Chronic Bloating - Advice Appreciated

[sebastianT]

Hello everyone,

One of our guinea pigs (rescued January 2022) has been suffering from a chronic bloating issue since our adoption of her. She's been to the vet at least 6-7 times for a bloating issue since January of last year, and I am beginning to worry about her long term gut health as a result. To clarify, we avoid feeding her any gas inducing veg. Her veggie diet consists mainly of read and green leaf lettuce, occasional (not daily) herbs like cilantro and parsley, and red and green bell pepper - no more than one cup of veggies per day. The medicine which seems to help her the most includes a combination of metronidazole (which I'm told by our vet removes the imbalanced "bad" bacteria that cause her bloating episodes) with "poop soup" probiotic, meloxicam for pain management, and cerenia for gut motility, again these were all prescribed by our vet which is an exotic specialist. This combination always allows our girl to improve and get back to normal, but it is not long after we take her off meds this that she suffers from a relapse in a few months or even sometimes weeks. My wife and I really want to be able to help her kick this issue permanently since she has no other health issues. Our girl has a sister pig who we feed the same diet to, and she has never had an issue with bloat. Both of them share a very large cage, have unlimited access to fresh timothy hay, and clean filtered water as well. We sweep their cages daily and do a weekly deep clean of their enclosure. My wife and I are occasionally able to prevent the bloat from getting severe through massages and syringe feeding, but we have also had a few scary gut stasis scares.

Based on all of this, I was just hoping someone might have gone through a similar experience before. Our vet seems to be at a loss for what we can do to fix this issue long term. Would it be smart to remove all of her veggies and then slowly re-introduce each item one-by-one to see if a specific veg causes this? Would it be ideal to feed her less veggies (like half a cup per day instead of the full cup)? Or is there a possibility that we need to buy fresh veggies more often (if anyone has a reference for how often they buy their veggies I would appreciate it)? Is it possible that this issue is caused by something outside of her veggie intake? Any help or experience with this would be super appreciated, I just want the best for her and I don't want her to continue suffering with this issue.

Thanks!

 

[piggl]

Have you looked into why your girl is getting bloated, either medically or by the diet you are feeding her.

Have you done any x-rays or anything to look for any abnormalities, or even things as simple as a dental check?
She may have trigger foods, have you tried narrowing down her food and seeing if her bloat is consistent with any specific food?

Unfortunately chronic bloat/gut issues is not unheard of and most of the time it comes down to being able to manage the bloat instead of getting rid of it/curing it.
If you have found a “medication cocktail” that works best for your girl, and you’ve ruled out trigger foods/done investigative work then there is a chance you may be on the managing side rather than looking for a cure.

I will attach the forums digestive guide, it can be nice to read through - Digestive Disorders: Not Eating - Diarrhea - Bloat - GI Stasis (No Gut Movement)

Fingers crossed things start to look up from here, or you find a point that works for you all x

 

[sebastianT]

Have you looked into why your girl is getting bloated, either medically or by the diet you are feeding her.

Have you done any x-rays or anything to look for any abnormalities, or even things as simple as a dental check?
She may have trigger foods, have you tried narrowing down her food and seeing if her bloat is consistent with any specific food?

Unfortunately chronic bloat/gut issues is not unheard of and most of the time it comes down to being able to manage the bloat instead of getting rid of it/curing it.
If you have found a “medication cocktail” that works best for your girl, and you’ve ruled out trigger foods/done investigative work then there is a chance you may be on the managing side rather than looking for a cure.

I will attach the forums digestive guide, it can be nice to read through - Digestive Disorders: Not Eating - Diarrhea - Bloat - GI Stasis (No Gut Movement)

Fingers crossed things start to look up from here, or you find a point that works for you all x

Hello! Yes we've looked into the causes by havent really been able to single one out. She's had several medical exams and they dont seem to think the problem is a physical abnormality. I think your suggestion of a trigger food may be the cause, but since we've already removed the food items that most often cause bloat it has been hard to pin down. I may just try to limit her food variety to single foods and then slowly increase the variety again until we introduce a food that may cause it. I will take a read through that guide, thank you for your help!

 

[piggl]

Hello! Yes we've looked into the causes by havent really been able to single one out. She's had several medical exams and they dont seem to think the problem is a physical abnormality. I think your suggestion of a trigger food may be the cause, but since we've already removed the food items that most often cause bloat it has been hard to pin down. I may just try to limit her food variety to single foods and then slowly increase the variety again until we introduce a food that may cause it. I will take a read through that guide, thank you for your help!

I think if I was in your position I would keep note mentally what you did in that day with the pigs, taking in things such as behavior's, any treats etc. you gave and then when she has a flare up you can write that down your mental notes from that day and see if there are any consistencies.
Instead of having to "journal" each day, I think this is how I would go round it.
I am just wondering if you may find something consistent which then may help in the future, or you may find nothing but you will not know until you try I guess.

If you take away all veggies, just feeding say romaine lettuce for one or two days, note if that changed anything. Then feed romaine lettuce and bell pepper, for example. Once you have gotten to the end of her veggies fed, with no reaction, then it should be safe to continue with these.

You asked about fresh veggies, I personally buy veggies once a week, and things that are more long term (a whole celery for example) get used until they are either out of date or going a bit 'funny'. I would not give any vegetables that are going off, but I am not sure if 'fresh' veggies would make a difference.
So for example we go through a romaine lettuce, a packet of bell peppers, a cucumber and some herbs in one week (through the pigs and my family eating it), so I buy these weekly. But everything else just depends on when I buy it for the humans in the house.