[Stones] Piggie incontinence

[sherry bevins]

Greetings!

Our 4-year-old Sweetheart has had several bladder infections, during each of 
which she kept saturating herself...under her tummy and a little on her 
lower back. She has long hair which trails out behind her...I call it her 
"skirt". Well, it became a mini-skirt because we had to keep cutting it off 
as it became matted from her wetting it so much. We could always tell when 
she was having bladder problems because she stayed wet down there...no 
matter how many times a day we would rinse and dry her bottom, we just 
couldn't keep her dry for any length of time. And because she has an 
inverted vulva, we had to clean her up pretty often so that the urine would 
not cause her to get sores in that area. After a round of antibiotics she 
would gradually stop wetting so much and finally stop altogether after a few 
weeks. She is recovering from her latest bout at this time, after passing 
pure blood about a month ago. Strangely enough, this time she didn't wet 
herself as she had earlier and so we didn't realize what was going on until 
she was really not behaving in her usual manner...not moving around much at 
all, not eating or drinking as much. We were so worried about her, because 
other than her behavioral changes there were no other clues as to what could 
be wrong. Finally, I decided to put her on towels for bedding...I thought 
these would be more comfortable for her...and that's when I noticed that she 
was passing blood. She is still taking antibiotics and will continue to do 
so for a few more days. Hopefully at her next check-up we will see some 
improvement. Sometimes these UTI's can take many weeks to recover from, 
depending on how irritated the bladder was by the time symptoms started 
showing up. Sweetheart rarely makes a sound when she passes urine, so I have 
to watch her carefully for other symptoms... she's a tough little cookie! I 
think that once the bladder begins to heal there is less and less 
incontinence until at last it goes away completely. That has been our 
experience.

Joel, my 4-year-old Flick just had stone surgery and is recovering nicely. 
Our vet did not want to operate on him because of his age, but eventually 
had no choice. He was, by that time, thin and in terrible pain and misery. I 
was really afraid for him on the day that he went in for surgery, but, 
having been in good hands, he came through much better than we thought 
possible, and though there were a few complications afterward, he has 
overcome them all and now resembles the feisty fellow that he had been 
before his illness. We pray that such will be the case for your dear Star.

Wishing a speedy recovery to all sick piggies,
Sherry and the piggie pals
piggiepals4u.blinkz.com