Hi
Would your vet consider a diagnosis of a sterile interstitial cystitis, similar to FSC (feline sterile cystitis in cats) and similar in treatment/management?
While sterile IC in guinea pigs has become quite common over the last decade, it is still virtually unknown outside vet circles that see lots of guinea pigs on a regular basis. It seems to particularly affect the natural glucosamine coating of the walls in the urinary tract that prevents the highly corrosive urine from coming into direct painful contact with raw tissue. Generally, there is some blood in the urine but the bacterial count is low or very low and the infection can therefore not be cleared with antibiotics.
Treatment is generally with an analgesic (metacam in a much higher dosage than for cats since guinea pigs tolerate it a lot better even in the long term and have a much faster metabolism, and preferably using dog metacam for long term use but gabapentin is a recently prescribed alternative) and with glucosamine (in milder cases orally, ideally with cat bladder capsules (cystophan, cystease, cystaid etc.) for ease of measuring out, mixing the contents of 1 capsule with 2 ml of water and then giving 1 ml every 12 hours or 2ml every 24 hours. In more severe cases with cartrofen (injections or orally), which in recent research has been shown to also work for guinea pigs.
Sterile IC cannot be healed; only managed. It will usually take several weeks to get on top of acute symptoms since the glucosamine takes some time to build up; once you get there, you use a maintenance dose which you up to the max during the inevitable flares every few weeks until acute symptoms subside again. The severity of it can vary massively. In milder cases it can eventually go away on its own. Sterile IC is generally diagnosed by default after all other urinary tract problems have been ruled out.
Here is more information on sterile IC of which we are seeing at least 1-2 enquiries every week from desperate owners:
Links - Interstitial Cystitis - Guinea Lynx Records
Here are our dietary recommendations (see chapter special diets):
Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets
Please accept that we cannot diagnose sight unseen but I hope that this is the avenue that will work for you.
Sterile IC (like FSC) is sadly one of the conditions that seems to have a link to the way guinea pigs are currently mass produced by commercial chain pet shop suppliers and for-sale breeder. It may be connected with a nervous disposition due to the high stress levels of their mother that the developing embryos experience as their own normal default levels. All my own IC piggies over the last decade have fallen into this category, even the ones in retrospect.
