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Our Tilda is a 3 year-old female guinea pig living in Finland. She has pain while urinating and pooping (only after urinating) and also has had blood in urine (not at present). The problems have persisted for several months now with a few intermittent symptom-free episodes. The symptoms also seem to be getting worse.
She has had three courses of antibiotics, the first two were sulfadiazine/trimethropin 50/16 mg/ml 0.3 ml twice a day for 10 days and the second course for 15 days.
The last antibiotic was enrofloxacin 50 mg/ml 0.25 ml twice a day, but we had to stop giving it after 7 days due to diarrhea. She is still, a month later, having somewhat soft (and big) poops and she hasn’t reached her normal weight. We have given her Science Selective recovery plus feed about twice a day for a month to help with the weight gain. She seems to eat completely normally, but struggles to gain weight. Healthy poop from other piggies has been given to her.
During the first vet visit in October an x-ray was taken, which revealed no stones.
She has also been given meloxicam 1.5 mg/ml 0.3 ml twice a day for some days during every antibiotic.
All the antibiotics (or the meloxicam) seemed to have helped for some weeks, especially the first course, but the symptoms have always returned. After the last antibiotic, which we had to to stop giving after 7 days, the symptoms stayed away only for two days.
We have tried giving bottled water, a low calcium diet and she also has had half a capsule of cystaid (cystease equivalent) a day for 22 days, but none have proven effective. We have had some troubles testing the low calcium diet though, since the gut problems restrict the amount of veggies we can offer.
We have seen three different vets, but none of them are specialized in guinea pigs. They seem to have three possible diagnoses: a stone, TI or ovarian cysts. With the first two diagnoses somewhat ruled out, our vet is inclined to the diagnosis of ovarian cyst, even though there are no other symptoms. Sludge or cystitis have not been suggested.
- What could be the correct diagnosis?
- Are the gut problems and the bladder problems linked or are the gut problems a separate problem relating to the aftermath of the last antibiotic (a month later)?
- We are planning to see a vet again soon. We are inclined to have another x-ray. Is there something else we could ask our vet? Could blood tests reveal anything?
- Is there some way to rule out kidney failure?
We really appreciate any help we can get! <3
