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Guinea stopped eating, dental problems, fixed it in surgery, won't eat during recovery and now it's not pooping like it should.

Basti & Dulce

Basti & Dulce

New Born Pup
Joined
May 15, 2020
Messages
33
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23
Points
200
Location
Brazil
Hey, everyone,

So, Basti started to eat less and less a few weeks ago, started losing weight and we went to investigate only to find out she was having dental problems. X-Ray detected some anomaly in her jaw and teeth, she went to surgery and the doctor said that "things were pretty messy in there". She had some teeth growing outwards (to her cheeks), one molar was bad positioned down there, like having a gap and positioned where it shouldn't be (doctor said it was weird and may be genetic), but he did what he could. Filed down what was in need and cleaned everything there. Now, for recovery, we are syringe feeding her for a little less than a week and she was pooping just fine. However, 2 days ago, she just stopped pooping. Syringe feeding is not being an easy task, we don't have "Critical Care"-like products in here, so we're turning her pellets into a paste and feeding her. However, after 10 to 12ml she gets really agitated, annoyed and refuses to eat.

Now that she's not pooping anymore, we are wondering: is she having some gut problems? Are we feeding her too little? Will she really be able to recover? Is she "clogged" somehow and feeding her is doing more harm than good? Has anyone had a similar situation like this?

Please, any advice is appreciated. Doctor said that if it's something that she won't be able to fully recover, the recommended procedure is euthanasia, for we won't be able to syringe feed her for life: not good for her, not good for us, it's just a "no, can't do". But this is SO hard and sad to accept/acknowledge.

Would be great to have some new ideas or encouragement here. Thank you in advance!
 
I’m so sorry, I understand what you are going through and it’s horrible for your piggie and you. I have had a piggie with dental spurs growing into his cheek too. I was really lucky to find a marvellous vet who filed his molar consciously using a little gag and mouth separator.
I would keep on syringe feeding as much as you can and weigh her daily at the same time. You are looking to maintain weight, if she is losing weight then she isn’t getting enough to eat. Have a look at our syringe feeding guide in the Guinea pig info section in the green bar. Poop output is about 24 hours behind.
Ask your vet for Metacam/Meloxicam pain relief and anti inflammatory as your piggie won’t want to try and eat if she is 8n any pain, also try and hand feed her little tit bits of veggies or small amounts of grass
Good luck
 
Basti & Dulce said:
Hey, everyone,

So, Basti started to eat less and less a few weeks ago, started losing weight and we went to investigate only to find out she was having dental problems. X-Ray detected some anomaly in her jaw and teeth, she went to surgery and the doctor said that "things were pretty messy in there". She had some teeth growing outwards (to her cheeks), one molar was bad positioned down there, like having a gap and positioned where it shouldn't be (doctor said it was weird and may be genetic), but he did what he could. Filed down what was in need and cleaned everything there. Now, for recovery, we are syringe feeding her for a little less than a week and she was pooping just fine. However, 2 days ago, she just stopped pooping. Syringe feeding is not being an easy task, we don't have "Critical Care"-like products in here, so we're turning her pellets into a paste and feeding her. However, after 10 to 12ml she gets really agitated, annoyed and refuses to eat.

Now that she's not pooping anymore, we are wondering: is she having some gut problems? Are we feeding her too little? Will she really be able to recover? Is she "clogged" somehow and feeding her is doing more harm than good? Has anyone had a similar situation like this?

Please, any advice is appreciated. Doctor said that if it's something that she won't be able to fully recover, the recommended procedure is euthanasia, for we won't be able to syringe feed her for life: not good for her, not good for us, it's just a "no, can't do". But this is SO hard and sad to accept/acknowledge.

Would be great to have some new ideas or encouragement here. Thank you in advance!
Click to expand...

Hi

Which country are you in? That would help.

Please feed the more often the less you get in with one sitting. You are aiming for around 60-90 ml survival minimum in a day. It is likely that the teeth have started to overgrow again without any silica rich grass/hay fibre to grind them down. No poos mean that not enough food has gone into her yesterday.
Guinea pigs with malocclusion may need ideally conscious dental adjustments initally every 10-14 days to prevent over growth. A UK vet has shown that this is the best way to deal with dental issues.

