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Bloat treatment - advice claims you can massage to bring out of mouth.

Hogmex

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I've always been told Guinea pigs can't throw up or burp, its a one way street and needs to exit through the back door.

"Fortunately, there are ways you can help your guinea pigs if they are experiencing bloat. One of them is by massaging your guinea pig's abdomen. This can be done by placing your guinea pig on your lap, facing you, and gently massage its belly from back to front to get the gas out through its mouth"
From Kavee site
Do Guinea Pigs Fart? All about Bloating

Can anyone tell me which one is correct?
 
Massaging may help send it the other way! I have a piggy with bloat at the moment, when I asked about massage the vet told me they no longer recommend it, it's far to painful. They now advise to just let the prescribed meds do their job.
Sorry to hear about your piggie, it's scary when they get bloat, fingers crossed for yours. Can you still use a vibrating mat?
 
No, no vibrating at all is the recommendation. Of course different vets have different ways! This is a large exotics teaching establishment so this advise will gradually filter down. And as with the way of things could change completely again.
 
No, no vibrating at all is the recommendation. Of course different vets have different ways! This is a large exotics teaching establishment so this advise will gradually filter down. And as with the way of things could change completely again.
Bit of an old comment now, but I was wondering about this. I have a pig with serious gas / bloat, is it really not recommended now to massage or use vibration? I have been massaging a little, but I may stop altogether if modern view points suggest not to.

Thanks
 
The Forum advice is to massage and as I said different vets seem to have different opinions. If you have a guinea pig with bloat you need to treat it as to your vets instructions, every case is different. Nugget died from his second round of bloat. I went with what the vet told me. The vet thought she could feel a mass in the abdomen. Nugget probably had cancer (he'd had a grease gland tumour removed the year before) so no amount of massage would have helped and would have been very painful for him.
 
The Forum advice is to massage and as I said different vets seem to have different opinions. If you have a guinea pig with bloat you need to treat it as to your vets instructions, every case is different. Nugget died from his second round of bloat. I went with what the vet told me. The vet thought she could feel a mass in the abdomen. Nugget probably had cancer (he'd had a grease gland tumour removed the year before) so no amount of massage would have helped and would have been very painful for him.
I did ask the vet about using a toothbrush, she thought it was amusing and said it's usually what they do with reptiles. She did seem to think massaging on a hot water bottle would be ok.

She was a good vet, but only prescribed metoclopramide (and loxicom and buprenorphine), but not cisapride, as she believed it could overstimulate her stomach (which I can understand as I've had a similar experience in the past of diarrhea with both with a different pig, but I still think I would have preferred to have both options.) It's only been 24 hours now so I'm hoping that it's just too early to see the effects of the metoclopramide.

I've also bought gripe water but I'm unsure whether or not to use it. Her stomach is not hard, but it does feel like there's a kind of malleable mass in her belly.

I'm sorry about Nugget though, I hate that diagnoses are often not definitive. It's a constant state of second guessing with guinea pigs.
 
There's an ingredient in some gripe water that is not safe. I can't remember what it was and the member that said about it has lost a piggy this morning so I won't tag her in. I'll come back here if I can find the post, although to be honest I wouldn't use it if the vet didn't recommend to do so. I was told Cisapride doesn't always work as it depends on the cause of the bloat so your vet is probably right not to prescribe it.

Sending your piggy masses of healing vibes, I hope she gets well very soon and that what you can feel is nothing sinister.
 
There's an ingredient in some gripe water that is not safe. I can't remember what it was and the member that said about it has lost a piggy this morning so I won't tag her in. I'll come back here if I can find the post, although to be honest I wouldn't use it if the vet didn't recommend to do so. I was told Cisapride doesn't always work as it depends on the cause of the bloat so your vet is probably right not to prescribe it.

Sending your piggy masses of healing vibes, I hope she gets well very soon and that what you can feel is nothing sinister.
Thank you, I was unsure of the gripe water after reading on here, but I thought it was might be useful in the future for mild flair ups as she seems to get.

I will stick with the metoclopramide for now, and call the vet if it doesn't seem to be panning out, and continue to massage.

And of course I wouldn't want to disturb grieving owners over my own problems, but thank you anyway.
 
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