[Stones] HEALTH: Stones

[ABSiev at aol.com]

Hello all, I've been wanting to write but have been overwhelmed with family 
matters.  

First, I certainly hope all goes well with Lucky, and my boys and I send him 
healing wheeks.

Then I wanted to relate my recent experience with my stones pig, Skippy, in 
case it might be helpful to some.  

Last May Skippy had some serious sludge which had not formed into a stone so 
we were able to clean it out with a bladder flush.  Up until then I had been 
serving my boys pretty much whatever they liked, since the only other stones 
pig I ever had was a pedigreed teddy and it didn't occur to me that these boys, 
good old American mutts, would have a problem.  After the sludge, I eliminated 
all the high oxalate veggies (dandelion greens, parsley, etc.) but continued 
to give them Romaine lettuce and a variety of other veggies and didn't change 
anything else.

Three months later I started to notice my little guy crying when he peed, 
took him in and he had an ENORMOUS stone.  We scheduled the surgery right away 
and he recovered nicely from it (faster than after the flush, actually).

Well.  When Dr. Sitinas showed me that stone on the x-ray, he said, "What's 
in your water?!?!"   It was only a figure of speech but it made me think.  I've 
always given my pigs tap water filtered through a Brita filter, which 
eliminates a lot of stuff but not fluoride.  So I thought, maybe it's the fluoride.  
I then made a lot of changes.

I've been buying them Penta water, which is insanely expensive - too 
expensive for me to drink myself, but it's all I give my boys now.  I buy the 
one-liter bottles by the case, which gets me a small discount from my local health 
food store .  I've cut out all veggies except red pepper, peeled cucumber and 
corn husks and silk.  (Sometimes I sneak Jif out and give him some of the veggies 
forbidden to Skippy.)  I give Skippy Polycitra, Shilintong, cleavers and 
yarrow.  Oddly, he likes the Shilintong, which smells weird, but not the 
Polycitra, which is sweet.   I've limited their pellets to 1/4 cup a day for the two of 
them.  They get lots of lovely hay.  

I also stopped putting newspaper under their Carefresh, for reasons having 
nothing to do with bladder stones, but I mention it for full disclosure of all 
changes that have been made.

Last month, 3 months after the stone surgery, we went back to Dr. Sitinas for 
a checkup and a follow-up x-ray.  His bladder is completely clear.

I don't know which thing is making the difference, so I can't ease up on any 
of them.  But my intuition says it's the water.

Amy
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