Pig with heart condition now has diarrhoea

[Pound Shilling & Pig]

Pom Pom was diagnosed with a heart condition last year and is on benazapet 2.5mg 1/4 tablet once a day and furosemide 20mg 1/6 tablet twice a day. She last had a checkup a couple of months ago and all was well.

Last week in the hot weather she had some loose poops, which I put down to possibly the weather/stress of everyone moving indoors/stealing other piggies water melon. She seemed to improve but it has since comeback and is a bit worse.
I have her back indoors on her own with just hay and readi grass oat hay to eat, plus am syringe feeding recovery and probiotic. She doesn't have uncontrolled diarrhoea but her poops are more cowpat consistency and quickly lose their shape. She has also lost a lot of weight.

I did have a vet appointment today which I had to cancel as I am unwell but have spoken to the vet on phone. They said all the usual advise about not feeding veg, etc. We also spoke about meds and was advised not to give emeprid as it would make her worse, which is confusing me as I always thought it could be used as it helps the guts natural rhythm and helps stops spasms ?

She also said not to stop the diuretic which makes sense but I was wondering if there can be a connection to the heart meds?

In 20 plus years both these conditions are a rarity for me. I was hoping to tag PigglePuggle but it doesn't seem to work.

Thank you

 

[Pound Shilling & Pig]

@PigglePuggle

 

[weepweeps]

I hope your piggy stabilises soon. Sending healing vibes and a hug for you .

 

[PigglePuggle]

Hi, I doubt the heart meds are related to the cow pat poops- but with a heart piggy on diuretics you do need to be a bit more concerned about dehydration.
Emeprid is a gut stimulant which is more for preventing gut stasis- it gets the gut moving- so not what you need here.
Given the heart meds/diuretics and fragility of a heart piggy, syringe feeding a mixture of recovery food and a good probiotic in small amounts quite often, along with a hay and dried food diet with plenty fresh water available but no veg, is probably the best way to go- do you have fibreplex? Or biolapis?
Sounds like you are doing all the right things, hope she picks up- the heatwave and accompanying disruption to routines, and possible extra veg or even dodgy veg sold by the supermarkets after not being stored or transported properly in the heatwave, have upset a lot of elderly and fragile piggies I think!
My boar Ollie who has mild impaction is plopping out oddly square shaped giant blobs of fudgy poop then getting them stuck to his feet, he's wearing poop shoes, its another foot bath tomorrow morning for him and some probiotics and no lettuces, and I've provisionally booked the vet for him in a week in case he doesnt improve!
Hope your piggy gets well soon, still definitely worth a vet check especially with weight loss and other existing long term health problems, but mystery weight loss and dodgy poops are very difficult to diagnose and the best treatment is often just probiotics and syringe feeding much of the time x