UTI, Incontinence, old age.

[squigglies]

Hello all. Looking for some advice. I have read articles and many threads on here about above title. Just want some reassurance I'm heading the right way!
My sow is about 6, she is wet underneath and smelly, poops are normal and shes fine, eating and drinking. The vet has given her metacam as she's saying theres no infection it's old age and shes having trouble grooming herself. I'm bathing her back end 2 times a day and changing her bedding all the time.
I said she stopped using her ramp a couple years ago she said yeah shes probably got abit of arthritis so the metacam will help and hopefully she will feel better and I may need to help her out with grooming.
She did a urine check which I thought was to check for a UTI but it wasnt it was to check her kidneys before having the metacam .
Now I'm no expert and not sure if this was the right thing to do but I asked if I could try a course of baytril to see if theres any improvement (just from what I've been reading) she refused to give it to me as shes adamant theres no infection.
I think to humour me she continued to say bring in a urine sample at the cost of £85 before she will suggest anything else.
What am I to do?

 

[Claire W]

Hi, I used to have to have urine tested regularly for one of my sows and it only cost around £5 for the vet to test it using a urine dip stick. But sadly, that’s the only way to test for a uti which it may well be. Is there another vet you could try as that does sound expensive just for a urine test?

 

[squigglies]

Hi, I used to have to have urine tested regularly for one of my sows and it only cost around £5 for the vet to test it using a urine dip stick. But sadly, that’s the only way to test for a uti which it may well be. Is there another vet you could try as that does sound expensive just for a urine test?

She said she did a dipstick test but that was to check kidneys. That price was for a full urine analysis.
I thought you could do a dipstick test for uti.

 

[Wiebke]

Hello all. Looking for some advice. I have read articles and many threads on here about above title. Just want some reassurance I'm heading the right way!
My sow is about 6, she is wet underneath and smelly, poops are normal and shes fine, eating and drinking. The vet has given her metacam as she's saying theres no infection it's old age and shes having trouble grooming herself. I'm bathing her back end 2 times a day and changing her bedding all the time.
I said she stopped using her ramp a couple years ago she said yeah shes probably got abit of arthritis so the metacam will help and hopefully she will feel better and I may need to help her out with grooming.
She did a urine check which I thought was to check for a UTI but it wasnt it was to check her kidneys before having the metacam .
Now I'm no expert and not sure if this was the right thing to do but I asked if I could try a course of baytril to see if theres any improvement (just from what I've been reading) she refused to give it to me as shes adamant theres no infection.
I think to humour me she continued to say bring in a urine sample at the cost of £85 before she will suggest anything else.
What am I to do?

Hi

Sedentary piggies can get very smelly; especially when arthritis means that they can no longer clean themselves and they have increased peeing from their kidneys starting to slowly go into failure - which may be the case with yours. An antibiotic won't do anything for that. But the latter is just speculation. Because arthritic piggies stay more in one place, they pee a lot in one place, so it can be very difficult to tell in the early stages.
If your vet is adamant that there is no sign of infection in the urinary tract, then please try not get hung up over it.

As to metacam - guinea pigs tolerate it MUCH better than other species; even in much higher dosages. The benefit in renewed quality of life means that they keep going for quite a bit longer than they would without. There is not much you can do about kidneys apart from the pain relief. It is a rather common problem in older piggies, if I go by my own; having lost around 50 piggies or a bit more by now.

Concentrate on quality of life to give her back as much zest for life as possible; that is by far the best life prolonging medication.
Enrichment Ideas for Guinea Pigs

 

[Claire W]

If your vet has already done a dip stick for kidneys, then it would also have shown infection (which your vet would have looked for) so your piggy probably doesn’t have a uti