@furryfriends (TEAS)

Complete Syringe Feeding Guide (also see chapter about dental guinea pigs for what you can feed in terms of veg etc.
 
Thank you for your replies! So good to understand that both of you found great vets who could overcome your piggie's problems. I'm in Brazil and I'm really not sure how well prepared the vets are around here.
For example, what I see my piggie doing, lately (and it breaks my heart), is that she goes up to her food container and just keeps still, like looking at it. But not really eating, not even trying to. Water she is fine, she drinks just fine. Picking grass and other veggies that we feed her, kinda fine too, but not as it used to be. She used to be faster and eat faster too. Now, it all seems a little slower.
I really can't tell if she's in pain, if there's anything hurting inside her mouth, it's all very complicated. What I can OBSERVE is that she - when she does try - tries to pick the pellet and it seems like it's falling off her mouth. It goes to the ground, she bites it again and it falls again, this loop keeps going for several times until she finally seems to get tired (of course).
We tried feeding her more and now poop is showing here and there (so happy). I was afraid she was "clogged", well, glad to know she's not.
Bill & Ted said:
I would keep on syringe feeding as much as you can and weigh her daily at the same time. You are looking to maintain weight, if she is losing weight then she isn’t getting enough to eat. Have a look at our syringe feeding guide in the Guinea pig info section in the green bar.
Click to expand...
Already did look at the feeding guide, thank you so much, it was very helpful.

What I fear is that sometimes it looks as if she "unlearned" how to use her mouth, you know what I mean? Can this be a thing? And it also seems to me that whenever she is chewing (when we syringe feed her), her whole cranium is trepidating more than it should. The teeth grinding inside, I don't know what can be happening.

About the teeth growing back again, the vet said it's gonna take a little more time when I asked him about a vicious loop. Because I thought "ok, teeth filed, but she's not eating, then teeth will grow back again, all the problem will happen again". But he said that maybe she still has something "hurt" inside her mouth because of the spurs, so that's why she's not even trying to eat. And teeth won't grow back faster than the wounds healing. I don't know. :(

The thing is: she's taking pain medication, but most of the time seems like her appetite is not good enough, she looks uninterested in the "hard" food (pellets). When she vaguely tries, the aforementioned problem happens and she gives up.

I really feel like I can't explain myself clearly and don't know what information could be of help.
 
Is she on any painkillers?
Are you weighing her daily? This is important so you can be sure she is getting enough critical care in each 24 hour period to keep her weight stable.
How much syringe feed is she getting in each 24 hour period?

If she isn’t on pain medication and is still sore then that will put her off eating, if the dental didnt solve all the problem or was done incorrectly, or (and I can’t see an actual timeline of how long it has been since her dental work), then without chewing hay or grass her teeth could have overgrown again.
 
Piggies&buns said:
Is she on any painkillers?
Are you weighing her daily? This is important so you can be sure she is getting enough critical care in each 24 hour period to keep her weight stable.
How much syringe feed is she getting in each 24 hour period?

If she isn’t on pain medication and is still sore then that will put her off eating, if the dental didnt solve all the problem or was done incorrectly, or (and I can’t see an actual timeline of how long it has been since her dental work), then without chewing hay or grass her teeth could have overgrown again.
Click to expand...
Yes, she's taking a painkiller medication and we're weighing her daily. She's mantaining her weight and also gaining some. Syringe feeding her is pretty hard because after 10ml or something, she gets really upset and stressed out. We're trying to feed her every 1h30m or 2h. Still, seems like it's always "too soon" and, during the day, she gets stressed out faster at every feeding.

She got her dental problem done on March 1st. So, nine days today. Hay doesn't seem very interesting to her, but we're providing grass and she eats fine, like I mentioned earlier: not as fast as it used to be, but she eats it all. Also, if the mere action of chewing is kind of enough to grind their teeth, she does that even when we syringe feed her.

