Choking/coughing noise

[Alvinsfam]

Hello! I’m wondering if anyone has any advice on what signs you can look out for to tell if your guinea pig has aspirated their food.

My guinea pig is about a year old and (we think) has a history of aspirating his food when we only had him for about 4 months. At the time, he had pneumonia, which compromised one of his lungs completely. He was not expected to make it; however, with a stay at the emergency vet, he made a full recovery. His follow up X-ray even showed a clear lung.

Prior to this incident, we would often see him eating very fast and he would sometimes make a choking noise or coughing noise. That was the only weird thing.

He hasn’t made that noise since and I think has been eating more slowly as time went on. Tonight, he was being loved on outside of his cage with his friends and they all got a treat. He was really excited and after eating his treat (very quickly), he made that same noise several times and it looked like his body was tensing up at points.

I totally freaked out and was debating taking him to animal emergency; however, after a few minutes, he returned to normal and hasn’t made the noise since.

I plan to contact my normal exotic vet tomorrow just to see if there are any recommendations, but I guess I just wanted to know if aspirating for guinea pigs is kind of a “freak thing”, meaning something I probably don’t need to worry about in the sense that it’s not super common to repeatedly happen. I’ve read multiple posts and watched multiple videos online tonight and it seems this is a fairly common noise among guinea pigs when they eat too fast. Some posts say it could simply be guinea pig hiccups or them having something they are trying to cough up.

As you can imagine, it was extremely traumatic the first time this happened with him because nobody thought he would recover like he did. It was truly a miracle. I’m just very worried it might be happening again

 

[Wiebke]

Hello! I’m wondering if anyone has any advice on what signs you can look out for to tell if your guinea pig has aspirated their food.

My guinea pig is about a year old and (we think) has a history of aspirating his food when we only had him for about 4 months. At the time, he had pneumonia, which compromised one of his lungs completely. He was not expected to make it; however, with a stay at the emergency vet, he made a full recovery. His follow up X-ray even showed a clear lung.

Prior to this incident, we would often see him eating very fast and he would sometimes make a choking noise or coughing noise. That was the only weird thing.

He hasn’t made that noise since and I think has been eating more slowly as time went on. Tonight, he was being loved on outside of his cage with his friends and they all got a treat. He was really excited and after eating his treat (very quickly), he made that same noise several times and it looked like his body was tensing up at points.

I totally freaked out and was debating taking him to animal emergency; however, after a few minutes, he returned to normal and hasn’t made the noise since.

I plan to contact my normal exotic vet tomorrow just to see if there are any recommendations, but I guess I just wanted to know if aspirating for guinea pigs is kind of a “freak thing”, meaning something I probably don’t need to worry about in the sense that it’s not super common to repeatedly happen. I’ve read multiple posts and watched multiple videos online tonight and it seems this is a fairly common noise among guinea pigs when they eat too fast. Some posts say it could simply be guinea pig hiccups or them having something they are trying to cough up.

As you can imagine, it was extremely traumatic the first time this happened with him because nobody thought he would recover like he did. It was truly a miracle. I’m just very worried it might be happening again

Hi

Please take a deep breath.

It looks like the normal body defenses have worked and the offending bit that has gone down the wrong way has been coughed up again if it was something solid.
The other - much more common - issue that could apply is that greedy piggies swallow too much air when gobbling down their food and can then cough or hiccup during or after eating to bring up that excess air. This is harmless.

Aspiration is generally not a big problem in adults because their immune system is fully operational and their airways are larger in comparison so pneumonia from aspiration is pretty rare; that is not the case in youngsters where it can cause pneumonia and even more so in nursing babies where it will inevitably cause pneumonia and be fatal.

 

[Alvinsfam]

Hi

Please take a deep breath.

It looks like the normal body defenses have worked and the offending bit that has gone down the wrong way has been coughed up again if it was something solid.
The other - much more common - issue that could apply is that greedy piggies swallow too much air when gobbling down their food and can then cough or hiccup during or after eating to bring up that excess air. This is harmless.

Aspiration is generally not a big problem in adults because their immune system is fully operational and their airways are larger in comparison so pneumonia from aspiration is pretty rare; that is not the case in youngsters where it can cause pneumonia and even more so in nursing babies where it will inevitably cause pneumonia and be fatal.

Thank you so much for your reply. This information makes me feel a lot better. He’s been very normal since it happened last night (popcorning, eating, drinking, etc.)

Our vet also just recommended to keep an eye on him, but didn’t think he needed to come in for a check based on the information.