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Lump Found a large lump in my piggies throat

shypaw

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I haven't posted in a while but...
We rescued a couple of piggy's a few months back and added them to our herd after about 4 weeks quarantine. Integrations went really well, with hardly no fighting at all. The two girls are part of my herd and here to stay. They are named Willow and Romi and are both the really cute crazy-furred Abby type.

Anyhow, last night when I was holding Romi, I noticed she had a large lump in her throat. It's quite hard, but doesn't seem to be causing her any discomfort that I can tell. She's still eating great, and runs around with lots of energy!

I looked up lumps on the forum, and now I'm really scared for her. I have a Vet appointment tonight after work at 6:00 PM with the same Vet that saved my Peaches' eye/life.

I don't think I wrote about that, but Peaches had a really bad eye injury and stopped eating and almost died, but I nursed her back to health by force feeding her Oxbow's Critical Care, and giving her meds every 6 hours for a week. She had two different eye medications, and it was a lot of work! Her eye was completely greyed over and I thought for sure she would lose it. But months later and she is right as rain now, and I owe it to my great Vet Hopefully she can work her magic on little Romi too.
Please keep her in your thoughts. I know I'm not really asking questions, but I really wanted to share my concern with others that would understand. Thank you.
 

V+Pigs

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I hope she is alright!!!!

My one friends piggy had eaten a large wood chip and thats why he had a lump in his throught so i think that not your piggies problem, i so hope its nothing major.

my thoughts are with her.
 

shypaw

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Thanks V,

I'm just hoping that it's something that can be fixed. I hope it's not cancer or something really awful. Little Romi is the sweetest little pig. Since she is still in really good spirits, I'm hopeful.

I'm aslo really glad I've kept a Vet Fund! After Peaches's visits to the Vet, I now know how expensice it can be. I had to bring her to the Vet 4 times total, and it cost me and arm and a leg, but she was in pain and I really had no choice. My sister thought I was crazy for spending so much of just a "guinea pig", but she has three kids and I don't have any children, so my pigs are like my kids.

I'll update this thread tongiht when I have some answers. Thanks again.
 

rabbitsncavyluv

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It could be a cyst or abscess but that location, CL is unfortunately common.
 

V+Pigs

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I know what you mean about vet prices!!! My 7 year old sow bella have large ovarian cysts and then really needed to be removed, they were so large they were causeing breathing difficullty! I felt so bad because I got her from some one else when she was older and therefore I didnt notice the growth, anyway after a bit if a recovery she is super happy and i am still recovering from all those vet bills :(
 

PiggieMom

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You're doing what's best and taking her to the vet. You're weighing her regularly to make sure she's not loosing weight, right? I've no advice to offer, just well wishes and hopeful thoughts.
 

gvstate01

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I just rescued 2 guinea pigs (which now make 7!). I took her to the vet right away for a lump on her throat. She always loves to be rubbed on the neck and it never bothered her, of course. The vet aspirated it and there was a lot of pus. So she had to remove the abcess. It ended up being (cervical) lymphaditis which is very common, actually more common in rescue pigs I was told. This is because they're around so many other animals and it's contagious airborne. So in the case of adoption, it doesn't matter if you quarantine them in the same house, it's highly likely it will spread (I'm not trying to scare you!). So my vet put everyone on Bactrim for 2 weeks twice a day in hope that not everyone would need surgery to remove lymph nodes :( Not everyone knows CL is airborne contagious (caused by a staph infection; guinea pigs in contact with horses get it a lot). If your piggie needs surgery keep a look out for lumps on other pigs and also returning lumps post-op. VERY much luck to you and your piggie, let us know how the vet visit goes :)
 

rabbitsncavyluv

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CL is not that common in rescue guinea pigs. I'd think it'd be more common in pet store or breeder pigs since they have so many in cramped conditions.

