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Bladder stone removed,do I need to change diet?

Gem789

Gem789

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Hi all.My 8 year old sow poppy had an x-ray yesterday (she's had IC since April 2020) as she's been squeaking in pain when toileting for over a few months despite being on loxicom and cystease then with additional tramadol.A stone was found and I agreed for them to operate.My question is should I be looking at changing her diet.I'm so scared of her getting another one due to her age.I don't tend to feed a lot of high calcium veg anyway but my pigs do eat a lot of baby leaf salad which contains spinach.They have selective grain free nuggets in the morning and unlimited hay,usually Timothy but at the moment I'm getting through a bale of meadow before I order some more Timothy.
Thanks in advance.
 
Gem789 said:
Hi all.My 8 year old sow poppy had an x-ray yesterday (she's had IC since April 2020) as she's been squeaking in pain when toileting for over a few months despite being on loxicom and cystease then with additional tramadol.A stone was found and I agreed for them to operate.My question is should I be looking at changing her diet.I'm so scared of her getting another one due to her age.I don't tend to feed a lot of high calcium veg anyway but my pigs do eat a lot of baby leaf salad which contains spinach.They have selective grain free nuggets in the morning and unlimited hay,usually Timothy but at the moment I'm getting through a bale of meadow before I order some more Timothy.
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Hi

Please either pick the spinach leaves (which are unfortunately in most mixes) out of the baby leaf salad and used them in your own cooking or switch to lambs lettuce, romaine, cos or sweet gem lettuce. The spinach is likely what has upset the diet balance as it is too high in calcium.

Most calcium in the UK actually comes with the (hard) water and via the pellets even no added calcium pellets contain more calcium weight per weight than the veg highest in it. Please filter your water and reduce the pellets to 1 tablespoon per piggy per day if you aren't doing this already.

Keep in mind that any dietary changes will take several weeks to percolate through since the calcium absorption process is complex and slow and that this won't help quickly if he absorption process itself is disturbed/going wrong for some reason.
Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets

8 years is a grand old age. You have to accept that the healing process will be quite a bit slower than with younger piggies and that you can always only buy a chance at an improvement opting for an operation but that you can never guarantee the
outcome.
Tips For Post-operative Care

All the best for Poppy and you!
 
Sending you & Poppy all good wishes for the surgery and recovery. Great advice from Wiebke. There’s only limited changes we can make to help with calcium issues but every little helps.
 
Wiebke said:
Hi

Please either pick the spinach leaves (which are unfortunately in most mixes) out of the baby leaf salad and used them in your own cooking or switch to lambs lettuce, romaine, cos or sweet gem lettuce. The spinach is likely what has upset the diet balance as it is too high in calcium.

Most calcium in the UK actually comes with the (hard) water and via the pellets even no added calcium pellets contain more calcium weight per weight than the veg highest in it. Please filter your water and reduce the pellets to 1 tablespoon per piggy per day if you aren't doing this already.

Keep in mind that any dietary changes will take several weeks to percolate through since the calcium absorption process is complex and slow and that this won't help quickly if he absorption process itself is disturbed/going wrong for some reason.
Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets

8 years is a grand old age. You have to accept that the healing process will be quite a bit slower than with younger piggies and that you can always only buy a chance at an improvement opting for an operation but that you can never guarantee the
outcome.
Tips For Post-operative Care

All the best for Poppy and you!
Click to expand...
Thank you.Ill switch to just lettuce plus the usual like peppers and cucumber and they can have the odd bag of babyleaf and I'll pick the spinach leaves out.I started filtering their water about 6/7 years ago after loosing my boar Sam to a bladder stone.I will keep the nuggets limited too.
Thanks,I was very worried about the surgery due to her age and I've very thankful she came through it.
 
I have another question to ask for anyone experienced with post bladder stone surgery.Poppy is still squeaking in pain when toileting.Is this normal after surgery,I imagine she must be sore but thought she might feel a bit better after having the stone removed.Shes currently on 0.5ml dog loxicom and 0.1ml of tramadol twice a day.
 
