Blood in urine with unkown origin

[Shirii]

Hello,

two weeks ago I noticed my little piggy boy Kiro was crying and hunching during urination. I immidietly took him to vet and since then he has been on sumetrolim antibiotics, meloxicam for pain, uroxal for urinary sediment reduction and rodicare uro as a dietary supplement for the bladder. As the vet found sediment and blood in his urine but no bladder stone appeared on X-ray.

He had an ultrasound and a follow-up x-ray at the vet today, just to confirm nothing has formed there since then a ultrasound to confirm that there are no stones, that would be too small for x-ray. Still no urinary stones were found and the sediment in his urine is finally at normal values. However, he still has blood in his urine and it is not at all clear what is causing it.

He is over all very heatlhy piggy. The weigth is 1250g, he is very active and runs around all the time, we went throught his diet with the vet and there seems to be nothing, that could cause this.

The only problem he ever had was little bumb on his butt, which turned out to be tumor and as it was well sealed, vet was able to be removed without complications this april. Here is a post I made about that Lump with red dots above butt

I also attached a video from two weeks ago, when he was in pain. He is not doing it anymore, but that might be thanks to maloxicam. As well as one cute photo of him.

The vet told me to keep giving the same meds for another week, just to lower the dosage of meloxicam, and come in for a cotrol in a week and then we'll see.
Has anyone had similar experiences or ideas what might be causing it?

 

[Shirii]

And there were signs of infection as well.

 

[Wiebke]

Hi

The blood is likely from an infection or from bladder trauma; it can happen in the wake of a stone or sediment.

It can be bacterial urine infection caused by faecal bacteria having got into the urinary tract, a bacterial cystitis as a reaction to the irritation from sediment or it could be a sterile (i.e. non-bacterial) interstitial cystitis that affects espcially the glucosamine coating of the walls in the urinary tract which prevents the highly corrosive urine from coming into contact with raw tissue.
In the latter case, symptoms will persist or return as an antibiotic won't be able to heal the issue and at the very best only suppress symptoms temporarily. Treatment for sterile IC is mainly with glucosamine (to help replenish the afected layer) and meloxicam. Sterile IC is generally not known much to vets that are not seeing lots of guinea pigs; it has become much more common over the last decade; especially with the shift to indoors guinea pigs and as a result of widespread commercial breeding. It cannot be healed, only be managed until it very eventually hopefully goes away on its own. You are looking more at a matter of years rather than months. The severity can vary massively. It affects more guinea pigs with a natural nervous disposition.
Guinea Lynx :: A Medical and Care Guide for Your Guinea Pig

Symptoms for all of these issues are very much the same so your vet is doing exactly the correct thing by working their way down the ladder. Bactrim/septrin (you have got it as sumetrolim) may need to be given more than one week.

Please consider filtering your water and reducing the amount of pellets you are feeding to 1 tablespoon per piggy per day. These are actually the two ways where more calcium comes into the diet than via veg. Even no added calcium pellets contain a lot more caclium weight per weight than any calcium-high veg.
You may want to review your diet: Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets

Please accept that both glucosamine and any dietary changes will take several weeks to filter through the body so it is a long term measure but not a quick fix.

I hope that this helps you and your vet if problems persist.

 

[Free Ranger]

Blood in pee can have all sorts of causes but the most common ones are UTI, Sludge which can be passed but is painful, and the dreaded stones (which you have ruled out - phew!). We've had a few UTIs and they are not always easy to treat. Some have cleared up with 5 days of Baytril (the standard first antibiotic used over here for piggies) , some have needed a second antibiotic after either because we've seen no improvement or some little improvement but still have symptoms. One girl had to have a 3 weeks prescription and it still came back - a second 3 week course finally cleared it though! So extending a course of antibiotics is not unusual.

He is a good weight, but it's good to keep an eye on that at home to make sure he is maintaining it. One thing I will say is that if there is an infection and antibiotics are going to work you usually see a difference within the first few days. When we had the completely resistant infection we saw no improvement by day 3 and the vet switched us to a different AB at that point. The girl who was on them for a number of weeks - well we still saw her symptoms improve dramatically within the first day or so after she began the course. It's just that if proved difficult to clear it completely. So did you see any improvement within the first few days after starting your course? Was he wet underneath? Did that wetness start to dry up? Did he seem more comfortable in himself?

