Post by twistedsymphony on Mar 19, 2012 20:33:49 GMT
I am looking for any advice I can find on diabetes, what I should and should not feed to a diabetic pig, and any other information on how I might help and make sure she gets everything she needs.
Background information: I have two guinea pigs, Chii (who has pea eye) and Freya who are just over a year old. They have both always drunk an awful lot, so I didn't notice an increase so it may have been around for a while. They are fed on burgees excel pellets, and I give them veg daily (consisting of varying combinations of cucumber, pepper, celery, broccoli, swede, carrot, carrot tops, brussels sprout outer leaves). The live in a very large cage the size of a single bed almost, and they are kept on hay and newspaper. I have never given them sweet sugary pet shop treats.
Last week I noticed that Chii was dribbling on one side of her mouth, otherwise eating and drinking as normal, happy and bouncy and active, so I kept an eye on it. No change in a week but I was worried it could be potentially a tooth problem developing so I took her to the vets, she was checked thoroughly and her teeth were fine. She took a urine sample and detected high levels of glucose and said that it could be diabetes.
I have been encouraged to change her pellet food to vetpet guinea pig nuggets and I have baytril as she though that she may have a water infection too. I have been instructed to bring back a urine sample in a weeks time.
I suspect that if Chii has it then Freya may also have it also, as they both drink a lot and Freya has occasionally suffered from a wet bum (which has always cleared up by the next morning so she has not seen a vet for that), which I have since read is a symptom.
Also they both seem to quite regularly (once a week potentially) suffer from short bouts of heaving hiccups, I have asked the vets about that before and they are stumped. I have no idea if that could be connected to anything.
Any help you can give me would be much appreciated, I am quite worried.
Background information: I have two guinea pigs, Chii (who has pea eye) and Freya who are just over a year old. They have both always drunk an awful lot, so I didn't notice an increase so it may have been around for a while. They are fed on burgees excel pellets, and I give them veg daily (consisting of varying combinations of cucumber, pepper, celery, broccoli, swede, carrot, carrot tops, brussels sprout outer leaves). The live in a very large cage the size of a single bed almost, and they are kept on hay and newspaper. I have never given them sweet sugary pet shop treats.
Last week I noticed that Chii was dribbling on one side of her mouth, otherwise eating and drinking as normal, happy and bouncy and active, so I kept an eye on it. No change in a week but I was worried it could be potentially a tooth problem developing so I took her to the vets, she was checked thoroughly and her teeth were fine. She took a urine sample and detected high levels of glucose and said that it could be diabetes.
I have been encouraged to change her pellet food to vetpet guinea pig nuggets and I have baytril as she though that she may have a water infection too. I have been instructed to bring back a urine sample in a weeks time.
I suspect that if Chii has it then Freya may also have it also, as they both drink a lot and Freya has occasionally suffered from a wet bum (which has always cleared up by the next morning so she has not seen a vet for that), which I have since read is a symptom.
Also they both seem to quite regularly (once a week potentially) suffer from short bouts of heaving hiccups, I have asked the vets about that before and they are stumped. I have no idea if that could be connected to anything.
Any help you can give me would be much appreciated, I am quite worried.