Bloat Not eat and poop for 4 days

[1011Elizabeth]

Hello,

My Elizabeth is a 3.5 years-old girl. She started to have a lower appetite and fewer poops from Sunday and stopped pooping on Monday at noon (later, only two poops during the afternoon). We got medication of meloxicam, metoclopramide syrup, and vitamin C on Tuesday morning and supplemented with critical care. Only one poop out on Wednesday and no weight loss. We came to an emergency room on Thursday and left her in hospitalization for two days. Before starting, the blood test showed all good, and the X-ray showed an empty stomach and gas in the large intestine. They gave medication of cisapride, maropitant (cerenia), famotidine, metoclopramidemeloxicam, and Bene-bac and kept IV fluids and syringe feeding. Body temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, and central responsive time are all good during the hospitalization. The follow-up X-rays show no significant progress in the GI motility, where no fecal pellets formed and were seen. The vet thinks it's the cecum impaction, as the X-ray shows empty space in the colon after the cecum.

We did hand massage, and toothpaste massage and heard a few bubbling sounds. We wanna know if any other useful methods are helpful for this situation. All pieces of advice will be appreciated!

 

[1011Elizabeth]

The most recent X-ray

 

[1011Elizabeth]

We gave her the colic treatment (gripe water alternatives) two doses with 60min interval. We could hear bigger rumbling sound 10 min after each dose and the sound decrease gradually. She began to eat a little bit of hay/pellets by herself: 5 pieces of hay and 3-4 pellets in this 3hr.

 

[Bill & Ted]

Hello, I’m so sorry your piggie is poorly, I have asked for your post into the Health section. We are UK based so people will be just rising for the day here

 

[Wiebke]

Hello,

My Elizabeth is a 3.5 years-old girl. She started to have a lower appetite and fewer poops from Sunday and stopped pooping on Monday at noon (later, only two poops during the afternoon). We got medication of meloxicam, metoclopramide syrup, and vitamin C on Tuesday morning and supplemented with critical care. Only one poop out on Wednesday and no weight loss. We came to an emergency room on Thursday and left her in hospitalization for two days. Before starting, the blood test showed all good, and the X-ray showed an empty stomach and gas in the large intestine. They gave medication of cisapride, maropitant (cerenia), famotidine, metoclopramidemeloxicam, and Bene-bac and kept IV fluids and syringe feeding. Body temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, and central responsive time are all good during the hospitalization. The follow-up X-rays show no significant progress in the GI motility, where no fecal pellets formed and were seen. The vet thinks it's the cecum impaction, as the X-ray shows empty space in the colon after the cecum.

We did hand massage, and toothpaste massage and heard a few bubbling sounds. We wanna know if any other useful methods are helpful for this situation. All pieces of advice will be appreciated!

Hi and welcome

I am very sorry. Severe bloat is a potential killer.

Please step in with in round the clock syringe feeding; little but often to keep the gut from slowing down and eventually stopping; ideally up to 60 ml over 24 hours but as close to 40 ml in that time as you can get to be within a small chance. Many owners are not aware that hay is making over three quarters of the food intake is hay and underestimate what they need to feed.
The fact that your piggy is nibbling, means that the gut has started working again but you have to think of it as a conveyor belt - you only get at the other end what comes in 1-2 days earlier through the mouth (the average time is 22 hours). At any time of the day, most of the food on the internal conveyor belt is sitting in the caecum.
What is unusual in your picture is that your piggy's gassing is a not solid block of white as you'd normally see with severe bloating but is looking rather like it is extremely actively foaming/making gass bubbles?
I am not a vet and nobody on here is, so I can't tell you what is going on. Your vet is certainly throwing the kitchen sink at it. Unfortunately, we do have only a very restricted amount of medication available for rodents, and none of them are hugely effective with gut problems; and that in view of their gut being by far the largest organ and proportionally a lot bigger, narrower and longer than ours - getting any gas out of a piggy's gut is much more difficult comparatively.
One of the more effective ones for bloating, zantac/ranitidine has been taken from the market a few years ago and is no longer easily available, not that it has been an all-heal. I've still lost several piggies to acute severe bloating over the years. Cisapride is not quite as effective in my own experience.

Here are our practical Care tips for feeding support and crisis care for bloating and GI stasis:
All About Syringe Feeding and Medicating Guinea Pigs with Videos and Pictures
Digestive Disorders: Not Eating - Diarrhea - Bloat - GI Stasis (No Gut Movement)

Emergency and Crisis Care as well as Bridging Care until a Vet Appointment

I am keeping my fingers firmly crossed but - and I am extremely sorry to say this - please be kind to let your piggy go if there is no improvement or if the gassing returns as bad as ever. Severe gassing is extremely painful.