The final thing is that of course the causes mentioned above are not mutually exclusive. The pain and inflammation of infection can cause piggy to try and hold in pee, or not come out to drink, and if pee gets too concentrated you might see more calcium grit forming in the urine. Or a semi-blocked gritty urethra with urine only able to dribble out can increase the chances on an infection taking hold. It happened to my old fellow. I hope the meds finish working for your lovely boy. Keep us informed

 

[Princess Dustmop]

Were the signs of infection seen in the urinalysis or imaging? Inflammation can have a number of causes, as discussed by Wiebke and Free Ranger. Urinalysis would say if there were bacteria involved or if it was a sterile issue.

A urinary tract infection (UTI) could certainly cause blood in the urine. The Sumetrolim (TMP/SMX ... a brand alternative to Bactrim) should help with an infection; it an Baytril (enrofloxacin) tend to be the go to antibiotics for guinea pig UTIs. Here is is not uncommon for antibiotic courses to be 10-14 days, and I've had piggies that need 21 days or a full second course if the UTI did not clear fully or came back. Always complete the full course as prescribed unless instructed otherwise by a vet, even if symptoms resolve, as it can create resistance. Infections can cause the bladder wall to thicken/become inflamed, which would have been visible on the imaging; the meloxicam will help with this. If the antibiotics are not helping, it may be necessary to switch to a different medication. The vet should be able to do a urinalysis culture to check which specific bacteria are involved in the infection and what their sensitivities are to figure out the best treatment (Bactrim and Baytril are both broad spectrum, but one may be more effective.)

 

[Shirii]

Hi

The blood is likely from an infection or from bladder trauma; it can happen in the wake of a stone or sediment.

It can be bacterial urine infection caused by faecal bacteria having got into the urinary tract, a bacterial cystitis as a reaction to the irritation from sediment or it could be a sterile (i.e. non-bacterial) interstitial cystitis that affects espcially the glucosamine coating of the walls in the urinary tract which prevents the highly corrosive urine from coming into contact with raw tissue.
In the latter case, symptoms will persist or return as an antibiotic won't be able to heal the issue and at the very best only suppress symptoms temporarily. Treatment for sterile IC is mainly with glucosamine (to help replenish the afected layer) and meloxicam. Sterile IC is generally not known much to vets that are not seeing lots of guinea pigs; it has become much more common over the last decade; especially with the shift to indoors guinea pigs and as a result of widespread commercial breeding. It cannot be healed, only be managed until it very eventually hopefully goes away on its own. You are looking more at a matter of years rather than months. The severity can vary massively. It affects more guinea pigs with a natural nervous disposition.
Guinea Lynx :: A Medical and Care Guide for Your Guinea Pig

Symptoms for all of these issues are very much the same so your vet is doing exactly the correct thing by working their way down the ladder. Bactrim/septrin (you have got it as sumetrolim) may need to be given more than one week.

Please consider filtering your water and reducing the amount of pellets you are feeding to 1 tablespoon per piggy per day. These are actually the two ways where more calcium comes into the diet than via veg. Even no added calcium pellets contain a lot more caclium weight per weight than any calcium-high veg.
You may want to review your diet: Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets

Please accept that both glucosamine and any dietary changes will take several weeks to filter through the body so it is a long term measure but not a quick fix.

I hope that this helps you and your vet if problems persist.

Thank you so much for your detailed reply!
I will go through the diet properly and adjust it to best suit. They already get the bare minimum of pellets, so I'll cut them out completely and I've always filtered their water.

I will check with the vet what you posted here and if she is familiar with all this. Now at the second check up, it wasn't my specialist but another vet, so maybe she will know. Next week Thursday we go back for another check up and this time it will be with a doctor who specializes in guinea pigs.

 

[Shirii]

Blood in pee can have all sorts of causes but the most common ones are UTI, Sludge which can be passed but is painful, and the dreaded stones (which you have ruled out - phew!). We've had a few UTIs and they are not always easy to treat. Some have cleared up with 5 days of Baytril (the standard first antibiotic used over here for piggies) , some have needed a second antibiotic after either because we've seen no improvement or some little improvement but still have symptoms. One girl had to have a 3 weeks prescription and it still came back - a second 3 week course finally cleared it though! So extending a course of antibiotics is not unusual.

