Specialist Diabetic guinea pigs

[RosieMaia]

I haven't posted in ages here, but I need your advice now. Thanks for everyone who takes the time to read the long post.

In May 2022, following a post on local social media, a two of my friends and me managed to catch and rehome 4 guinea pigs from the local park (hereafter I'm referring to them as "park piggies" to distinguish them from the rest of our herds). They look alike and were all under 500 grams, so we assume they are related. One girl turned out to be pregnant,so that makes it a total of 5 "park pigs".

They've all been now neutered/spayed, and we had to separate them and integrate them in our herds. One park piggy lives with me and my 3 girls, one park girl lives with one of my friends in a herd with 3 other piggies, and my other friend has one park boy living with 5 sows and then a pair of park piggies living on their own in a separate enclosure. In short, they live in different homes and with a number of other pigs.

Their diet is pretty much the same though - timothy and meadow hay in cupious amounts, Versele Laga Cavia Complete / Oxbow adult guinea pig nuggets and grass/leafy greens. All three of us are reasonably experienced piggy owners. My two friends separately noticed their park pigs drinking lots of water, so brought their pigs to be checked and blood sugar levels of more than 20 has been measured in all 4 (reference range is 4-7). Today, I measured the blood sugar of my own park piggy, who this far hasn't been drinking excessive amounts of water, and his blood sugar was 21.8. None of their cage-mates have excess blood sugar (some have been tested for comparison, as blood had to be drawn regardless for other conditions).

So all 5 likely related park pigs appear to be diabetic, despite proper diet, and the rest of their cage mates are fine.

Sorry for the long intro, but I wanted to explain why we think it's a genetic issue and that it's not related to and cannot be managed (only) through diet.

Vet is now looking into ways to control blood sugar. I'm based in Bulgaria, and while I love our vet, guinea pigs are not really a popular pet here, and despite the fact that she's an exotics vet, she hasn't seen this issue before. In her experience, diabetes in rabbits/pigs was manageable with changes in diet, but she does not think this is a viable option in this situation, considering their very high blood sugar level and the fact that their diet is fine to begin with. She's still researching and will get back to us with a treatment plan, but in the meantime, I'd like to make a research of my own.

For now, the pigs (we think they're very young, as they were all under 400/500 grams when we caught them) have no other symptoms except for excess water intake and their eyes seem fine, but I think without treatment, this will soon change.

Has anyone been in a similar boat? How were your piggies treated? How quickly did they respond to the treatment? Was it tablets (metformin or something else) or injectable (insulin)? What dosage was prescribed to your piggy and for what blood sugar level? Did you have to measure their blood sugar at home with a glucometer? Anything else we should be aware of?

Thanks again, reading about any experiences will be very helpful for us.

 

[Wiebke]

Hi

I am very sorry. I was very kind of you and your friends to take in and look after those poor piggies.
The fact that they all have diabetes so badly argues strongly for a genetic tie in your case.
Since the initial fad acout a decade ago when diabetes in guinea pig came onto the scene and was initially overdiagnosed because many vets were not aware that guinea pig urine is naturally high in glucosamine, diabetes has become more usually managed via diet in most cases but the much fewer - like yours - which do not respond to that.

Since I don't have personal experience, I am not up to which medication is currently used for guinea pigs in the UK, though, but other members may have better advice. I would recommend to cut down on the pellets even further.

 

[Wheekallweek]

My Rainbow Bridge boy Larry was diagnosed with diabetes. The vet (who is one of the UKs top guinea pig specialists) said insulin is an option but it is very difficult to get the correct dosage and can be dangerous if it's wrong.
Her only option for him was to try a nd control it with diet. He had a TINY amount of sugar free nuggets, NO sugary veg, root veg or fruit, and only sugar free treats.
On his next visit to check his blood sugar it had dropped from around 17 back to a normal level!
She did mention that high blood sugar in guinea pigs can be exacerbated by stress.

 

[RosieMaia]

Thank you both for your replies. We are waiting for our vet to return from a trip abroad and discuss further, for now we've excluded all veggies and all piggies are on a strickt hay-and-leafy-greens-only diet, but checking my piggy's blood sugar level with an at-home glucometer, it is actually even higher today, so 23 nmol/l, which is astronomical :/ He's quite young, too.

 

[Princess Dustmop]

My only experience with a diabetic guinea pig was about twenty five years ago, so everything has probably changed since that time. She had an oral liquid medication that was given by syringe daily. I don't recall what it was or the dosage, but she lived a happy, spunky, normal piggy life. She loved to steal the syringe and make you chase her around the cage to get it back.
I don't know if hers would have been controllable with diet; we didn't really have a special diet for her, just the medication. Her diet was wrong in many ways, but we were naïve and new to piggies ... fortunately she was smart enough to overcome our stupid (there were sunflower seeds in her pellets; she shelled them and left the shells in her greens bowl for removal).
She was diagnosed by tests following excessive water consumption. At the time, I don't think it was a very common diagnosis, at least not in the US.

 

[Princess Dustmop]

Happened to run into some of the files from 1999 and among them were some receipts from our diabetic pig's vet trips. The medication she was on was glipizide 5mg/mL. I didn't find the dosage, though (not listed on the receipt for the refill), just the concentration. Just thought I'd mention it; I don't know if it's still the medication of choice for treatment.