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Persistent UTI - antibiotics not working

Beliboskop

Beliboskop

New Born Pup
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My 3.5 year old female piggy, Sheena, has had a stubborn UTI for the past 2 months. She's on her 3rd course of Baytril. She was on it 0.2mls for 5 days, then a second course 0.5mls for 5 days, now she's just finished a course 0.5mls for 14 days and still has blood in her urine. She has an ovarian cyst which needs to be removed but the vet wants the UTI cleared up prior to surgery. It's been nearly 2 months of medications for my baby, plus Arthrocam twice daily. I've sent my vet a message this morning, waiting to hear back, but I wondered if anyone here has experience with this and what the outcome was for their piggies.

Also, my other 3.5 year old female piggy, Mattie, (Sheena's cagemate) also has a UTI and is on the same meds currently. Is UTI catchy? My vet says highly unlikely. I'm confused about this so any advice or ideas are welcome.

I'm so wanting both my girls to get better. Thanks in advance.
 
Hey love,

I'm sorry. Have your girls received x-rays or ultrasounds? What is their diet like? If you have excluded the presence of bladder sludge and stones, it would be a good idea to get a urine sample sent to the lab for testing.
 
Beliboskop said:
My 3.5 year old female piggy, Sheena, has had a stubborn UTI for the past 2 months. She's on her 3rd course of Baytril. She was on it 0.2mls for 5 days, then a second course 0.5mls for 5 days, now she's just finished a course 0.5mls for 14 days and still has blood in her urine. She has an ovarian cyst which needs to be removed but the vet wants the UTI cleared up prior to surgery. It's been nearly 2 months of medications for my baby, plus Arthrocam twice daily. I've sent my vet a message this morning, waiting to hear back, but I wondered if anyone here has experience with this and what the outcome was for their piggies.

Also, my other 3.5 year old female piggy, Mattie, (Sheena's cagemate) also has a UTI and is on the same meds currently. Is UTI catchy? My vet says highly unlikely. I'm confused about this so any advice or ideas are welcome.

I'm so wanting both my girls to get better. Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

Hi

Would your vet consider a sterile (i.e. non-bacterial) cystitis if the antibiotics are not working?

Over the course of the last 15-20 years it has gradually become the most common urinary tract infection especially in indoors guinea pigs but it is still not much known, if at all, outside vet circles that see plenty of guinea pigs.
Symptoms and medication (apart from pheromones) are very similar to feline sterile cystitis (FSC), which may give your vet a handle.
Here is more information on sterile cystitis in cavies, including how to diagnose it and how to best manage it: Wiebke's Guide to Pees and Stones
 
Has your vet tested the urine to see if Baytril is the right antibiotic for the type of infection if there is one? When one of my boys had a UTI we started on Sulfratrim which when the test results came back was shown to be the wrong AB and we changed to something else.
 
I don't know if it's similar to Ellie my RB piggy, but Ellie kept getting UTI's they'd just about clear up with antibiotics, then as soon as she was off them UTI's would come back. 😔

After a few weeks of this, her diluted blood in urine UTI's turned more to more concentrated blood coming from her genitals mostly when she pooped.

Turned out that she had a walnut sized ovarian cyst, discovered by conscious ultrasound.
She had 2x hormone injections of HCG chorulon 10-14 days apart and only had 1 bad bleed afterwards. Then no more bleeding at all.

She was 6yrs old at the time & had another round of 2 jabs a year later. As her cyst had started growing again. We lost her a year later aged 8yrs to various health issues.

As long as its not cystitis/infection related - Would it be possible to discuss with your vet whether the hormone injections could be an option to clear up the UTI's long enough to spay her as she's still quite young & that would solve her cyst problems for good 👍🏻

Slightly off at a tangent.. But Tiggy had 2x different URI infections at once, so after treating with a Sulfatrim alternative for weeks, she had a swab test done and one of the infections was resistant to it, so she followed with Baytril for a couple of weeks and now she's ok 👍🏻

So the swabbing for different infections & change of antibiotics definitely worked for her ☺️

Fingers crossed they both improve soon and healing vibes being sent your way :hug:
Xx
 
Great replies above – my first thought was to query whether it was a bacterial UTI or whether it might actually be a sterile cystitis causing the blood in the urine. Another possibility is that the blood is coming from the reproductive tract rather than from the bladder. Has your vet carried out x-rays or scans or has the urine been sent for culture and sensitivity to different antibiotics?
 