I believe we'll visit the vet again tomorrow or Saturday, depending on his schedule. Maybe this would be more appropriate to discuss what may be happening to her.

And another question: how "easy" it is to syringe feed her in a wrong way (to aspire food)? I'm only asking because I'm feeding her as instructed by the guide provided here, but sometimes I gotta try to be fast and pump the 1ml into her mouth and not always is "perfect". I never introduce the syringe too deep, only maybe 1.5cm past her front incisors. Is this completely safe? I'm just asking to be extra-cautious. The last thing I want is to be doing something to make her even worse.
 
Basti & Dulce said:
Yes, she's taking a painkiller medication and we're weighing her daily. She's mantaining her weight and also gaining some. Syringe feeding her is pretty hard because after 10ml or something, she gets really upset and stressed out. We're trying to feed her every 1h30m or 2h. Still, seems like it's always "too soon" and, during the day, she gets stressed out faster at every feeding.

She got her dental problem done on March 1st. So, nine days today. Hay doesn't seem very interesting to her, but we're providing grass and she eats fine, like I mentioned earlier: not as fast as it used to be, but she eats it all. Also, if the mere action of chewing is kind of enough to grind their teeth, she does that even when we syringe feed her.

I believe we'll visit the vet again tomorrow or Saturday, depending on his schedule. Maybe this would be more appropriate to discuss what may be happening to her.

And another question: how "easy" it is to syringe feed her in a wrong way (to aspire food)? I'm only asking because I'm feeding her as instructed by the guide provided here, but sometimes I gotta try to be fast and pump the 1ml into her mouth and not always is "perfect". I never introduce the syringe too deep, only maybe 1.5cm past her front incisors. Is this completely safe? I'm just asking to be extra-cautious. The last thing I want is to be doing something to make her even worse.
Click to expand...

As long as she is actively taking food from the syringe, then the risk is comparatively low. Just try to be a little more patient and a little slower. Feeding is a tedious process...

The risk is much higher with larger syringes that come suddenly unstuck and then empty quite a lot into the mouth at once because you are pushing pretty hard; and it is also much higher with weak/very ill piggies that struggle to swallow and are not actively taking food from the syringe. In newborn babies anything that goes down the wrong way is pretty much always fatal with only very few exceptions.
 
I'm wondering if the back teeth were ground OK but the front teeth were not trimmed at the same time? This is why...

I had a sow that had trouble eating - we think it was actually trouble swallowing - as she kept the syringe food in her mouth for ages chewing at it. At first I was putting too much food into her mouth and that meant she choked a couple of times, and that made her fearful, and then she was fighting the syringe more. This little girl couldn't eat anything else at all so she had to have enough syringe food to keep her going. She had 35 - 45ml recovery food a day and it took literally hours... 5 feed sessions each around 1 to 1.5 hours each just sitting on the floor with the radio on (or outside on a bench, she seemed to relax more in the sunshine)... no more than 0.5ml at a time and usually less. She maintained her lower weight at 950g for 6 weeks but had antibiotics most of this. She also had painkiller and gut stimulant (emeprid) to keep everything moving. She was not fed between 11pm-6.30/7am as we both needed our sleep! She was OK usually for about 10ml but when I tried to push for 12 or 15 on a few occasions it was too much - she staggered away after and laid sort of on one side so she must have been very uncomfortable.
She was 3 1/2 when she stopped eating at first - her teeth were overgrown a little - vet told me that the overgrown teeth might be a symptom of some other problem and that was probably the case. Sometimes they get an abscess in the jaw but feeling along the jawline there was no swelling or indication of pain. But we started antibiotics after the tooth grinding just in case there was something and returned her to a low dose throughout to guard against resp infection. It was hard. She was actually in good physical condition right up to the end and trotted round the garden with her cage-mate. It was really sad for us all.

