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Help, browny, yellowy discharge. Sows soaked all down stomach and looks blocked.

Popcorns & Wheeks

Popcorns & Wheeks

Teenage Guinea Pig
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Hi, hoping someone can help me and give me some advice. My vets is closed till tomorrow morning and I'm really panicking. Just got my 4 year old sow out and she is soaking wet in what smells like her urine. Her stomach is soaked in yellowy, brown stuff and it also looks to be coming from her vagina and is blocking it. Here are some pics. Any advice?20221006_231901.webp20221006_231922.webp
 
Unfortunately, I am not one of the forum health experts but my advice would have been to take your piggy to the emergency out-of-hours vets. Not many people are on-line late at night as this is a UK based forum. I hope you have managed to get your piggy seen by your vet this morning. Sending healing thoughts for her.
 
I am not an expert but if her vagina is swollen, she could have a bladder stone stuck in her urethra which is a medical emergency and requires vet treatment right away.

I hope you have either had her seen or can have her seen this morning.

I hope she will be ok x
 
I have only just come online, but I really hope you were able to have her seen as an emergency.
It looks like she has some kind of blockage - either a stone or sludge maybe - which can be treated but needs to be done so urgently.

We are here to support you so please let us know what happens.
 
Hi all, we rushed Heidi to another out of hours vet at 1.30 this morning however, unfortunately did not have an exotic vet on site. He prescribed her metacam to see us through until the morning to make her comfortable until we could get to our exotics vets in the morning. He thought it was a UTI or bladder stones. On coming home we decided to check our 3 other piggies, and found they all seemed to have wet bottoms aswell however nowhere near as severe. It has been a complete nightmare so had to rush all the piggies to vets this morning. My vet thinks Heidi has a severe UTI and all my other piggies have sore bladders too. Hopefully Heidi will be OK if not it's another trip to the vets, I'm praying it isn't bladder stones. Heidi is on metacam for 10 days and nutracyst and my other 3 pigs are on nutracyst too, vet said around 3 weeks. Thanks for your replies and your support x
 
I am still baffled as to what could have caused this. The only change I have made is buying them dry nettles. The vet has told me to steer clear from now on but I honestly thought they would do my piggies good. It may not even be the nettles but nothing else has changed, they are cleaned regularly, on the same diet, get fresh water everyday and get their oxbow biscuits. I wish they could talk and tell me, life would be a lot easier x
 
Nettles (or indeed any other plant) will not cause a UTI.
However nettles can act as a diuretic, so if your piggies were peeing more then this could technically cause wet and sore bottoms.
A lot will also depend on how many nettles you fed and how old and physically capable of keeping themselves clean your piggies are.
If you just fed 1-2 leaves then this is not likely to be related to the current problem, however if you fed quite a lot and this was a new food for your piggies it could have contributed.
 
Due to them being new to their diet I fed sparingly. I would say they've only had around 3 - 4 leaves each since buying them around 10 - 11 days ago. My piggies are always active too and constantly groom themselves so again, I am baffled.
 
Just wondered if anyone had any advice on how to get the urine stains out of Heidi's fur? We have bathed her and used guinea pig wet wipes however, her fur is still very stained and smelly.
 
A bath and making sure bedding is changed more frequently during the illness but the smell and staining may not completely go until the illness is cured and they stop leaking urine.
 
To my knowledge nutracyst is a bladder support similar to cytease? It would help with calming the bladder and cystitis which can potentially be stress related.
Was she prescribed an antibiotic at all (it would be needed to clear an infection)? Just curious!
 
If it's a urinary infection - a bacterial infection - she's going to need antibiotics to shift it. One thing I will add is that in 10 years of piggies when one of mine has gotten a UTI the others haven't. UTI is usually not the sort of thing that's 'catching' - this situation is pretty unusual.

Are any of your piggies male? Or could they have been with a male (even if there was no pregnancy?)
I'm thinking what might be the chances of a piggy STD...? Could the vet perhaps swab for samples?
 
Did your vets obtain a urine sample from any of the girls to check whether they may have a bacterial urinary tract infection? Or a swab to check for infection from the genital tract?
 