RosieLily said:
Hey love,

I'm sorry. Have your girls received x-rays or ultrasounds? What is their diet like? If you have excluded the presence of bladder sludge and stones, it would be a good idea to get a urine sample sent to the lab for testing.
Click to expand...
Beliboskop said:
My 3.5 year old female piggy, Sheena, has had a stubborn UTI for the past 2 months. She's on her 3rd course of Baytril. She was on it 0.2mls for 5 days, then a second course 0.5mls for 5 days, now she's just finished a course 0.5mls for 14 days and still has blood in her urine. She has an ovarian cyst which needs to be removed but the vet wants the UTI cleared up prior to surgery. It's been nearly 2 months of medications for my baby, plus Arthrocam twice daily. I've sent my vet a message this morning, waiting to hear back, but I wondered if anyone here has experience with this and what the outcome was for their piggies.

Also, my other 3.5 year old female piggy, Mattie, (Sheena's cagemate) also has a UTI and is on the same meds currently. Is UTI catchy? My vet says highly unlikely. I'm confused about this so any advice or ideas are welcome.

I'm so wanting both my girls to get better. Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Beliboskop said:
My 3.5 year old female piggy, Sheena, has had a stubborn UTI for the past 2 months. She's on her 3rd course of Baytril. She was on it 0.2mls for 5 days, then a second course 0.5mls for 5 days, now she's just finished a course 0.5mls for 14 days and still has blood in her urine. She has an ovarian cyst which needs to be removed but the vet wants the UTI cleared up prior to surgery. It's been nearly 2 months of medications for my baby, plus Arthrocam twice daily. I've sent my vet a message this morning, waiting to hear back, but I wondered if anyone here has experience with this and what the outcome was for their piggies.

Also, my other 3.5 year old female piggy, Mattie, (Sheena's cagemate) also has a UTI and is on the same meds currently. Is UTI catchy? My vet says highly unlikely. I'm confused about this so any advice or ideas are welcome.

I'm so wanting both my girls to get better. Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
 
Hi everyone, thank you so much for your replies, I really appreciate your input and piggy stories.

Sheena had culture & sensitivity urine test; the bacteria present are only treatable with Baytril apparently.
She had an x-ray done, no stones seen. They tried to do an ultrasound but couldn't get a clear view. This was done under sedation.
The vet had ruled out interstitial cystitis after treatment with cystease and Arthrocam.
The vet has instructed me today to finish the course of Baytril today, that they will NOT be trying another antibiotic since the bacteria will not be sensitive to any others apparently (even after I mentioned Sentrin). They have suggested we send off another C&S urine test next week to see whether or not Baytril has cleared the UTI. I agree, perhaps the ovarian cyst is the root of all her problems. Let's see what the tests show next week.

It's so strange that both my girls have a UTI at the same time. I haven't done C&S urine test for Mattie yet because she only became unwell and started Baytril on Friday. She needs to complete her course of antibiotics before the vet does anything further.

Thanks so much again for all your replies. I'm still wondering though if UTI is catchy for cagemates...if they sleep in the same areas, lie on the same spots, surely it's possible for bacteria to go up the urethra and into the bladder, from one piggy to another if there's bacteria on their bedding. I'm cleaning their cage a few times a day with dry bedding twice a day. I'm also giving them organic cranberry juice (powder mixed with water).
 
GPTV said:
I don't know if it's similar to Ellie my RB piggy, but Ellie kept getting UTI's they'd just about clear up with antibiotics, then as soon as she was off them UTI's would come back. 😔

After a few weeks of this, her diluted blood in urine UTI's turned more to more concentrated blood coming from her genitals mostly when she pooped.

Turned out that she had a walnut sized ovarian cyst, discovered by conscious ultrasound.
She had 2x hormone injections of HCG chorulon 10-14 days apart and only had 1 bad bleed afterwards. Then no more bleeding at all.

She was 6yrs old at the time & had another round of 2 jabs a year later. As her cyst had started growing again. We lost her a year later aged 8yrs to various health issues.

As long as its not cystitis/infection related - Would it be possible to discuss with your vet whether the hormone injections could be an option to clear up the UTI's long enough to spay her as she's still quite young & that would solve her cyst problems for good 👍🏻

Slightly off at a tangent.. But Tiggy had 2x different URI infections at once, so after treating with a Sulfatrim alternative for weeks, she had a swab test done and one of the infections was resistant to it, so she followed with Baytril for a couple of weeks and now she's ok 👍🏻

So the swabbing for different infections & change of antibiotics definitely worked for her ☺️

Fingers crossed they both improve soon and healing vibes being sent your way :hug:
Xx
Click to expand...
Aww I'm so sorry to hear about Ellie. You did everything you could for her. I'm happy to hear that Tiggy's feeling better now, that's great. Unfortunately, my vet won't give the hormone injection. He says it's very expensive (they open a bottle big enough to treat a cow apparently!) just to get the dose for a piggy, and that it only has a small chance of working on piggies. Thank you for the healing vibes! Much love to you and your piggies xx
 
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