[Stones] Distilled water

[Cindy]

Ann, we are sending healing wishes and wheeks to Kinjaroo, and we will 
especially be thinking about her on Tuesday when she has her surgery.  
Please do keep us posted.

Technically, distilled water is water that has absolutely no minerals in 
it.  Distilled water is used in car batteries because it has no minerals 
that will contaminate the plates of the battery.

If by distilled water, however, you mean *bottled drinking water* from a 
grocery or health food store, that is fine.  We have been giving our 
piggies bottled drinking water for two years now.  As Amy said, that 
helps avoid the fluoride that is usually in tap water. 

Hope this helps.

Again, best wishes to Kinjaroo.

Cindy, Tumbleweed, and Friday

Ann wrote:
> Is it safe to feed cavies distilled water? I have a 5 year old female 
> cavy that had a huge stone removed from her urethra 13 months ago. Ever 
> since the surgery I have given her 50 mg of liquid vitamin C and 0.2 ml 
> of hydrangea root tincture for urinary health every day. On Christmas 
> Day she showed signs of pain when I picked her up. The slightest touch 
> near her urethra caused her to week in pain. I did a urinalysis using a 
> strip reagent and it was positive for blood. I had an xray done and it 
> showed urinary uroliths in the urethra. The uroliths look like gravel. I 
> know cavies have a high alkaline urinary pH that is around 8.5. Cavies 
> excrete excess calcium and phosphorous into the urine. I live in Floria 
> where we have high concentrations of both calcium and phosphorous in the 
> water thus calcium carbonate and triple phosphate uroliths can easily 
> form. Since we have hard water is it safe to give cavies only distilled 
> water? Kinjaroo is scheduled to have surgery on Tuesday. She is 
> currently on Rimadyl 10 mg twice a day and pediatric bactrim 0.5 ml 
> twice a day along with the hydrangea root tincture. She is eating and 
> drinking and acting totally normal except if any pressure is applied to 
> her urethra. I am open to any suggestions. I put all my piggys on 
> distilled water since Christmas Day.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Ann and the Rescued Piggys of Piggyville, Tampa Florida USA.
>
>