Hi everyone, the vet managed to squeeze some urine from Heidi's bladder and test it against one of those urine strips I think. She said her urine was grainy and had protein in it so it was less likely to be bladder stones and thought it was UTI. The smell of her urine really was unpleasant. She gave me metacam and said to administer her 0.4 everyday for 10 days. I asked about antibiotics but vet said she didn't think it was bacterial and the infection hardly ever is, whatever that means.

My 3 other piggies were examed and she said all look to have a little discomfort, (2 sows, 1 neutered boar). There symtoms were nowhere near as severe. There bottoms seemed a little wet, not soaked and on examination they showed a little discomfort. Vet told me she didn't think they had UTIs but definitely sore bladders. I asked her about the possibility of Dexter (my boar) causing this from trying to mate and she said no. I didn't know piggies could get STIs, STDs? Can they?

As I added nettle to their diet, vet said the sore bladders could be due to this or could be stress related due to our move in July but we are now October so....I'm not convinced. She therefore prescribed me nutracyst for all 4 piggies and said it would calm their bladders and their mood if they are stressed.

Heidi was my only piggie who was prescribed metacam for 10 days. Do you think they should still have given her antibiotics? I am now really concerned. I did mention this but vet said it should clear without them. I'm a little reluctant to give antibiotics if not needed due to my Rainbow Bridge piggie going into stasis earlier this year.

Hope this answers all your questions.
 
sarahloo89 said:
Hi everyone, the vet managed to squeeze some urine from Heidi's bladder and test it against one of those urine strips I think. She said her urine was grainy and had protein in it so it was less likely to be bladder stones and thought it was UTI. The smell of her urine really was unpleasant. She gave me metacam and said to administer her 0.4 everyday for 10 days. I asked about antibiotics but vet said she didn't think it was bacterial and the infection hardly ever is, whatever that means.

My 3 other piggies were examed and she said all look to have a little discomfort, (2 sows, 1 neutered boar). There symtoms were nowhere near as severe. There bottoms seemed a little wet, not soaked and on examination they showed a little discomfort. Vet told me she didn't think they had UTIs but definitely sore bladders. I asked her about the possibility of Dexter (my boar) causing this from trying to mate and she said no. I didn't know piggies could get STIs, STDs? Can they?

As I added nettle to their diet, vet said the sore bladders could be due to this or could be stress related due to our move in July but we are now October so....I'm not convinced. She therefore prescribed me nutracyst for all 4 piggies and said it would calm their bladders and their mood if they are stressed.

Heidi was my only piggie who was prescribed metacam for 10 days. Do you think they should still have given her antibiotics? I am now really concerned. I did mention this but vet said it should clear without them. I'm a little reluctant to give antibiotics if not needed due to my Rainbow Bridge piggie going into stasis earlier this year.

Hope this answers all your questions.
Click to expand...

An infection can be caused by faecal bacteria getting into the urinary tract - antibiotics are required to treat this. This is common.

They can get non-bacterial issue called sterile cystitis which obviously, being non bacterial, will not be cured by antibiotics. Pain relief, a bladder support, and a potential change in diet can help but it cannot be cured. It is increasingly believed it can be caused by stress.
This is usually only diagnosed by process of elimination, treating with antibiotics first to make sure any bacteria are eliminated. If it is sterile cystitis then the symptoms may be suppressed but will not be cured and the issue will likely come back.
 
Oh dear, this was not explained to me during the consult and being an extremely cautious and anxious piggie owner I ask a lot of questions to the point I think my vets head may explode!

What would you suggest? Treating her how we have been advised then taking her back if symptoms do not completely subside? Or taking her back sooner and requesting antibiotics? I really don't know what to do, I do not want to annoy my vet but also do not want Heidi deteriorating.

Do you think I should treat Heidi or all my piggies with cystease regularly after the prescribed nutracyst has ran out? I know you can buy cystease easily however not sure about nutracyst.

Heidi does seem brighter today, more active and her eyes are not so tired looking.
 
If it were me I'd be hot-footing it somewhere for some bog standard guinea pig antibiotics. Piggies don't like to be wet down below and in my experience the wetter they are the more serious the issue because that urine (assuming it is indeed urine) is drip-dripping constantly... otherwise she'd dry out. My vets always start with (1) UTI or (2) stones... and maybe both. Sadly they are both pretty common in the list of things that vets see in piggies. The Sterile Interstitial Cystitis (SIC) is something less common - it's getting more recognised but it wouldn't be the first thing to look for.

