Kidney Issues

All the girls were at Chick Weekend

Boadicea has had a lot of ups and downs in the last two weeks.  Her health issues prompted me to bring her and Wedgwood to the Cape.  Thankfully, these two are much better travelers than Cannoli was.  So their unexpected addition to Chick Weekend was less stressful than my last attempt at including the sows.

The long drive down didn't slow them down.  Boadi and Wedg made themselves at home as soon as I had the travel cage set up.  They happily explored, just like any cage-cleaning day, then settled in to eat hay and pellets.  Wonderful!

So... Boadicea had not improved after the vet removed her stone.  In fact, her weight continued to go down and we returned to the vet over Labor Day weekend.  Not cool.  Teeth were fine.  Ultrasound showed nothing unusual.  Blood was drawn.

Look at that sad bare belly!

Poor Boadi arrived home from that visit with a heavily shaved belly and nothing to show for it.  On top of it all, the yeast infection returned.  That's when I concluded she was coming with me so I could apply her various treatments and keep an eye on her.

The Cape air must have agreed with her, for she gained some weight when we arrived.  The blood results arrived shortly after we settled in:  very high calcium and phosphorus levels (three times normal!) consistent with an underlying kidney problem.  It would explain her steady weight loss and the sudden appearance of a stone.  But it's a seriously sucky diagnosis.

Boadi did alright until our last night on the Cape.  She was cranky and appeared to have a blocked bladder.  I was able to get her pee.  Such a relief for both of us!  But it resulted in a long trip the next day, as we swung by the vet before going home.  I'm so glad we did.  No stone, but there was so much sludge it blocked her urethra.  The vet cleared her out and sent me home with even more meds which should help with Boadi's phosphorus levels and hopefully prevent more sludge from forming.

I'm lucky - she loves the flavor of the aluminum hydroxide (mint flavor, I was told).  As I write this, she's comfortably snuggled in her hammock.  I'm trying to focus on the little bits of good news.

eta:  To clarify, bladder sludge and stones are usually from excess calcium (and often not enough phosphorus) in a guinea pigs' diet.  Under normal circumstances they're treated with something that will break up the stone or bind and get rid of the calcium from their body.  Boadicea's sludge is caused from the malfunctioning kidneys.  The aluminum hydroxide is to reduce phosphate levels to help her appetite and to prevent binding to so much calcium as to create all the sludge she's been having.