• Discussions taking place within this forum are intended for the purpose of assisting you in discussing options with your vet. Any other use of advice given here is done so at your risk, is solely your responsibility and not that of this forum or its owner. Before posting it is your responsibility you abide by this Statement

Malocclusion in my 1-year old piggy

G

GregoryAlonzo

New Born Pup
Joined
Jul 21, 2022
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
Points
20
Location
estonia
Hello!

I'm posting this in desperation. My 1 year-old guinea pig Gregory hasn't eaten properly in 2 months. We have gone to the vet basically every week for 2 months and he's had 2 surgeries to fix his teeth.

His back teeth keep growing too long, to the point that he has mouth ulcers before his surgeries.

Now i'm at a point, where my vet is suggesting euthanasia, since he isn't getting any better. In fact, he is getting worse. He should be weighing about 950g, but currently his weight has dropped to 500g. He's just skin and bones and i'm terrified of having to put him down. So i made an agreement with my vet, that i would be willing to let him go if his weight drops to 450g. I don't want him to suffer :(

I feed him every day. Fortunately, he seems to have an appetite and whenever he wheeks for food, i feed him. I don't know exactly how much he eats each time, but i don't stop feeding him until he gets grumpy. He also gets pain medications twice a day - 2x 0.2ml of meloxicam. My vet said that it's the maximum dose, and i don't dare to give him more in case he does recover and bigger does would screw with his health any other way.

My question is, what can i do? I don't want to lose my darling lil boy and i don't think i could take a new piggie for my other guinea pig. I'm willing to try literally anything to get him even a little better.
 
Hello and welcome. I am very sorry for your little boy :( Sadly Malocclusion in guinea pigs can be genetic which due to his young age, sounds like that’s what’s happening with your piggy.

My Enoch had malocclusion and his teeth grew inwards trapping his tongue so he struggled to eat. He was only young so my vets said his was genetic

Sadly, only you can make the decision whether to have his euthanised. You need to look at the quality of his life and remember that it’s quality of life over quantity

You may find the following link helpful A Practical and Sensitive Guide to Dying, Terminal Illness and Euthanasia in Guinea Pigs
 
I’m so sorry for you, I have been through the anguish of having a dental piggies, he had a spur growing toward into his cheek causing ulceration. We were lucky to be able to travel a 600 miles trip to have the spur filed consciously by a great vet but if we hadn’t found him we would have had to evaluate his quality of life too
It’s a very heart rendering decision but always made from love x
 
I’m so sorry. Is the pain medication the dog or the cat one? I have a pig who weighs over a kilo and his dose is 0.4ml twice a day. So that does sound about right for your piggy. I’ll tag in a dental expert as they may be able to offer some advice @furryfriends (TEAS).

If he’s still losing weight you need to syringe more feed into him. I’m syringe feeding a piggy at the moment and he’s just put on a tiny bit of weight (10g) and we fed him 54ml yesterday.

Good luck. It’s so exhausting looking after a sick piggy. You are doing great.
 
Bill & Ted said:
I’m so sorry for you, I have been through the anguish of having a dental piggies, he had a spur growing toward into his cheek causing ulceration. We were lucky to be able to travel a 600 miles trip to have the spur filed consciously by a great vet but if we hadn’t found him we would have had to evaluate his quality of life too
It’s a very heart rendering decision but always made from love x
Click to expand...
My pig has the same problem, where do you go to get your dentals done without anesthetic if you don’t mind me asking?
 
I’m ever so sorry you’re having to go through this. I know exactly how you’re feeling as my pig Claude suffers with the same thing. There is hope though!
Since Nov 21 he has been in and out of the vets after losing his appetite due to dental problems caused by a benign lump on the side of his face. It seems like we were going round in circles, he’d have a dental, get better for a while only to deteriorate again about 4 weeks later. He lost a lot of weight, he used to be a very chunky boy at 1.4kg and at his worst he was a mere 640g! It was heartbreaking to see him skin and bone to the point where the skin around his eyes was dropping he was that skinny. But I never lost hope, I would give him at least 10x 15ml syringes a blended mix of critical care with veggies and nuggets every day and he began to gain weight again. Took him back to the vet to have his teeth done for a third time and since then he’s been eating on his own and is now back up to 960g! My vet did advise however that it probably isn’t wise to continue with regular dentals under anesthetic and she did hint at putting him to sleep. So we went to visit the Guinea Pig Vet in Matlock, Derbyshire (cannot recommend her enough!) she was brilliant and told us that it is something we cannot cure but can manage with twice daily metacam at the maximum dosage and she recommended having conscious dentals going forward. I think in your position I would pump your piggy with as much food as possible and as often as possible to give him a good chance of making it through surgery which will hopefully give him the opportunity to make himself better and eat on his own. The fact that he still has an appetite is a really good sign that he wants to fight this! Claude never lost his appetite only his ability to actually eat because it was so painful for him. Also, I don’t know what nuggets you feed your pig, but I switched to Science Selective and Claude can’t get enough of them and I think they’ve helped Claude gain all the weight in a relatively short amount of time. I hope this helps or gives you some hope at least! Wish you both well, keep us posted! X
 
@2timespigs you will need to look at the Cat and Rabbit Clinic in Northampton. They will now take referrals from other vets - linking in to the forum info
The Cat and Rabbit Clinic, Northampton - Referrals for guinea pigs with dental issues

@GregoryAlonzo there is unfortunately not much more that we can recommend in your situation. It is heartbreaking when a piggy is born this way. My George is an old boy with arthritis and he gets roughly 0.3ml meloxicam twice a day but it is the stronger 1.5mg/ml dog version rather than the 0.5mg/ml cat version which is the one recently licensed for guinea pig use (and thus many vets stopped handing out the stronger one). But George is 1.3 kilo and already 5.5 so his 'long term' is not so long term any more. My older vet - who has been handing out the dog version for years - regards Gorge's as a low dose and indeed we once had a bladder stone pig who's pain we were trying to control and ended up eventually giving her a dose that was too high. She looked very rough on it but a couple of hours later she was back to normal - their metabolism burns through it very fast which is why we get prescribed our dose twice a day.

Does your pig have back teeth that grow inwards and trap the tongue? Or are they just overgrowing because he is not grinding away at hay enough to keep them down? One thing I have seen on my time here is that sometimes pigs develop an abscess at the root of the teeth - this causes pain when they are trying to grind away at their tougher foods so they avoid them for any softer options and this leads to molars overgrowing. Sometimes the lump can be felt along the jawline but apart from that I wouldn't know how to identify them. Search through the forum for the antibiotic 'Zithromax' which is apparently successful against this type of abscess infection and you will likely hit on the stories of other dental piggies.

Be brave little Gregory - your loving owner is doing everything to make your life - however long it may be - a happy and fulfilled one x
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top