Guinea pig - "cheilitis"

RE: Guinea pig - "cheilitis"

Beats — Sun, 20 Oct 2019 21:35:55 GMT

Follow-up:

Saw back 2 weeks ago:

Reported had initially cleared up quickly with dentisept, relapsing in summer.

Was VERY severe with whole chin an ulcerated mess and extending up one cheek also as well as previous locations.

Gave another tube of dentisept and came back 2 weeks later virtually resolved.

Had already stopped acidic foods etc from last visit (previously liked tomatoes).

Had recently changed food to a mixed grass hay with quite a lot of spiky bits in it.

Found a slightly less spiky grass hay, but still quite a few spiky bits in it - owner just going to keep looking and do best job to pick them out and use dentisept as and when required.

She applies the dentisept to her fingers and then smears on.

No signs of toxicity noted and used quite a bit on this recent presentation as quite severe.

[To avoid confusion for anyone reading this: That's dentisept with an "i" from AniMedica as in: https://www.petdrugsonline.co.uk/dentisept ]

RE: Guinea pig - "cheilitis"

Marie Kubiak — Wed, 06 Mar 2019 07:45:40 GMT

The guinea pig will survive the dentasept! Unless you have a fistula from mouth into cranium but it's probably doomed then anyway whatever you do!!

RE: Guinea pig - "cheilitis"

Beats — Wed, 06 Mar 2019 07:32:52 GMT

thanks Marie - very helpful!

can i confirm that a very little dentisept (chlorhexidine) applied to the lesions is unlikely to kill the guinea pig...

RE: Guinea pig - "cheilitis"

Marie Kubiak — Tue, 05 Mar 2019 22:06:53 GMT

Guinea pigs do get a crusting cheilitis and it tends to clear up over a few weeks given no secondary infections. It may be secondary to a pox virus, acidic foods, saliva pooling or something else, there is no clear single cause.

I remove fruits and acidic veg from the diet and keep the skin as clean and dry as is possible. F10 germicidal cream is oily and helps reduce skin cracking and soreness and is also bactericidal/viricidal/fungicidal so may help treat primary and secondary factors and seems to speed recovery in my experience.

Marie