Skinny Pig Skin Issues - Help Needed!

[caitlindamood]

So my skinny pig (Little Dude) came to me a few months ago with mites. I fully treated him and took him to the vet for a clean bill of health before putting him with his brother now. When he had his mites it was awful; he would go into scratching fits where he would seem to lose control of himself and scratch until he started screaming and hurt himself.
Now nearly 3 months after the mite treatment and a vet cleared him he is STILL having skin issues. I know it's not ringworm because his brother is a sheepie pig with A LOT of hair and he has no signs of ringworm or mites and I treated him for ringworm just in case it would be.

What I need is anything form anyone who may have had a similar situation happen because this poor guy is so happy and loving until he just suddenly starts scratching and starts screaming like he's mutilating himself. He will be just kind of zoned out and all of a sudden he just starts scratching himself like he can't help it and yelling out in pain, it almost looks like a seizure or something, but it's not, and then he starts chittering and stomping his feet.
This is not my first skinny pig and he is lathered with coconut oil and baby lotion - switching between the two to see if one will help if it's just dry skin. I cut his nails and file them so he can't hurt himself even when he has a scratching fit and went to the vet again to ask about his skin and the vet said she couldn't see anything wrong with it. I even talked to her about the possibility of it being some kind of subconscious thing from when he had mites and he was in so much pain, like he has some kind of strange mental tick now and she said it could be since he otherwise looked fine.
He has probably 1-2 scratching attacks a day which doesn't sound like much, but it's hard to hear your baby scream because he can't stop scratching himself. If I give him a tiny bit of CBD oil or baby Benadryl he doesn't have any scratch attacks, but he also doesn't act like himself and he loves running around and being a young guinea pig with his little brother and I don't want to take that away form him.

Yes, I know I'm rambling, but please if anyone has any advice or something I would love it because I just want to help him.

 

[Tnoz]

Hiya, sorry to hear your having issues, I rescued girls from a dirty barn with mice and rats present, my girls were scratching to the point that they were bleeding, I took them to the vets and they gave me baytril, a prescription for Xeno suitable for their weights and powder to add to their water or food to help with immune and digestive system, it took two lots of Xeno , it worked in the end, mites live under the skin and need several treatments to fix the itch, o hope you get what you need as hearing your babies screaming isn’t nice it’s stressful. I’m sure other people will have experience of this too and offer other solutions good luck

 

[Free Ranger]

Hi, we are just waking up here in the UK. I'm so sorry for your troubles - it must be very hard. @Lorcan you have skinny pigs now - can you point this poster to the 'skinny people'?!

I know some about mites but nothing about skinnies so the only thing I offer at this point is to ask how the mites were treated - I know it's different meds in different countries. Here we are usually given ivermectin as a spot-on lotion (xeno). I think some countries get 'Revolution' which has a slightly different action in that it lasts for a longer time on piggy. My first concern would be whether Little Dude wasn't quite cleared of his mites or has been re-infested somehow. Has the scratching increased over time since he was given the all-clear? Was everyone treated at the same time? It's hard for a vet to spot mites even when they are there!

Xeno is prescribed by weight (you can underdose as well as overdose) and piggy is treated 3 times with 2 weeks gaps because the stuff kills the live critters but not the eggs and the effect wears off after a few days. So treatment 1 kills the mites, treatment 2 deals with any eggs that hatch out over the next fortnight and treatment 3 catches any stragglers. Basically 1 and 2 should deal with an infestation but missing the third one can be a gamble. The mite life cycle from hatching to breeding is about 3 weeks so you are aiming to catch them at the point where they have hatched but are not at breeding maturity (once a vet mistakenly prescribed me 2 treatments 3 weeks apart instead of 3 treatments 2 weeks apart and we got nowhere!) I always treat all my pigs at the same time because they all live together... people don't get pig mites but I don't know whether eggs or live mites can be carried between pigs on human hands or clothes. And there are also mites that live in hay which can be brought in (hay mites) but I'm not sure whether these are so bad as the horrible burrowing mange mites that live in the top layers of the skin. Not all of my pigs will necessarily show symptoms but I've got one at the minute who is my red flag because when she sheds hair loads drops off. She's very smooth and shiny - the others are tuftier and although they shed you don't notice it so much as the coat hangs onto the loose hairs. Although we've mostly had mites or lice when a new pig has been introduced they've also seemingly turned up out of the blue so I'm assuming they might have been picked up in the garden here..? Or maybe I brought them in myself...? I'll never really know.

I suppose it's possible that Little Dude is having some sort of PTSD whenever he gets an itch for any reason and is panicking it will be as bad as before (and it can be bad - pigs can dies of seizures from mites as I'm sure you know) but personally I would be tempted to first consider re-treatment (of both pigs) before I put it down to his mental health. Good luck and keep us updated x

 

[Piggies&buns]

@PigglePuggle is one of our health advisors who also has a skinny.

 

[Merab]

@Flutterby also has skinnies.