My fingers are very firmly crossed!

 

[1011Elizabeth]

Yes, she produced more gas everywhere during the 2-day hospitalization, which may be due to some greens she ate on the first day. Below is an X-ray before hospitalization.

With all the X-rays, one Vet is considering cecal impaction and obstruction may be the primary reason for this illness episode. Gas production and bloat are a chain reaction that causes her painful.

 

[Merab]

Just offering support.
Hope Elizabeth recovers quickly

 

[Wiebke]

Yes, she produced more gas everywhere during the 2-day hospitalization, which may be due to some greens she ate on the first day. Below is an X-ray before hospitalization.

With all the X-rays, one Vet is considering cecal impaction and obstruction may be the primary reason for this illness episode. Gas production and bloat are a chain reaction that causes her painful.

Unaccustomed fresh food fed in large quantities can unfortunately cause potentially fatal severe bloat; you have to always introduce fresh foods in small quantities one added new one with each passing meal with piggies to allow the gut microbiome to adapt. We usually see this every spring when people are putting their indoors piggies on a lawn with fresh growing grass in balmy spring weather.

 

[1011Elizabeth]

Unaccustomed fresh food fed in large quantities can unfortunately cause potentially fatal severe bloat; you have to always introduce fresh foods in small quantities one added new one with each passing meal with piggies to allow the gut microbiome to adapt. We usually see this every spring when people are putting their indoors piggies on a lawn with fresh growing grass in balmy spring weather.

No unaccustomed fresh food actually.
We bring a little bag of Vegs she usually like together to emergency. At the first day of hospitalization, she really doesn’t like the critical care supplementary (https://www.amazon.com/Oxbow-Critical-Care-Supplement-141gm/dp/B0021WZJD8) and don’t have much even with syringe feeding, but “proactively” ate a bit vegs.

 

[1011Elizabeth]

we’ve prepared to let her go she’s getting hard to move herself by legs, crying with some white mucus discharge and grunting every time we touch her.

 

[Bill & Ted]

I’m so sorry to read this, sending hugs to you at this sad time x

 

[Princess Dustmop]

I'm so sorry to hear that. Try not to be too hard on yourself. You're doing the best you can for her by trying to feed and getting her into the vet.
There isn't always a clear explanation ... I had a piggy get bloat with no clear explanation ... nothing different about what she'd eaten, just an unfortunate maelstrom of unknown factors that culminated in a piggy being rushed to the vet. I know my girl had to be anaesthetized, so the vet could draw some of the gas out with a needle that time, though I don't know if that's an option for you and Elizabeth, and of course, the anaesthesia carries its own risk.

Unfortunately, sometimes there's little we can do to get a piggy to eat. I haven't tried giving my piggies the anise flavor, but they generally liked the apple-banana flavor. You could try a different flavor, though if a piggy isn't feeling well, they aren't always interested in eating much, which means lots of little feedings to get what food they can tolerate into them over the course of the day.

 

[Wiebke]

we’ve prepared to let her go she’s getting hard to move herself by legs, crying with some white mucus discharge and grunting every time we touch her.

BIG HUGS

I am so very sorry that you have come to this decision but in your shoes I would have made it as well (and have done so with bloating piggies of mine when it became obvious that I wasn't going to win the battle.

Severe bloating is one of the nastiest things you can up against and there is only so much you can do and want to put your beloved ones through. It is the most heart-breaking but also the most loving gift we can make a beloved pet of ours.

Please take consolation in that you have done and tried everything you could. It is not a failure or any fault of yours, as much as you are going to feel like it in days to come. Elizabeth could not have found a more caring and loving mommy. Sometimes it doesn't take much or nothing at all to set off bloating. It is not something you can easily anticipate or prevent, so please be kind to yourself and try not to beat yourself too much. Keep in mind that strong feelings of failure and guilt are not a sign that you have actually failed but an expression of how deeply you care; they are the other side of the same coin. You wouldn't have them if didn't love.

Grunting is a sign that she is in excruciating pain and that sadly nothing is going to help her but cutting her suffering as short as possible.
Signs of Pain in Guinea Pigs

If you struggle yourself with your traumatic loss or don't know what best you can do for any companion of hers, then you may find this very practical but sensitive link here helpful: Death, Dying, Terminal Illness; Human Grieving and Bereaved Companions: Information and Support for Owners and Their Children

 

[Merab]

So sorry that this is happening.
Holding you in my heart.