GI Upset

ellenvega
Skol Pigs!

Post   » Fri Dec 08, 2006 12:23 am


Something really frightened him, maybe?

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rshevin

Post   » Fri Dec 08, 2006 12:24 am


Anything is possible but I can't imagine what. Smudgie was in the hay box, I was on the sofa. I just opened a new box of hay but I just don't get it.

Talishan
You can quote me

Post   » Fri Dec 08, 2006 7:42 pm


Something really freaked him. This has happened a couple of times with ours, and neither my husband nor I was ever able to figure out what they had heard, seen, smelled or felt that was so disturbing.

Hope he's over it and okay now.

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rshevin

Post   » Fri Dec 08, 2006 8:02 pm


Ok. We all know pigs' senses and preceptions are very different from ours. I'm glad no one thinks it's something organicly wrong with him. He seems perfectly fine today and is back to his normal hugable, percolating, harassing self.

A little good news on Piggy, he's lost 50g since Smudgie has moved in! His weight before was 1450 plus or minus and now he's 1400. It's not often that I want to see a pig loose weight but he's really chunky and I worry for his health. I hope this means he's getting a little more exercise and being a lot more pig-like, in a good way of course.

Edit: Of course I won't let him continually loose weight. I hope you know where I'm going with this.

Talishan
You can quote me

Post   » Fri Dec 08, 2006 8:11 pm


I sure do.

A little extra padding, and maybe a little extra extra, is fine with me, especially since it is so very difficult to get weight back on them after illness or surgery. But significant overweight can lead to (or at least worsen) a bunch of problems, like arthritis. Our chronic UTI pig has a very, very small bladder and our vet tells us her overweight contributes to the recurring UTI's.

Excessive pudge isn't good. Perhaps not as harmful as in a dog or human, but still not good.

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JaneDoe

Post   » Sat Dec 09, 2006 1:36 am


How is Piggy today?

Pippin has been going through the same thing.

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rshevin

Post   » Sat Dec 09, 2006 8:37 am


Phew, I'm glad I explained myself ok Talishan. As you can see, I was really tripping over my words trying to figure out what I wanted to say. Piggy doesn't have health problems right NOW but I'd like to prevent them of course. I'm not sure yet what his weight should be. In the year and a half or so he's lived with me, he's always hovered around 1.4kg despite changes in housing and diet so he probably is a little extra extra boy. All I want is for him to be happy and healthy.

He seems to be just fine this morning. I am desperately hoping what happened the other night was an isolated incident related, in some way, to an environmental influence my human body wasn't in tune with. It was VERY strange! Came on all of a sudden and just as quickly, was gone. I feared some kind of asthmatic response to the new hay, but right after he lept into the hay box and chowed down with no problem.

I hope Pippin is feeling better. His incident does seem a little similar to Piggy's GI problems, which seem to have revolved around bell peppers. No one was more surprised than me that he can't eat them. I hope there was just a little something that disagreed with him in the new lettuce and that he's back to his old self ASAP.

klynne

Post   » Sat Dec 09, 2006 1:54 pm


"Piggy had smushed himself into a shoebox where he normally NEVER fits and was almost hyperventalitating."

He had a sudden horror that Smudgie would think the shoebox made his butt look big.

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rshevin

Post   » Sat Dec 09, 2006 7:30 pm


But klynne, his butt IS big. As a matter of fact, it's HUGE! He's such a chunky butt. I am too. It's part of why I love him so much.

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JaneDoe

Post   » Sun Dec 10, 2006 1:20 am


Yes, Pippin is feeling better, thank you.

As I said in his thread, I'm not sure whether it's a chicken or egg thing -- he was probably susceptible to an upset tummy anyway. Pandora ate the same lettuce to no ill effect, but not very enthusiastically.

We probably should listen to our pets more.

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rshevin

Post   » Sat Sep 08, 2007 3:43 pm


A long time back Piggy had some gas/stasis issues as the result of bell peppers (weird, I know). He was xrayed to rule out both an intestinal blockage and the presence of any urinary sludge. I was shocked there wasn't a speck of sludge. Anyway, I finally got around to taking pictures of the xrays and thought I'd post them for the sake of completeness. You can see he's VERY gassy. He resolved with some lactated ringers at the vet and then cisapride and simethicone for a week at home and has been fine ever since.

Image

Image

I do apologize for the quality of the photographs. It's my first attempt.

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Bugs Mom

Post   » Sat Sep 08, 2007 5:34 pm


Hi Rshevin. I did a double take on the x-ray pics. They look exactly like Lady Bugs. Really scary when you don't expect to see all that gas there.

Everytime she has x-rays the large amount of gas is still there. She eats her head off, mostly hay, pees and poops just fine. I keep hoping your vet comes up with a solution as none of the ones I'm seeing can figure it out.

Have you had another set of x-rays taken since the ones you posted? If so, is all the gas still present?

BTW, I feel a special affinity for Piggy since Lady Bug has the same gas problems.

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