Vitamin C Relating to Heterotropic Calcification?

[CutieAgouti]

Hi all, one of my red eyed boys has been diagnosed with heterotropic calcification in his eyes. He’s losing a lot of the pigment around his iris and while he can see perfectly well and is in no pain, I’ve read that high levels of vitamin C can be a cause of this. If anyone has experience with this, is it significant enough that I should consider changing his diet? My guinea pigs enjoy all kinds of veg, greens and herbs daily, but I’m wondering if anyone can suggest some that are lower in vitamin C such as bananas and cucumber? His pellets contain vitamin C as it is, so I’m wondering if he would be better only getting lettuce over greens like kale and spinach? I like to give my piggies a lot of variety, so any suggestions would be great so that I can still keep his diet extensive.

 

[VickiA]

I’m really sorry I’ve no experience of this. If you use the magnifying glass at the top of your screen you can search by key words for threads where this may have been discussed previously

 

[Eriathwen]

If I remember correctly, it is less to do with too much vitamin C, rather the individual guinea pig does not metabolise the vitamin C correctly resulting in "excess" not being absorbed causing the bony calcium build ups.
It probably wouldn't do any harm to reduce the amount of vitamin C as long as you are sure they're still getting enough within the required daily range, but it may or may not help. Personally, my piggies who have had this issue have come to me with a vitamin C deficiency and so have permanent damage in many other areas too, so I've never reduced their vitamin C intake and they have been fine/never shown any I'll effects from it and it has never progressed to a point it has caused issues.
If you do notice any bulging of the eye etc that would be a different matter, but personally I dont worry too much about it these days, it's just something to monitor.

 

[CutieAgouti]

If I remember correctly, it is less to do with too much vitamin C, rather the individual guinea pig does not metabolise the vitamin C correctly resulting in "excess" not being absorbed causing the bony calcium build ups.
It probably wouldn't do any harm to reduce the amount of vitamin C as long as you are sure they're still getting enough within the required daily range, but it may or may not help. Personally, my piggies who have had this issue have come to me with a vitamin C deficiency and so have permanent damage in many other areas too, so I've never reduced their vitamin C intake and they have been fine/never shown any I'll effects from it and it has never progressed to a point it has caused issues.
If you do notice any bulging of the eye etc that would be a different matter, but personally I dont worry too much about it these days, it's just something to monitor.

Thank you for explaining! He has been losing pigment for a little while now as there have been these calcium deposits all around his iris, so I’m just a little worried what it might mean if he loses all the colour in his eye and if it’s likely to do any damage to his pupil and effect his sight. Has this progressed in any of your piggies to the point that the iris was totally calcified?