And told me to continue the medicines and said to trust him in this. But how can i ? My pig is already very weak as the lump on her chest doesn't let her sleep. She is been sitting the whole time in her cage 24/7 for 2 weeks straight. As the lump freaking didn't go down on its own and after losing pudding, i visited other vet. Just to add, moon is been eating on her own too sometimes, and sometimes i hand feed her. And her poops are usually very watery green and sometimes rigid. And when i make her sit on me, she closes her eyes, and has hiccups kinda thing again and again. Watching this i usually cry a lot. I'm very weak because i lost her brother and now she is also very sick. I went to other vet (thanks to god as he is far more better than the first one and he patiently listened to her problems) he drained her lump on chest and flushed it with betadine (by now the other 2 lumps on her jaw became hard and decresed in size but still are pea-sized) . The one unusual thing the vet did was after removing the pus with syringe he put little betadine into it and told me that the betadine will come out on its own and prevent formation of more pus. He also advised me to remove the pus on my own at home and flush it with betadine. He prescribed BACTRIM/SEPTRIN( i got septrin) whichever is available in the pharmacy to give her 0.5 ml twice a day orally and he told me to continue using the syrups that the other vet mentioned. After 2 days of this, moon's lump went down a bit but her poops are more watery and today i saw blood in the urine and poop. Im very worried. Btw she is asking for food by squeaking that means she feels hungry and is eating her food normally. Also she had the thing in middle where it was difficult to chew her food. She ate it in slow motion i was worried if she had malocclusion but i also assumed it maybe because of the lumps on her jaw. But it went down on its own and she can chew properly now.
Im worried about the hiccups kinda thing which she gets ver much and blood in urine today. I'll go the vet tomorrow. If you guys have any idea, please help me.

Thanks a lot.

bpatters
And got the T-shirt

Post   » Fri Jan 26, 2018 10:37 am


I'm very sorry you lost Pudding and are having such trouble with Moon. It's very hard to have guinea pigs in countries where the vets don't know how to take care of them.

Let's talk about Pudding first, since it's less complex. There's no way to know why he died, but the Digyton was unlikely to have helped him. I'm not sure the Neuroxin would have done anything, either.

But guinea pigs can go downhill very quickly, and need to be treated at the very first signs of illness. They're also wired to need food moving through their guts at all times. Unlike people, who secrete stomach acid when they're hungry (usually about three times a day), guinea pigs secrete it all the time. And if they don't have food moving through the stomach, they can develop painful stomach ulcers, or even holes in the stomach that allow the contents to spill out into the abdomen. So when a pig stops eating, you must start hand-feeding right then. Sometime they'll take food from your hand, but usually you need to feed them with a syringe. If you can't get Oxbow Critical Care or something like it, you can make a loose mash of pellets, and feed that. You could use the ground spinach to flavor it if the pig likes spinach, but the pig needs a lot more fiber than spinach has in it.

An adult guinea pig that is eating nothing else needs 100+ cc's of Critical Care or pellet slurry for every kilogram it weighs, every day, divided into 6-8 feedings around the clock. You adjust up or down depending on the pig's weight, and down if it's eating anything on its own.

Don't take Moon back to the first vet. He's got no clue what he's doing with a guinea pig. And aggressively hand feed her, starting NOW.

Moon may have cervical lymphadenitis (see https://www.guinealynx.info/forums/viewt ... 439#160439 for more info). The lumps need to be drained, and then flushed several times a day to get rid of the pus and keep them open until they can heal from the inside out. Your vet flushing it was on the right track, but it should have been continued until the opening was too small to flush any more. Betadine is also very drying on the tissues, and should be either very dilute, or you should use sterile saline.

The small hard lumps that are remaining are probably pockets of pus that didn't get flushed out because the first vet didn't know what he was doing, and they're likely to come back again. They're what happens when you don't keep flushing frequently.

The pig also needs an antibiotic to get it cleared up, but not cephalexin. It's dangerous to guinea pigs (see https://www.guinealynx.info/dangerous_medications.html). The usual treatment is Baytril, which your vet may know as enrofloxacin. Bactrim and Septrim are the same thing, but neither is likely to be effective against streptococcus.

Good luck with Moon, and let us know how she's doing.

Moonandpudding

Post   » Fri Jan 26, 2018 3:08 pm


Heyy, thank you so much for your advice. Really really means a lot.
She is eating normally and at all hours she is chewing something or the other. But its her poops that im worried about. They are not fully watery but the green semi solids are covered in blood reddish maroon colour. It seems as blood but not too much of it. I just gave her the usual medications. Bactrim, multivitamins and the syrups. Do you think that maybe usage of bactrim is causing the blood or maybe the syrups? And the vet im going to is closed tomorrow. Is there something i can do at home to stop the bleeding?
I want to also ask about something. The hardened part inside her first abscess- I asked the current vet about it, he said it will go down on its own by using antibiotics. Shoukd i ask him to cut, and drain it even if its hard?
And about the main big abscess, should i use a scalpel or something to make a cut on it at home or just use the needle syringe to operate it? The doctor told me to pierce the wound with the needlesyringe, Take out the pus through it and without taking the needle out flush in betadine and take it out. I find it more painful for my pig (she's only 1 year old) as she has already many holes in the last 3 4 days. Im worried. The vet told me that she can go into shock if he made a cut on it and it can also get infected. Plus my moon usually licks the wound too (she is very naughty in this case).
Should i make the cut and flush it with dilute betadine everyday? I really need some advice. Or maybe continue with the needle syringe treatment to clean the abscess? And the 2 hard abscesses on her jaw? Should she require surgery or drainage or just antibiotic treatment with bactrim?
I really appreciate any of your help/advice. Thanks a LOT.