He is a good weight, but it's good to keep an eye on that at home to make sure he is maintaining it. One thing I will say is that if there is an infection and antibiotics are going to work you usually see a difference within the first few days. When we had the completely resistant infection we saw no improvement by day 3 and the vet switched us to a different AB at that point. The girl who was on them for a number of weeks - well we still saw her symptoms improve dramatically within the first day or so after she began the course. It's just that if proved difficult to clear it completely. So did you see any improvement within the first few days after starting your course? Was he wet underneath? Did that wetness start to dry up? Did he seem more comfortable in himself?

The final thing is that of course the causes mentioned above are not mutually exclusive. The pain and inflammation of infection can cause piggy to try and hold in pee, or not come out to drink, and if pee gets too concentrated you might see more calcium grit forming in the urine. Or a semi-blocked gritty urethra with urine only able to dribble out can increase the chances on an infection taking hold. It happened to my old fellow. I hope the meds finish working for your lovely boy. Keep us informed

Thank you so much for the reply and kind words!

There was definitely a noticeable improvement in the first week in terms of him stopping making painful noises, but there was no improvement in the urine in terms of blood and sediment concentration. After the second week, there was significant improvement and sediment settled down, but the blood remained. He is still wet down there, but I find it better, but on Friday he still did not cry when the doctor squeezed his bladder to pee.

Luckily he drinks a lot and the vet said his bladder was very full during the exam.

 

[Shirii]

Were the signs of infection seen in the urinalysis or imaging? Inflammation can have a number of causes, as discussed by Wiebke and Free Ranger. Urinalysis would say if there were bacteria involved or if it was a sterile issue.

A urinary tract infection (UTI) could certainly cause blood in the urine. The Sumetrolim (TMP/SMX ... a brand alternative to Bactrim) should help with an infection; it an Baytril (enrofloxacin) tend to be the go to antibiotics for guinea pig UTIs. Here is is not uncommon for antibiotic courses to be 10-14 days, and I've had piggies that need 21 days or a full second course if the UTI did not clear fully or came back. Always complete the full course as prescribed unless instructed otherwise by a vet, even if symptoms resolve, as it can create resistance. Infections can cause the bladder wall to thicken/become inflamed, which would have been visible on the imaging; the meloxicam will help with this. If the antibiotics are not helping, it may be necessary to switch to a different medication. The vet should be able to do a urinalysis culture to check which specific bacteria are involved in the infection and what their sensitivities are to figure out the best treatment (Bactrim and Baytril are both broad spectrum, but one may be more effective.)

Thank you so much for the reply!

The vet said the signs of infection are not visible on the urine, but she wasn't my specialist, so I'll ask her for more tests on Thursday.
It's now been 14 days since he took the antibiotics, so maybe there will be further improvement after 21 days. If not, then I'll try asking for other antibiotics, as you say.

 

[Wiebke]

Thank you so much for your detailed reply!
I will go through the diet properly and adjust it to best suit. They already get the bare minimum of pellets, so I'll cut them out completely and I've always filtered their water.

I will check with the vet what you posted here and if she is familiar with all this. Now at the second check up, it wasn't my specialist but another vet, so maybe she will know. Next week Thursday we go back for another check up and this time it will be with a doctor who specializes in guinea pigs.

Please be aware that if you go too low in calcium that can also lead to stones. It is about finding the 'soft spot' in the diet where the balance of the calcium is just right. Maybe you have already gone a bit to low? The UK is mainly hard water country.

 

[Free Ranger]

I forgot to ask how old is Kiro?
My boy had no stone problems his whole life but he unexpectedly got a big one in summer at the age of 5 1/2. This actually formed in his penis and was able to be squeezed out at the vet. A few months later he got another - unfortunately in his bladder this time. I was wracking my brains trying to work out what I did wrong... but he is an old boy now and maybe things are just starting to fail in his body. My two girls have no problems on the same diet and water as old George.
We just do what we can x

 

[Deleted member 151212]

Hello,

two weeks ago I noticed my little piggy boy Kiro was crying and hunching during urination. I immidietly took him to vet and since then he has been on sumetrolim antibiotics, meloxicam for pain, uroxal for urinary sediment reduction and rodicare uro as a dietary supplement for the bladder. As the vet found sediment and blood in his urine but no bladder stone appeared on X-ray.