Hope you can find the advice and help needed

 

[Flutterby]

Hi, could you give us a few more details? What was he treated with for the mites, did they do any skin scrapes? To me it sounds like he's still having problems with them and they haven't been cleared completely. I would stop the coconut oil and baby oil, that will make things worse it if is mites, as they will burrow further under his skin causing worse irritation. If your vet hasn't done a skin scrape I would ask them to do this, especially if his symptoms are so bad. I've had this behaviour with mites before, not in skinnies, but we ended up treating the pig for mites and also wrapping her to prevent scratching as she opened up large wounds through continuous scratching. His skin definitely needs looking at under a microscope asap.

 

[caitlindamood]

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Hi, could you give us a few more details? What was he treated with for the mites, did they do any skin scrapes? To me it sounds like he's still having problems with them and they haven't been cleared completely. I would stop the coconut oil and baby oil, that will make things worse it if is mites, as they will burrow further under his skin causing worse irritation. If your vet hasn't done a skin scrape I would ask them to do this, especially if his symptoms are so bad. I've had this behaviour with mites before, not in skinnies, but we ended up treating the pig for mites and also wrapping her to prevent scratching as she opened up large wounds through continuous scratching. His skin definitely needs looking at under a microscope asap.

treated with ivermectin for 3 weeks and completed the entire treatment and the vet did a scraping about a week after and it was clear. I can treat him again because I still have more ivermectin if that what it seems and take him to the vet again.
I tried wrapping him to stop the scratching but he started bucking like a horse and freaking out so that was quickly a no for him.
I’m just not sure it’s mites because his brother has no itching or anything wrong at all and they sleep together all the time

 

[Free Ranger]

Benadryl is some sort of antihistamine isn't it... hubs takes it for hayfever. Is there anything he might actually be allergic to? But he doesn't seem to respond well to it you say. I'm afraid I don't have experience with this...

If your vet decides to treat him again with ivermectin watch and see how he reacts after it is applied. The stuff causes mites to spasm as they die which usually triggers a bout of itching and scratching... it's actually one way to know you have treated for the correct thing. If there are a lot of mites this is upsetting to see although it does pass after a couple of hours. If there are only a few or none at all you shouldn't really see a response.

Do you use biological washing liquid for the fleeces? The enzymes in this stuff really set off some members of my family. My mum (a human person) was actually once diagnosed with mange mites when it was a ferocious bout of eczema triggered by a new washing liquid she had mistakenly got thinking that the 'earth-friendly' label meant it was non-biological. It actually meant you could wash at cold temperatures because the enzymes were so strong they didn't need warm water. We didn't find all this out until everyone who had stayed at her house that week had to cream themselves all over (and I mean all over) in case we'd picked anything up! I do know that modern washing machines try and use less water in the rinse cycle to claim eco-friendly credentials but that if often means clothes are not rinsed out as well as they should be. We get a lot of kids with eczema in my area because it's hard water (high calcium) which seems to trigger everyone so there are always people discussing and complaining about washing liquids and washing machines. Just a thought - it wouldn't affect his hairy buddy because his skin wouldn't be in direct contact with the fabric..?

 

[PinkyandNaz]

So my skinny pig (Little Dude) came to me a few months ago with mites. I fully treated him and took him to the vet for a clean bill of health before putting him with his brother now. When he had his mites it was awful; he would go into scratching fits where he would seem to lose control of himself and scratch until he started screaming and hurt himself.
Now nearly 3 months after the mite treatment and a vet cleared him he is STILL having skin issues. I know it's not ringworm because his brother is a sheepie pig with A LOT of hair and he has no signs of ringworm or mites and I treated him for ringworm just in case it would be.

What I need is anything form anyone who may have had a similar situation happen because this poor guy is so happy and loving until he just suddenly starts scratching and starts screaming like he's mutilating himself. He will be just kind of zoned out and all of a sudden he just starts scratching himself like he can't help it and yelling out in pain, it almost looks like a seizure or something, but it's not, and then he starts chittering and stomping his feet.
This is not my first skinny pig and he is lathered with coconut oil and baby lotion - switching between the two to see if one will help if it's just dry skin. I cut his nails and file them so he can't hurt himself even when he has a scratching fit and went to the vet again to ask about his skin and the vet said she couldn't see anything wrong with it. I even talked to her about the possibility of it being some kind of subconscious thing from when he had mites and he was in so much pain, like he has some kind of strange mental tick now and she said it could be since he otherwise looked fine.
He has probably 1-2 scratching attacks a day which doesn't sound like much, but it's hard to hear your baby scream because he can't stop scratching himself. If I give him a tiny bit of CBD oil or baby Benadryl he doesn't have any scratch attacks, but he also doesn't act like himself and he loves running around and being a young guinea pig with his little brother and I don't want to take that away form him.

Yes, I know I'm rambling, but please if anyone has any advice or something I would love it because I just want to help him.

HI! I know its been some time, but I just joined this server! I havent yet met a person who knows what I'm talking about! My piggy does this too.

"He will be just kind of zoned out and all of a sudden he just starts scratching himself like he can't help it and yelling out in pain, it almost looks like a seizure or something, but it's not, and then he starts chittering and stomping his feet."

He's not have a seizure, but it is quite alarming to hear him scream, and then he makes little chirping squealing noises and stomps his feet back and forth in the same spot. Like, he's not in control of his body. Vets have never understood what I was talking about, and I couldn't find anything online.
I still don't now what it is, did you ever find out?