Hi all,
One of my girls was just diagnosed at vets with a decent case of ringworm. She doesnt seem to have missing fur yet just crust around nose. Her cagemate isnt affected much, just a few spores.
He prescribed Melaseb for them both to be bathed in once a week for a month. He didnt want to give oral because he said it was strong and he would be worried about their liver on it? I was surprised as i hadnt read anything like that online.
Do you think these baths and disinfecting their cage will be enough to help? i dont want to stress them unnecessarily with lots of baths for it to not even work without the oral medication.
And yes ive read all threads here and info about it thoroughly lol
Hi
Ringworm can be treated in a number of ways; some are just more less hassle and more effective than others.
Crucial is that you also bathe your piggies on other treatments than medicated baths and dips for the sake of making sure that any spores are washed off the coat at the start and end of any treatment so they cannot cause any further secondary infection, which typically happen on the genitalia or back end where piggies pick them up from the bedding while scent marking and sleeping. The malaseb will automatically do that for you.
Malaseb will work perfectly well - you should find it listed in our ringworm guide; it is just a bit more hassle. Bathe every three days and let the malaseb work for as long as stated on the bottle after lathering up but before rinsing with fresh warm water until no new crusts form again within a day or two of the bath; give the shower floor or bathtub a good rinse and F10 wipe afterwards. In a milder case, three or four applications should be enough as long as you make sure that you reach every corner of the body.
Bathing (including cleaning grease glands)
Use a cotton bud to carefully and gently work the suds down onto the skin between the hairs around the eyes, but be also careful with the ears and the immediate mouth/nose area. The eyes can swell up really badly if you soap up right up to them; unfortunately, that is often where the ringworm sits. It will look worse before it gets better as all affected hairs need to come out and the exudate crust coming off can take the topmost layer of skin with it. Ringworm usually sits at root of them.
I've used Malaseb myself in previous outbreaks before oral treatment came in. With (then) 16 piggies to bathe every thre days and all the necessary towels to also wash at a high temperature on top of all the bedding, you can imagine why I have been so relieved when oral treatment came in; even if it took quite a bit of persuasion of my vet to let me try it out on my heart piggy Ceri after Malaseb was not enough to stop her ringworm; the itrafungol did the trick within a week - that was 10 years back. My itrafungol piggies from the intervening decade have nevertheless lived normal or often above average life spans.
Please take the time to re-read our ringworm guide. The one thing where it really pays to not stint is disinfection and
good anti-fungal (and not just antibacterial) disinfectant. In the case of ringworm, hygiene is actually every bit as important than the actual ringworm treatment because the tiny spores are so long-lived and so contagious and species jumping - it is worth throwing the kitchen sink at it and do it right so you have to do it only once.
Here is the link again:
Ringworm: Hygiene, Care And Pictures
PS: Please take the time to read and if necessary, re-read the guides to make sure of the little practical details. Our collective and personal long term experience has gone into them and we know that our advice in there really works.