I don't know of many guinea pigs in regular contact with horses either.
 

gvstate01

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Actually the rescue I got my guinea pigs from had almost 200 animals including rabbits, which is probably how my guinea pig ended up with CL. Also, my sister is constantly around horses and works at Petsmart, so seeing that CL is highly contagious it doesn't need to be direct contact.
 

akstrohm

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It is simply not true that it doesn't matter if you quarantine your pig. A properly done quarantine (behind closed doors, hold new pigs last, change clothes and wash hands as appropriate) will certainly decrease the chance of passing any illness including in CL. Given the most common modes of transmission and the incubation time of CL, quarantine should prevent the spread of this disease if done properly.

CL is not that common at all in pigs from official rescues, as good rescues typically do an excellent job of quarantining new pigs and keeping the density of pigs relatively low. Pet stores, however, are an entirely different story. A shelter will typically have a higher density of animals than a rescue, but they also do tend to get illnesses treated better than pet stores do. If you have horses or other animals with this or a similar disease, they need treatment too.

Also, it spelled cervical lymphadenitis. There is more information on it in guinea pigs here: https://www.guinealynx.info/forums/viewtopic.php?p=160439
 

shypaw

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Hi,I wanted to give you all an update on Romi. She's only 3 months old, so she's still quite small weighing in at just over one pound. She wasn't from a special guinea pig rescue actually, she and her sister were from a lady at work. I saw a post on our tackboard that her gp had a litter and she needed to find homes for them quickly.

Anyhow, the Vet wanted to take a light approach to start with and not do surgery yet, because she's so small still and wasn't sure if it was from a hay injury or not. So she is on Chloramphenicol liquid twice a day, that the Vet made for her. I'm also doing warm presses to her lump a couple times a day, with instructions to help it pop. Last night it did burst when I was doing so. What came out was a very hard white lump of yuck, and a little fluid.

She's still eating great and she's always running around the cage being active and popcorning. She loves her dandelion greens, blueberries, tomatoes and romaine lettuce the most and her weight has not gone down at all. I have a small 5 lb food scale that I use for weighing them.I have a follow up with the Vet on next Wednesday, but I can bring her back if anything looks like it's bad.

Does it sound to you like I'm doing the right things with her so far? If I'm missing anything, please let me know. Thank you.
 

CavyGarden

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It could be a cyst or abscess but that location, CL is unfortunately common.
If so, take it to a vet, and get it checked out. If you notice excessive drooling, and weightloss you need to get it there ASAP!!
 

shypaw

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I did take her to a Vet. I wrote about it above.
 

CavyGarden

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Sorry, I must have posted at the same time you did...
 

CavyGarden

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Okay, right now I'm in the same position you are.
Except she goes to the vet tomorrow morning. Just keep massaging the neck, I forget what its called. And keep a very close eye make sure that she eats. And weigh her everyday, to make sure she keeps weight
 

shypaw

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Update on Romi:

I brought her back to the Vet for her follow up last night after work. The Vet saw that the abscess was "open" but filled with puss, so she gently squeezed it and it popped what looked like toothpaste out. It was really gross. She said that she thinks that Romi has CL, due to the type of puss consistency it was. She took a swab culture and is sending it off to be tested. She won't know the results for a few days though, but she thinks it's CL. She said she had never seen CL in a pig so young before, so she was really hoping it was something else.

So she wants to know for sure what it is before we give Romi new antibiotics, so right now she's not on anything. The Vet said that because of Romi's small size and weight (She's just over one pound), she really does not recommend surgery. Romi is very active and eating like normal, so she would rather wait to do surgery until she's older/bigger. My Vet belongs to some network of Exotic Vets called "VIN" that communicate and get help from one another, so she's sending Romi's story out to verify with some Guinea Pig Vet Experts in CA and TX to see what they recommend for treatment.

She described inserting tiny antibiotic capsules right into the abscess and the closing it up, but said there is no guarantee it will solve her problem and that she could end up having reoccurrences continuously.

This is so heartbreaking! Please keep your fingers crossed that we can cure her, or at least make her life free of pain.
 
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