Moonandpudding

Post   » Fri Jan 26, 2018 3:14 pm


And Baytril and Chloramphenicol is not available in our country in oral form *sigh*

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Fri Jan 26, 2018 4:56 pm


Baytril is enrofloxacin. Perhaps that drug is available?

I am so sorry for your loss. It is possible that giving the cephalexin has cause the problems with the poops. Read over:
www.guinealynx.info/diarrhea.html

Do you by any chance have access to a curved tip syringe? They can flush a powerful amount of water into the abscess and help clean out the pus.
Image

Reread over everything bpatters posted. I wish I had better advice for you with the abscesses but I do not know what tools and supplies you have available. Very important is hand feeding and trying to get the diarrhea under control.

Moonandpudding

Post   » Fri Jan 26, 2018 5:23 pm


Omg thanks for the reply. Yes, the drug is available but the doctor didn't seem to go on with it idk. When asked, he just denied it.
When i was giving her cephalexin, she didn't had blood in it and she ate well too but the main thing is she developed 2 more lumps in that course of time. So then i changed the vet and the second one prescribed Bactrim and on 2nd day of Bactrim she got blood. Idk why it's happening cause as much i have read here, bactrim is commonly used for treatment.
I do hand feed her most of the time and in the remaining times she eats herself and squeaks very loudly so as to get new food T~T
I just want her to get better. I dont want to lose this pig also.

And really thanks for the reply, I'll search for this syringe asap ♡

bpatters
And got the T-shirt

Post   » Fri Jan 26, 2018 6:02 pm


I wrote a long answer and lost it. I'll try to remember what I said. (Lynx, I can't remember if I asked, but is there any way to make the board tell us if we're leaving without posting our reply?)

Don't bother the hard nodules in the neck unless they're enlarged again. If they do come back, go the vet and get them lanced, and then flush them at least twice daily with warm saline. If they scab over before they've completely healed from the inside out, then soak the scabs with warm clean compresses, pick the scab off, and flush it out. It's very important to keep flushing until the lump has completely healed with new flesh, and with nothing encapsulated inside.

And definitely don't try to get the pus out by inserting a syringe into the lump. There are too many things in a pig's neck that can be damaged by that. Besides, guinea pig pus is exceedingly thick and cheesy, and it's nearly impossible to remove with a syringe. That's why you want the wound left open -- so you can get to it to get the pus out.

Stop giving her the syrups and the multivitamins. The syrups are useless, and it's very easy to overdose a pig on fat-soluble vitamins. They may, in fact, be part of the problem with the bloody poop.

When a pig is having a digestive problem, the general course is to remove everything possible from the diet that the pig is taking in by mouth. You don't take away hay, obviously, or pellets. But if the poop is soft, bloody, or has diarrhea, you stop the veggies and all unnecessary medicines. You do give an antibiotic if it's warranted. (It is warranted in your case, I'm just not at all sure you're getting the right one. I'd call back and insist on enrofloxacin.) And you may need to add a few ground up veggies to get her to eat the Critical Care or pellet slurry.

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Fri Jan 26, 2018 10:07 pm


(Lynx, I can't remember if I asked, but is there any way to make the board tell us if we're leaving without posting our reply?)
I don't think there is anything to remind you.

Moonandpudding

Post   » Sat Jan 27, 2018 6:14 am


Moon died this morning. I lost both of piggies. I don't think i can get through this anytime soon. May they rest in peace cause that is what i want the most.
Thank you so much for showing your concern. Really means a lot.

Is it possible the bacteria got into the blood and affected the liver or any other organ maybe that was causing the blood. I really hate streptococcus more than anything in this world.

Anyway thankyou ❤

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Sat Jan 27, 2018 8:25 am


I am so sorry you lost her. You have our sympathy.

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Catie Cavy
Supporter 2011-2020

Post   » Sat Jan 27, 2018 8:39 am


Oh, no! I was about to offer some suggestions only to see that you lost your little Moon. I'm so, so sorry for the loss of both your little guys.

bpatters
And got the T-shirt

Post   » Sat Jan 27, 2018 11:22 am


I'm very sorry you lost her.

It's possible that the bacteria got into the blood stream. It also possible that the infection just overwhelmed her body, or that she suffered heart failure because of it. A necropsy would be the only way to know, but I'm not sure either of your vets would be competent to perform one.

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