He had an ultrasound and a follow-up x-ray at the vet today, just to confirm nothing has formed there since then a ultrasound to confirm that there are no stones, that would be too small for x-ray. Still no urinary stones were found and the sediment in his urine is finally at normal values. However, he still has blood in his urine and it is not at all clear what is causing it.

He is over all very heatlhy piggy. The weigth is 1250g, he is very active and runs around all the time, we went throught his diet with the vet and there seems to be nothing, that could cause this.

The only problem he ever had was little bumb on his butt, which turned out to be tumor and as it was well sealed, vet was able to be removed without complications this april. Here is a post I made about that Lump with red dots above butt

I also attached a video from two weeks ago, when he was in pain. He is not doing it anymore, but that might be thanks to maloxicam. As well as one cute photo of him.

The vet told me to keep giving the same meds for another week, just to lower the dosage of meloxicam, and come in for a cotrol in a week and then we'll see.
Has anyone had similar experiences or ideas what might be causing it?

Most likely an infection. Could be sludge, maybe a UTI. He could also be bloated. He could even be constipated. There are so many reasons why this could be happening. They also do this when they are in heat BUT this is not common in MALE Guinea pigs. I tbh wish that animals could tell us what is bothering them- but I would follow a basic rule of thumb. Is he eating? Is he drinking? And I know this is gross.. but look at his feces. If they look abnormal from the usual, talk about it with your vet. Good luck

 

[VickiA]

Most likely an infection. Could be sludge, maybe a UTI. He could also be bloated. He could even be constipated. There are so many reasons why this could be happening. They also do this when they are in heat BUT this is not common in MALE Guinea pigs. I tbh wish that animals could tell us what is bothering them- but I would follow a basic rule of thumb. Is he eating? Is he drinking? And I know this is gross.. but look at his feces. If they look abnormal from the usual, talk about it with your vet. Good luck

Male guinea pigs don’t come into season like female guinea pigs do.
@Guinea Pig Fan 2022 please can I ask you to leave answering posts in our Health and illness section to our expert team who bear the health & illness banner under their posts and whose advice is tried, tested and reliable.

 

[Deleted member 151212]

Male guinea pigs don’t come into season like female guinea pigs do.
@Guinea Pig Fan 2022 please can I ask you to leave answering posts in our Health and illness section to our expert team who bear the health & illness banner under their posts and whose advice is tried, tested and reliable.

I said that male Guinea pigs don’t go into heat in my answer. I can assure you that your wouldn’t give people false information. But as you wish <3

 

[VickiA]

I said that male Guinea pigs don’t go into heat in my answer. I can assure you that your wouldn’t give people false information. But as you wish <3

That is not what you said in your post. Arguing with staff is particularly bad form. And for that you will get a temporary ban. If you choose to come back once the ban expires please desist from posting in the health and illness section unless you have a thread relating to your own piggies and are seeking advice from our reliable team.

 

[Shirii]

I forgot to ask how old is Kiro?
My boy had no stone problems his whole life but he unexpectedly got a big one in summer at the age of 5 1/2. This actually formed in his penis and was able to be squeezed out at the vet. A few months later he got another - unfortunately in his bladder this time. I was wracking my brains trying to work out what I did wrong... but he is an old boy now and maybe things are just starting to fail in his body. My two girls have no problems on the same diet and water as old George.
We just do what we can

Sorry for not replying sooner. I have been very busy past few days.

Kiro is only 3,5 yo., so age shouldn't be a problem.
However I wish all the best to old George!

During checkup I told vet, that I want them to test his urine, like you all advised me here and I was told to stop giving him antibiotics for week and that they will do it.

But yesterday during night he started crying a lot more all of a sudden and almost stopped eating as his weight dropped and his poops got smaller... I fed him some critical care and
called vet and they will see us tomorrow and suggested I increase meloxicam dosage ...

@Weibke you suggested I get glucosamine for him, is it something vet should give me if I ask for it?