Anyway, the symptom you noticed of her picking up the hard nugget and dropping it again, or just looking into the pellet bowl, we saw that too. In our case it was because the vet ground down her back teeth but did not touch the incisors at first and these were also at their limit - and then of course kept growing. Sometimes the front incisors wear to a slant which indicates a problem with the back teeth but Ivy's were straight across so didn't look like there was any problem. A few weeks of syringe feeding later and she was back for a checkup with a different vet who said, "this guinea-pig can't close her mouth!" Her 4 front teeth (top and bottom pairs) were then 'burred' shorter. This can be done quickly in about 10 minutes without anaesthetic using a small device which is apparently a bit like a circular saw(!) In the old days vets would 'clip' the front teeth of rabbits and piggies shorter but this 'burr' is safer as there is less chance of the teeth splitting. My vet actually burred her too short and she came back gummy, swollen, and very angry - I cried to see her. She still had to be syringed, but on the plus side I could feel immediately that her chewing action was smoother and faster because the long incisors had prevented her chewing properly. I'd also seen her trying to 'bite' at wooden things, presumably to wear down those incisors but she couldn't do it alone. After about a week her front teeth had grown back enough for her to be able to carefully pick up her nugget from the food bowl and run off with it to eat but my poor girl still couldn't eat it. I was soaking these and supplementing her syringe food with soft nuggets but she didn't take anything on her own at all from the point she first stopped eating. She tried once or twice a blade of grass but almost immediately was a sort of 'retching' face with open mouth and twisting neck to get that blade back out. After 6 weeks of this she went quite suddenly downhill and we made a final journey to the vet for pts 😪

Your girl sounds like she really wants to eat and is still able to do a bit which is good news. The bulk of their diet is hay (80%) so ideally she will want to get back onto that but grass is also good for wearing teeth down. Get your vet to check the front biting teeth - are they worn to a slant, are they straight across, and especially are they too long! Tell him/her about the slower chewing and the difficulty with hard pellets. Also try to soak the pellets and leave the soft ones on a plate for her to take and eat alone as she might be able to manage this.

PS - how old is she?

Good luck Basti x
 
Wiebke said:
As long as she is actively taking food from the syringe, then the risk is comparatively low. Just try to be a little more patient and a little slower. Feeding is a tedious process...

The risk is much higher with larger syringes that come suddenly unstuck and then empty quite a lot into the mouth at once because you are pushing pretty hard; and it is also much higher with weak/very ill piggies that struggle to swallow and are not actively taking food from the syringe. In newborn babies anything that goes down the wrong way is pretty much always fatal with only very few exceptions.
Click to expand...
Yes, I think I'm doing a pretty decent job syringe feeding her. She seems to take it almost fine, but then again, I believe my girls are pretty scared (as always were) so it's not like something that she would find pleasureable. But, still, I'm doing alright, I think. Several days in, she's behaving just fine and nothing bad happened, I think it's alright.
Free Ranger said:
Your girl sounds like she really wants to eat and is still able to do a bit which is good news. The bulk of their diet is hay (80%) so ideally she will want to get back onto that but grass is also good for wearing teeth down. Get your vet to check the front biting teeth - are they worn to a slant, are they straight across, and especially are they too long! Tell him/her about the slower chewing and the difficulty with hard pellets. Also try to soak the pellets and leave the soft ones on a plate for her to take and eat alone as she might be able to manage this.

PS - how old is she?
Click to expand...
First of all, thanks for your reply! Kinda sad to know that your piggies didn't make it through, so it saddened me a little. However, we told about the front incisors to the vet and he trimmed it down a bit, cleaned, did everything he could. Since it was somewhat of a "surgery" (anaesthesia and all), he had a considerable time to really look into it.

Basti is 3 and a half.

About her eating, she takes the syringe food just fine, chews on it a little, swallows ok. Grass is also no problem at all. I'm watching her chewing on some right now as I type this message. However, hay and the hard pellets I don't see her too much interested in it. Like I mentioned in eariler posts, sometimes it's like she "can't use her mouth" anymore or even worse, like she's completely uninterested in her food. Someone told this can be a kinda lenghty process, so...we're taking her to the vet tomorrow to have another analysis.

