Cheilitis

[piggl]

Is this the start of cheilitis or some leftover food?

 

[piggl]

The first and last pictures were taken when I first saw it and the middle blurry picture is after I tried to remove it. As you can kind of see there are two scabs stuck to the skin still.

They did have tomato yesterday and I didn’t wipe their mouths so perhaps some tomato residue has sat there and made a minor wound which has then scabbed overnight?

 

[Claire W]

Umm it’s hard to say. I think I’d wait and see if anymore ‘scabs’ appear and if they do or whatever it is doesn’t disappear in a day or two, I’d see a vet. Apart from the tomato you fed yesterday, have they had anymore acidic food? x

 

[Wiebke]

Is this the start of cheilitis or some leftover food?

Hi

It just looks like an untidy mouth to me? Cheilitis is scabby sores from an infection in the skin of the lips.
You can find a link with a cheilitis picture here: Guinea Lynx :: Cheilitis

I would recommend that you go easy on tomato and other fruit because the acidity in them when fed on a daily or near daily basis (or too much at once) can promote tiny cracks in the skin of the lips through which a number of germs can get through. In essence cheilitis the is the bumblefoot of the lips - but it is easily avoided. We haven't seen any of it at all in our longer term members since we recommended to ditch fruit and go easy on the tomatoes (which are technically a fruit) for best of the last decade. A small bit of tomato every now and then is fine.

 

[piggl]

Thanks for your replies, I have a vet appointment Thursday anyway if it sticks around.

It was their first time having tomato (a small amount) in about a month, but they do get a bit of fruit weekly. Am I supposed to cut fruit out totally?

 

[piggieminder]

Red had something similar looking to that last year. I took him to the vet twice, they couldn't find a reason. I did some research that suggested some food stuck in the gum. My partner held Red while I looked and he had food stuck round and between the top of his teeth pressing into the gum. Once this was removed he healed quickly with the help of something the vet recommended which I won't name here as I don't want anyone home treating without consulting a vet. The vet that saw Red can't have checked his teeth far enough up, it's worth checking yourself in case.
Good luck at the vet.

 

[Wiebke]

Thanks for your replies, I have a vet appointment Thursday anyway if anything else happens.

It was their first time having tomato (a small amount) in about a month, but they do get a bit of fruit weekly. Am I supposed to cut fruit out totally?

No, unless you happen to have an extremely sensitive piggy and you actually do have a cheilitis issue, which I highly doubt.

About up to 8-10 years ago, fruit used to be a much larger part of a piggy diet (even more so in countries like the USA and Australia), which meant that cheilitis used to be a lot more common. That was before the need for a hay and not veg/pellet based diet started to penetrate more widely.

Cheilitis is actually very, very rare on a good balanced diet with mainly green veg and we see less than a handful of cases on here in a year now.

 

[piggl]

Red had something similar looking to that last year. I took him to the vet twice, they couldn't find a reason. I did some research that suggested some food stuck in the gum. My partner held Red while I looked and he had food stuck round and between the top of his teeth pressing into the gum. Once this was removed he healed quickly with the help of something the vet recommended which I won't name here as I don't want anyone home treating without consulting a vet. The vet that saw Red can't have checked his teeth far enough up, it's worth checking yourself in case.
Good luck at the vet.

I’ll have to look into this tonight when i’m
back home. Thanks for sharing