 

[Free Ranger]

George had been very wet underneath and cried when he peed. Of course I thought it was the bladder stone but he improved a great deal once we started him on an antibiotic called Septrin (over here) which he was on for 10 days. It affected his digestion and he looked pretty rough and ate a lot less so I was topping him up with about 15ml of syringe food every day, which I included a probiotic and some glucosamine (see below for more info on that). He was much drier underneath within a day or so of starting the AB although he still chirped a bit when he peed. He gets impacted with complicates things. His antibiotics finished on a Sunday, by Monday he was picking up a lot with eating and on Tues and Weds he was stuffing his face with hay all day long and his pooping was much better. Hooray!

But on Thursday he squealed much louder when he peed and there was blood in it. It was every 20 or 30 minutes. You could hear him all over the house. He went into his snuggle bag and didn't come out. He didn't want to eat anything. He was wet through underneath again. So Thursday evening I couldn't bear it any longer and started the Septrin again because I had aa lot left over. By Friday morning we were seeing improvement and it's been exactly the same as before. Dried up down below, much quieter chirping when he pees and not so often, blood tint getting lighter (gone by today) but eating dropped right off again. We couldn't get to the vet till Monday (yesterday) and so our urine sample might or might not have any bacteria in to test for resistance. Usually my vet doesn't do this test, they just prescribe Baytril and if that doesn't work (like in George's case) Septrin. George might have some resistant bacteria or it might just be that the big stone harbours bacteria the antibiotic can't kill off. But because of the pattern of improving on antibiotics and deteriorating after they finish, then improving again I'm pretty sure this is an infection. Is that the pattern you saw... improving with ABs then coming off them and deteriorating? After how many days did he get worse again?

George has been on metacam throughout (the stone and also arthritis... he's been on it for over 2 years). He has about 0.3ml of 1.5mg/ml strength twice a day (he's under a kilo now). I must say that when the squealing got louder increasing his metacam didn't really have much effect. George has also been on glucosamine for a couple of years. We have it in the form of oxbow joint support lozenges which have 90mg in each. He used to just eat one a day but now he's on AB and off his food I have to grind it up and syringe it with his support food. He started these for arthritis a while ago and they do take a few weeks to have any effect but you don't need a prescription. I got these on Amazon! They have a urinary support version (yellow on packet, JS are purple) but I think these have less glucosamine. Depends on what you are looking for. Some people use Feliway cystease capsules - again don't need a prescription you can just buy as it's classed as a food supplement. These didn't suit George (maybe because he was already messed up from the ABs).

If you are seeing the vet in the morning try and get him through the night with more metacam, get the urine sample and probably they will put you back on antibiotics. How much metacam are you giving and what strength? It will be an unhappy night but not long to wait now. Maybe try a heat pad, rubber hot water bottle (only warm) wrapped in a towel, or even just a warm towel to give him comfort.

In the past I had a girl with a stubborn UTI that was treated with Septrin. After nearly 3 weeks of treatment it came back again after only a few days! But we did another nearly 3 weeks of treatment and that cleared it. The vet didn't even seem surprised - she just said there's a lot of resistance about. The difference there was (1) that her digestion was completely unaffected by it so she was otherwise fine, and (2) that her symptoms pretty much disappeared within the first day or so. George is struggling much more, but whether this is because of a very resistant type of bacteria, or whether his age, or whether his stone is stopping him pushing out pee with a good flow I don't know. I don't get the bacteria/resistance results back till the end of the week here - maybe not till next week - so I hope your labs are faster! There is another forum piggy who is having problems at the minute (called BB) but although young he has more complications: he is recovering from surgery and he has a history of Sterile Interstitial Cystitis (SIC or IC). Hopefully if one of us can get a result it might help the other two.

Hang in there little Kiro x

 

[Shirii]

George had been very wet underneath and cried when he peed. Of course I thought it was the bladder stone but he improved a great deal once we started him on an antibiotic called Septrin (over here) which he was on for 10 days. It affected his digestion and he looked pretty rough and ate a lot less so I was topping him up with about 15ml of syringe food every day, which I included a probiotic and some glucosamine (see below for more info on that). He was much drier underneath within a day or so of starting the AB although he still chirped a bit when he peed. He gets impacted with complicates things. His antibiotics finished on a Sunday, by Monday he was picking up a lot with eating and on Tues and Weds he was stuffing his face with hay all day long and his pooping was much better. Hooray!