Gem789 said:
Thank you.Ill switch to just lettuce plus the usual like peppers and cucumber and they can have the odd bag of babyleaf and I'll pick the spinach leaves out.I started filtering their water about 6/7 years ago after loosing my boar Sam to a bladder stone.I will keep the nuggets limited too.
Thanks,I was very worried about the surgery due to her age and I've very thankful she came through it.
Click to expand...

Please don't go too low with the calcium as that can cause stones, too. There is a sweet spot in the diet but it is locally different. I feel that just leaving out the spinach on most days or just feeding one leaf as a treat if you reduce the pellets should do the trick.
 
Wow well done poppy for doing so well. What a wonderful age she is. My late poppy also had bladder problems and had two cystotomys. She was painful for quite some time after the first op and suffered with sludge on and off and despite everything developed another stone 9 months later. We use the brita water filter and we were very careful with her diet. She was on nutracyst at that time as well as no pellets as they made her sore and she had metacam and gabapentin when needed. But she did have metacam basically every day to help keep inflammation down. Sometimes it’s genetic other times it’s down to the diet. Sadly hers was clearly genetic as despite everything she did form another stone.
I really feel for you as bladder piggies can be so difficult to deal with and so upsetting. I hope poppy has a speedy recovery ❤️‍🩹
 
Josie_lg said:
Wow well done poppy for doing so well. What a wonderful age she is. My late poppy also had bladder problems and had two cystotomys. She was painful for quite some time after the first op and suffered with sludge on and off and despite everything developed another stone 9 months later. We use the brita water filter and we were very careful with her diet. She was on nutracyst at that time as well as no pellets as they made her sore and she had metacam and gabapentin when needed. But she did have metacam basically every day to help keep inflammation down. Sometimes it’s genetic other times it’s down to the diet. Sadly hers was clearly genetic as despite everything she did form another stone.
I really feel for you as bladder piggies can be so difficult to deal with and so upsetting. I hope poppy has a speedy recovery ❤️‍🩹
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Thank you for sharing your experience and I'm very sorry that your poppy developed another bladder stone after the 1st.
 
Hi Vicki,about to get her out in a few minutes to weigh her and do meds and syringe feed.Shes still hiding away in her snuggle tunnel at the moment.
 
Shes up to 925g,she was 907g yesterday morning after her op which was a 50g drop from the day before.Shes had some syringe feed and some grass afterwards.Still not really interested in other food though.
 
Gem789 said:
Shes up to 925g,she was 907g yesterday morning after her op which was a 50g drop from the day before.Shes had some syringe feed and some grass afterwards.Still not really interested in other food though.
Click to expand...
Any weight gain is good after a drop. Well done. Hope she soon finds her appetite again.
 
Gem789 said:
Hi all.My 8 year old sow poppy had an x-ray yesterday (she's had IC since April 2020) as she's been squeaking in pain when toileting for over a few months despite being on loxicom and cystease then with additional tramadol.A stone was found and I agreed for them to operate.My question is should I be looking at changing her diet.I'm so scared of her getting another one due to her age.I don't tend to feed a lot of high calcium veg anyway but my pigs do eat a lot of baby leaf salad which contains spinach.They have selective grain free nuggets in the morning and unlimited hay,usually Timothy but at the moment I'm getting through a bale of meadow before I order some more Timothy.
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
I have have had two experiences with bladder stone removal, a great easy surgery but yes! NO PARSLEY , high high in calcium!
 
My friend went to Waitrose and bought a few things for me.Poppy has had some rainbow chard,a bit of red gem lettuce and a little bit of baby cucumber.She'll nibble a bit of hay but not a lot.Its a good thing she'll eat some grass after every syringe feed.
 
Gem789 said:
Yes,parsley is high in calcium.Am I right in thinking dill is too?
Click to expand...

Virtually all herbs; coriander is the mildest and can be fed a bit more often. You can feed herbs but only in small quantities; that also goes for dry herbs which are more concentrate as they do not have water.
Herbs are however a good source of minerals and trace elements so if you cook with fresh herbs or have a herb pot, a little as a treat every now doesn't come amiss.

With reduced pellet feeding you have a little more leeway re. more calcium rich veg.
 
I keep a coriander plant on the window ledge that way the piggies can just have 2 or 3 stalks at a time without worrying about a packet going off.
 
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