You get the same sort of symptoms with stones and UTI but UTIs generally clear up pretty quick with an antibiotic, like in a day or two. The metacam is a painkiller and anti-inflammatory but it won't tackle the cause, just ease her symptoms a bit. You don't want these things to hang around, battering the bladder walls and increasing the risk of potential complications. So personally we always start with ABs (and metacam) and if the problem doesn't clear then we think about x-rays. If we can get a urine sample before we start so much the better. But I still think you might be looking at something a bit less common if they all have symptoms - and it's not just a wet tum in your girl; there's a definite discharge in those pics too. And you do have a little boy... hmmmm :hmm: I think in your shoes I would want to discuss having some sort of swab done. If it's something contagious that has been passed around you'd maybe only need the result for one piggy to know what it is? I don't know much about STIs in pigs but I know they can get them. And I'd be kind of thinking, "If I had an STI or URI would I take ibuprofen and hope it clears on it's own or would I be down the clinic for testing and antibiotics" Well, I can tell you I wouldn't hang about! 😅

Personally I think antibiotics get a bit of a bad rep. Some folks consider them as an absolute last resort - for themselves as well as their pets. But I used to be a microbiologist and I guess the daily use of antibiotics in the lab made the idea of them more normal for me. More importantly, none of my pigs have ever had a problem worse than not liking the taste! Some pigs are genuinely sensitive to them and even small doses cause gut problems. But sometimes pigs have had a problem for a while and have been eating less and less un-noticed so that when the antibiotics begin they're already starting from a position of disadvantage. If you've had a bad experience previously it is understandable that you might be nervous about going down that route. But in a different piggy the situation can be completely different.

Good luck, and take care x
 
Does anyone know how long Sulfatrim lasts once opened? I ask as I have nearly a full bottle that I got for my rainbow bridge piggie back at the end of January. Also, it was kept in a garage during the hot weather for around a week whilst moving house so will this have caused it to go bad?
 
There might be a Best Before on the label on the bottle? Often doses are calculated according to weight and the specific ailment - and there is usually a range of active doses so a vet might choose a higher dose for a shorter course or a lower dose for longer - so going 'off piste' is always a gamble. But what I have done in the past is taken any leftover stock into the vet with my poorly pig and, once checked, they often give me the all-clear to use it up, which can save a bit of money. We can't advocate dosing without a vet's say-so because we aren't medically trained and don't know all the ins and outs that a vet picks up on with their examination. But whatever you choose to do, always tell the vet the truth when you see them next!

If your vet offered antibiotics last time but you decided not to go that way at first, you might be able to e-mail them and say you changed your mind and have a prescription put up for collection without taking her back in again. If they actually didn't mention antibiotics I'd probably be looking for a different vet...
 
it is usually viable for 3 weeks once the bottle is opened.i would still recommend you get in touch with your vet for more information.
 
Ok, leaflet says 10 days so is more than likely no good as its been over 8 months. I asked the vet about antibiotics and she said she didn't think Heidi needed them. God, this is so concerning, I do not know what to do.
 
When they tested her urine on the strip it should have told them whether bacteria was present? I have heard sulfatrim is much better as it doesn’t have the nasty side effects Baytril has and it tastes better but it takes a bit longer to start working. I would ask the vets to do another urine sample to check properly for bacteria. Especially as you say the urine smells differant.
 
I'm gonna call vets in the morning and ask if they can prescribe her antibiotics. She is very lethargic today and looks as if she may have lost a little weight. If they won't prescribe me antibiotics then I'm gonna have to find another exotics near me, which I think will be difficult. Just gave her metacam and took more pictures. She still looks severe to me x20221009_224903.webp20221009_224923.webp
 
Her urine really does smell, very fishy. It's the same smell a person would get when having a water infection. Poor girl seems out of it too x
 
Smelly urine can signify an infection.

You say she looks like she has lost weight? Are you weighing her every week as part of routine care? You then need to switch to daily weight checks during any period of illness or where you have concerns about a health issue. It is the only way to monitor hay intake throughout their lives but particularly during a period of illness. If she is losing weight, then you need to step in and syringe feed her to stop any more weight loss.

I would certainly see a vet again
 
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