But on Thursday he squealed much louder when he peed and there was blood in it. It was every 20 or 30 minutes. You could hear him all over the house. He went into his snuggle bag and didn't come out. He didn't want to eat anything. He was wet through underneath again. So Thursday evening I couldn't bear it any longer and started the Septrin again because I had aa lot left over. By Friday morning we were seeing improvement and it's been exactly the same as before. Dried up down below, much quieter chirping when he pees and not so often, blood tint getting lighter (gone by today) but eating dropped right off again. We couldn't get to the vet till Monday (yesterday) and so our urine sample might or might not have any bacteria in to test for resistance. Usually my vet doesn't do this test, they just prescribe Baytril and if that doesn't work (like in George's case) Septrin. George might have some resistant bacteria or it might just be that the big stone harbours bacteria the antibiotic can't kill off. But because of the pattern of improving on antibiotics and deteriorating after they finish, then improving again I'm pretty sure this is an infection. Is that the pattern you saw... improving with ABs then coming off them and deteriorating? After how many days did he get worse again?

George has been on metacam throughout (the stone and also arthritis... he's been on it for over 2 years). He has about 0.3ml of 1.5mg/ml strength twice a day (he's under a kilo now). I must say that when the squealing got louder increasing his metacam didn't really have much effect. George has also been on glucosamine for a couple of years. We have it in the form of oxbow joint support lozenges which have 90mg in each. He used to just eat one a day but now he's on AB and off his food I have to grind it up and syringe it with his support food. He started these for arthritis a while ago and they do take a few weeks to have any effect but you don't need a prescription. I got these on Amazon! They have a urinary support version (yellow on packet, JS are purple) but I think these have less glucosamine. Depends on what you are looking for. Some people use Feliway cystease capsules - again don't need a prescription you can just buy as it's classed as a food supplement. These didn't suit George (maybe because he was already messed up from the ABs).

If you are seeing the vet in the morning try and get him through the night with more metacam, get the urine sample and probably they will put you back on antibiotics. How much metacam are you giving and what strength? It will be an unhappy night but not long to wait now. Maybe try a heat pad, rubber hot water bottle (only warm) wrapped in a towel, or even just a warm towel to give him comfort.

In the past I had a girl with a stubborn UTI that was treated with Septrin. After nearly 3 weeks of treatment it came back again after only a few days! But we did another nearly 3 weeks of treatment and that cleared it. The vet didn't even seem surprised - she just said there's a lot of resistance about. The difference there was (1) that her digestion was completely unaffected by it so she was otherwise fine, and (2) that her symptoms pretty much disappeared within the first day or so. George is struggling much more, but whether this is because of a very resistant type of bacteria, or whether his age, or whether his stone is stopping him pushing out pee with a good flow I don't know. I don't get the bacteria/resistance results back till the end of the week here - maybe not till next week - so I hope your labs are faster! There is another forum piggy who is having problems at the minute (called BB) but although young he has more complications: he is recovering from surgery and he has a history of Sterile Interstitial Cystitis (SIC or IC). Hopefully if one of us can get a result it might help the other two.

Hang in there little Kiro x

Kiro, like George, has improved a lot on antibiotics. Fortunately it didn't affect his digestion and the vet advised me to only give probiotics if his poops get worse, which fortunately didn't happen.

I stopped the antibiotics on Friday so it was also about 4 days that it got significantly worse after that... And just like with poor George every half hour it's a loud cry... Kiro has his favourite sack too, which is warm for him to crawl into. Even though my apartment is warm, since they are loose on the sheets, I turned the heating on and put the bag underneath heater so he is nice and warm.

With Kiro, it's also likely to be an infection and I'll also ask for urine to be sent straight away for testing, despite the fact that I also didn't hold out and gave him antibiotics I had again..

I don't know how strong the meloxicam I got for Kiro is, they always gave me only some in a syringe so far, but I'll ask for the whole pack this time. The base he is supposed to have at 1,1kg is 0,4ml and max 0,7ml. So far I have increased it again from 0, 4ml to 0, 6ml.

I'll order him Glucosamine for him then. I have a favourite shop in the Czech Republic too that sells all sorts of things for guinea pigs, so maybe I'll find it there!

