guinea pig foot / operation can you advise?

[poocatcherchampion]

We've got two guinea pigs, not young but I dont know how old.

One had a toenail ingrowing into the pad of her foot. it is infected with quite a lot of pus. we took her to the vet two mondys ago and again last moday. both times she was perscribed antibioticcs, whiich havent done the job. last week they said she might need GA to clean it al out and get it in the position to heal. we werent in a position to get more details as dh as there with the children.

all the research we have done suggests that there is a quite a risk of not making it thorugh GA. I know you are experienced people - do any of you know anything about this, and aso dare I say costs?

thanks in advance and sorry about the typos - new device.

[fortifiedwithtea]

My Old Boy had a foot injury that was very deep and needed to two layers of stitching. He was stitched under GA and made a full recovery and was given a jab of AB's. We suspect his brother bit him.

I've never actually had one die on the operating table but I think the secret to success is to get them eating as soon as possible. They need to eat to keep their gut going and if it stops working, I'm afraid the guinea dies very quickly after.

When guinea comes back home from his operation you must keep his paw as clean as possible. Change from your normal bedding and have them sleep on towels and change them daily. A guinea pig can not wear a cone of shame like a dog because they won't be able to feed/ get to the soft poops out their bum.

Hope he makes a speedy recovery

[sanfairyanne]

a vet told me that the ga risk nowadays is really small

poor gpig :(
have you asked if it is ok to soak the foot daily in a gentle antiseptic solution eg salt?
i have cleaned out a few nasty abcesses myself just by soaking then putting on a thin layer of antiseptic cream but they were not on feet

[dietcokeandwine]

Sorry to hear about your pig OP. Lots of good tips from fortified.

My two boars have each been under GA twice. Tricolour pig to have severe infected bite injuries (from his brother ) flushed out and cleaned. They were separated after the bite incident, obviously, and neutered, once tricolour pig was fully recovered, so they could each have a female to live with. Shortly after this, our ginger boar developed a tooth problem (tooth had snagged and the sharp bit was sticking into his cheek which had stopped him eating) so had to go under GA to have tooth filed down.

The neutering was obviously a 'routine' type op with both pigs in good health at the time, but both tricolour's wound flushing and ginger's tooth filing were emergency ops with (to my mind) more of a risk to them. (Ginger in particular had gone downhill alarmingly quickly and was really quite poorly, vet wouldn't operate until we'd got him stabilised, made more comfortable on painkillers and taking critical care).

Both pigs came through each op fine and are, as I type, snuffling round their hutches with their girl pigs and starting up the nightly "where's our tea?" wheeking chorus

It is worth checking with your vet as to how experienced they are in treating / anaesthetising guineas. They should ask you to bring in some favourite fresh foods to try to tempt them to eat as soon as they've come round. As fortified says, getting them to eat as soon as they've come round is the absolute critical thing as far as the GA goes. And yy to keeping the wound clean. I bought a stack of cheap white towels from Poundland which were brilliant for use after their various ops.

Cost wise - around £40 for the actual anaesthetic I think, plus extra for painkillers, anti bs when these were necessary.

Good luck and get well soon wishes to your pig.

[poocatcherchampion]

thanks all this is very helpful. ive got loads of old tea towels etc ready and we have been ining the cage with newspaper the last few weeks. my one final question is am I going to be able to manage this b myself with 2 toddlers? ie will we be there a long time and will i need to get hands on?

thanks again, i m much reassured that this is the right thing to do.

[sanfairyanne]

we drop off in the morning n collect at night with the aftercare being things like syringe metacam, keep warm at night, syringe abs. not too tricky. maybe critical care feed til back to normal (next day)

[poocatcherchampion]

OK fab thanks! Ginger has just about had enough of syringe antibis but that all sounds managable

[70isaLimitNotaTarget]

Hi, everything has been said already but I'd say you really have to weigh up the alternative.
If you don't have your piggies foot sorted what then? The risk of infection is still there and if it gets worse, the surgery would be more of a risk (I work with NHS human patients IRL)

Guineas are vunerable it's true but your vet will minimise the risk by keeping the aneathestic as light and short time span as possible to do the surgery.

Our boar was neutered last year, it took a while because they had to make sure there were enough 'hands on' vet staff (and an emergency animal came in) but he ate his packed lunch and was back to his old self very quickly.

We had to keep him on towels/fleece so as not to irritate the stitches (I bought white ones to show up any leakage, but there was none) and gave him hay stuffed in loo roll tubes.

He troughed down his painkillers like a good'un, didn't even have to hold him

Good old salty water to keep the area cleansed until you see them, but unfortunately guinea-pigs aren't the types to listen to reason, so keeping her from bothering the area will be a challenge.

(We were told he didn't need to starve before surgery, there's no risk of vomiting because they can't)

Good Luck

[FernieB]

Everything's been said but just wanted to wish you and your pig luck .

My Smoothpig had a GA when he damaged his leg. I dropped him off in the morning and collected him about 3pm. He was fine and troughed his extra 'get well soon' parsley happily. It was about £40 I think.