And, yes, Free Ranger, this is something that tears me apart: seeing a "perfectly healthy" piggie (well, in everything else, I mean) and maybe still existing the need to put her down. This is heartbreaking.

I'll try to bring some good news from the vet. For now, thank you so much for the kind words and cheering for her. I'm pretty sad, but still hanging on to some hope.
 
If she only needs to chew a little before she swallows her syringe food that's a good sign. My Ivy would chew, chew, chew even if it was really runny. I think that rather than swallow properly it must have just trickled down eventually. But your girl is eating on her own - she still wants to eat.
I don't know how overgrown the teeth were. I've heard of severe cases where the jaw has been stretched a little so the muscles need to tighten up a bit for proper eating afterwards. Someone told me about a 'chin sling' that supports slack jawed piggies! But I'm assuming those cases are very severe. I've also heard that pigs can lose confidence after a dental - they try to eat in their usual way but can't and they almost have to relearn. If she's eating enough grass to keep the teeth down and if she can eat syringe food to keep her guts going it sounds pretty positive to be honest. Will she take the syringe slurry from a little bowl instead of the syringe? If she can eat it on her own it will help you both feel better about things... x
 
Hey, everyone! Passing by to give a reply about Basti:

So...we were almost losing hope, but after two weeks of the back teeth trimmed, we noticed the pellets were running short on her bowl. She was eating on her own. Not that much, not the amount she needs to keep her weight or even getting fat, but she was eating and we took this as a good sign. However...I got to see her eating and it still puzzles me that she can't pick the pellets properly. She has to give it two, three or four go's until it finally enters her mouth and she starts chewing. So, I'm not sure what's happening. Guess I'll visit the vet again and ask for advice. Maybe another trim? I can't understand what may be preventing her from picking food properly. Like Free Ranger said, I don't know if she "forgot" how to eat. Her front teeth look perfectly fine (and I'm comparing with her sister Dulce), the size looks ok, the angle, everything looks fine. Grass, vegetables and some other stuff she picks just fine. The pellets, no no.

So...we are still syringe feeding her, the "extreme vibration" that we used to feel prior to the trim is way better, I'm trying to gently touch her jaw while she is eating and both sided feel symmetric (but what do I know, right?) and the lateral movement seems ok.

So, I guess this is it; we're pretty thankful that our beloved piggie is still with us and is somehow improving. After the vet, I stop by to give another update, hopefully a great one.

If any of you have some more advice or knows what I may be missing, please, help us out. Thanks once again for all the replies and cheers for Basti! <3

EDIT: Oh, I almost forgot! Is it normal, when syringe feeding a piggie, when she chews opening her mouth really wide? Sometimes she does that and we have no idea what's happening. The regular movement is her mouth almost closed and the jaw moving slightly sideways. But sometimes she chews like us, humans. Up and down movements, sometimes opening her mouth REALLY wide. She also, sometimes, tilt her head or does some movement while doing this. Any ideas?!
 
I'm so happy she's still with us, and is improving a little. If her incisors are OK I can't really think of anything else. She might just be trying to manipulate a rather large mouthful of mush into/out of her cheeks to tackle it... normally they only bite off as much as they can chew but if we massive humans are 'helping' it's more of a challenge!
 
Free Ranger said:
I'm so happy she's still with us, and is improving a little. If her incisors are OK I can't really think of anything else. She might just be trying to manipulate a rather large mouthful of mush into/out of her cheeks to tackle it... normally they only bite off as much as they can chew but if we massive humans are 'helping' it's more of a challenge!
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Thanks for the reply! That makes a lot of sense! I was worried she might be choking a little, or something like that. But, as I said, so far, so good. She seems ok and we just had another X-ray to analyze how things are going inside her mouth. I believe I'll know something up to friday.

Unfortunately, the improvement is no longer happening. Maybe the "still unknown cause" is happening again. Seems like she has a tooth that is growing in an unexpected way or is even bad positioned in the jaw line. I'm no doctor, I can't explain this properly, but thing is we are considering taking this bad tooth out, maybe.