I'm sure our three musketeers can handle it, they are our little piggy fighters!
All the best to little BB and George as well

 

[Free Ranger]

Little George update - it took about a week being back on Septrin for the pink blood tint to clear from his urine and we are battling a very up-and-down appetite but he is much more comfortable to pee now. He will have been on his antibiotic two weeks this Thursday and the vet wants him to have it for 3 weeks before we stop. Unsurprisingly his urine sample came back negative for bacteria but I think that is a good result as he was on Septrin for 5 days already when it was taken so I am relying that this antibiotic can clear his infection in the end. He is losing weight my poor fellow, but he is doing a lot better than he was and his poops are bigger and better formed since he started to eat more hay. But I think I will have to give him more support food with probiotic (and poop soup from his cagemate!) to see him through to the end of the course.
I hope Kiro is still doing OK!

 

[Shirii]

Little George update - it took about a week being back on Septrin for the pink blood tint to clear from his urine and we are battling a very up-and-down appetite but he is much more comfortable to pee now. He will have been on his antibiotic two weeks this Thursday and the vet wants him to have it for 3 weeks before we stop. Unsurprisingly his urine sample came back negative for bacteria but I think that is a good result as he was on Septrin for 5 days already when it was taken so I am relying that this antibiotic can clear his infection in the end. He is losing weight my poor fellow, but he is doing a lot better than he was and his poops are bigger and better formed since he started to eat more hay. But I think I will have to give him more support food with probiotic (and poop soup from his cagemate!) to see him through to the end of the course.
I hope Kiro is still doing OK!

Am glad that your little fellow is showing some signs of improvement! I hope that he is doing even better now, since yet another week has passed.
As for Kiro infection seems to be gone after almost 6 weeks on antibiotics (in the end we tried 2 different kinds), moloxicam and so on.
But he still acted as he was in pain even though test were no longer positive for blood or infection. That's when vet asked for one more xray to check if she is correct about him being bloated. Which turned out to be true and so for now we switched antibiotics for tympanol, that should help him with bloating.
So I hope this will help him as his crying sounds really painful.

 

[Free Ranger]

How is his weight doing? Is he able to maintain it?
George has completed his 3 weeks of antibiotics with a lot of feeding support. He went down to 900g, skinny boy, but maintained at that for his last week. Now 48 hours later is back on his food with a vengeance. I really hope his infection has gone... if not he has a few more days to bulk up if he can before we have to re-start. Every day I was making about 20ml mixture of recovery food + his glucosamine cookie ground up + some Fibreplex probiotic + some Benebac probiotic + water that had soaked fresh healthy poops from the two girls. And a tiny pinch of sugar to help the poop bacteria grow. I threw in everything I could think of!
He had 4 or 5 ml in the morning to cushion the blow of his antibiotic dose. Then we had a big session at 4pm where I tried to get the rest down him by offering a ml and then tempting him with a tiny bit of leaf. He was OK for 4 or 5 ml then more reluctant but we could always manage 9ml and some days even 15ml. Then a final ml or 2 with his nightly AB dose.
But today he's back to being a big hungry boy: he's been on the hay and grass but ate his own glucosamine lozenge and still managed to hoover up 27ml of support food this afternoon. He was really going for it! But I think the only thing that got him through the antibiotics was the syringe food. This will also help you with your bloat. Piggies don't burp, so any gas has to pass through the system and out the back end. It does that a lot more efficiently when things are going in the front end. Of course, bloat causes pain and slows the guts so they are less keen to eat anything. But topping them up with a smooth slurry of syringe food can help push things though... as can warm soft surfaces to lie on and gentle massage to ease the pain. We used Metacam too and the gut stimulant Emeprid. It really helps if you can add probiotic to the syringe food to repopulate the guts with microbes. If you have a companion pig to use as a source of poop soup that can help a lot too. We have a forum guide to digestive disorders here with a section on bloat: Digestive Disorders: Not Eating - Diarrhea - Bloat - GI Stasis (No Gut Movement)
And if it helps this is from earlier this year when my fluffy girl bloated up after gorging on spring grass First time with bloat - and it's Louise
Be brave Kiro, you will hopefully soon be back on track.