Well, I'm doing everything in (and almost out of) my power to get her going. Money related, things aren't great for me right now, but I'm really going out of my way to do whatever I can for her. At least, if no solutions are found and things go for worse, I can say that I tried in any possible way.
 
Fingers crossed she’s ok, dental problems are awful. taking a tooth out is really not an answer as the opposing tooth will then grown out of alignment and not wear against anything and grow long. Keep going as you are, top her up with syringe feeds and try encourage her to eat by hand feeding her some favourite morsels.
I’m not sure about her open8ng her mouth wide, is it a gagging movement?
 
Taking out an incisor is an option although the jawbone at the front is delicate, but taking out a back tooth isn't really viable I don't think. At least that's what my vet said when we were discussing Ivy's problems one time. It's because the teeth just keep growing.

This is a video of another piggy Zara. She's eating some cucumber here but was on the syringe food at this time because she couldn't eat hay. You see how she pushes her lower jaw out and chews with open mouth. It's because the bottom incisor (on the left as you look) had a crack that was causing her pain. She is trying not to catch that tooth on the top ones as she chews. A temporary fix was to burr (not clip) about 2 mm from the affected tooth meaning it was a little shorter than it's neighbour which took the pressure off and allowed her to eat hay again with a much better chewing action - the molars were not affected at all.
Zara before dental.gif
Unfortunately this did not last and the vet had to remove the tooth. My girl did not recover from the anaesthetic and passed at home within the next couple of days. This was tragic as the op had actually gone very well and was over quickly but she just couldn't seem to get up and going again after. Teeth are very tricky things to pinpoint the original problem and then any secondary issues - sometimes they get an abscess in the jaw that stops them biting and chewing properly but the vet should feel around for swellings and painful spots to try and see this. Sometimes the roots at the top can grow long and put pressure on the eyeballs (crazy - I know) but there are usually eye-related symptoms to look out for. You are doing great for Basti and giving her the best chance. Good luck x
 
So, it's been more than a month without notice, I'm here again to post some updates (good ones, I believe):
We were syringe feeding Basti for more than a month, waiting to see if something would happen, maybe some "miraculous recovery", since she still could eat hay and grass.
One day, we noticed the pellets were getting few and we decided to stop syringe feeding her. She had an episode of LOTS of excitement (maybe heat related, we don't know) when she got almost electrical. Running, standing on the back feet, vocalizing a lot, seemed pretty crazy - like she wanted BADLY to interact with her sister (which is separated from her since they fought bad).
It was a bit worrying and the vet recommended some sort of natural extract to calm her down. We started giving her this thing and then she just started eating again. She seemed very very scared all the time these last months (maybe because we were catching her all the time to syringe feed, I don't know) and I started thinking if this could be ONE of the problems she didn't want to eat. Oh, there was also the thing she was biting her own fur, becoming bald on the legs and arms...she stopped doing that too, hair is growing back again, normally.
So, thing now is: she is eating. Not that much, but enough to keep going. She's not gaining weight, but is not losing. I'd really like that she would eat more hay and pellets, but to see her improving and eating on her own is amazing.
One thing I'm noticing is that she's not eating the pellets whole (putting a whole pellet in the mouth), she grabs it, it falls to the floor and she starts cracking it and chewing bits, that leaves a lot of crumbles near the food container...but she's eating. Teeth seems to be normal so far, we're watching her closely for almost 2 weeks since she started eating on her own.
So, that's it: I don't know exactly what to think, but things seem to be improving. At least for now. She's a little bit scared still, but we stopped ALL medicine and she is going.
Thank you all for the kind words and cheering for her. Hope it keeps this way and getting better all the time.
Dulce, so far, is great: vets said that a neutering surgery would be necessary, but she took some medicine (just to improve her condition for surgery) and got 100% going. No more liquid stool, no more lethargia, she's just amazing. Eating, playing, everything is great, so we are letting her be.
Thanks once again for all the help! :)))
 
Thank you for the updates. All the best for your two girls; I hope that the positive trend continues.
 
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