 So there's a growing health concern among guinea pig owners, specifically female guinea pig owners that I really haven't seen talked about too much on YouTube. You may have heard mention of ovarian cysts, but I haven't really seen a lot of information out there that does a deep look at what ovarian cysts are and what the treatment options are. And this can turn out to be a pretty expensive situation, so I thought it was worth talking about on my channel. So today we're going to be talking about ovarian cysts, taking a deep dive into what they are, what your treatment options are, and what it can mean for your pets. Hey guys, welcome back to the tiny herd where I share daily care tips for guinea pigs, rabbits, and other small pets so that you can keep your pets the happiest and healthiest that they can be. Today we're diving into ovarian cysts for guinea pigs. Now obviously I am not a vet, I don't have any pet medical background, but I have had two female guinea pigs now that have been diagnosed and treated for ovarian cysts, so I wanted to share my experience with you guys. One of the main reasons I wanted to cover this topic on my channel is because ovarian cysts are becoming a more and more common problem, and I think it's important to talk about, and I think sharing experiences between pet owners can do a lot with helping people understand more about ovarian cysts, what their options are, and hopefully get some more research done into this topic. A lot of people think ovarian cysts are rare in piggies, which has actually recently been found to not be the case. I read a study that said that up to 80% of female guinea pigs over the age of 18 months have some form of ovarian cysts. While that doesn't mean that your piggy shows signs of them or maybe it's not affecting their life, but I think that statistic means that this is something that needs to be talked about a little bit more often. So I will link that article down below so that you can read more for yourself if you would like to as well. The best place to start with this topic is just explaining what ovarian cysts actually are. So if you're unfamiliar with guinea pig reproductive anatomy, they have two ovaries and a uterus just like humans do, and basically when an egg fails to be released from the ovary that can turn into a cyst. Cysts will cause the ovaries to grow, can cause all kinds of hormonal issues, and basically will just throw your piggies body out of whack. Cysts can form in just one ovary, but a lot of times they will develop in both. Cysts usually develop in piggies between the ages of 18 months and 5 years, which really doesn't help narrow it down since that is the majority of life of most female guinea pigs. If ovarian cysts aren't treated, they will be extremely uncomfortable for your guinea pig and you can run the risk of complications like the cysts bursting or other medical issues. So it's really important to understand the signs of ovarian cysts and get your piggy in for treatment as soon as you can. Recognizing the signs and symptoms of ovarian cysts isn't always easy because the symptoms aren't always obvious. This is one reason why it's really important to do weekly regular health checks with your pets because looking at them and examining them on a regular basis can help you notice differences in symptoms that you may not otherwise notice. So let's go over the main symptoms of ovarian cysts. Your piggies may have some of these or all of these, but we're going to go ahead and cover the basic ones. So first off is hair loss along the sides of the abdomen. This is actually the first symptom that I saw when Lulu had ovarian cysts because it's pretty telltale. If a piggy has mites or some other skin condition, normally they have kind of more uniform hair loss, but with ovarian cysts, it's normally concentrated along the lower sides of the back of their abdomen. It can also happen pretty fast. June also had some hair loss and she went from having some really small patches to being almost completely bald down her sides in a matter of two weeks. We did find out that she also had mites at the same time, which could have kind of exacerbated the problem, but once we treated the mites, she still did have those larger hair patches on her sides. The second symptom is kind of dry and crusty nipples. So if you look at the underside of your piggy, they should have some little nipples towards the lower end of their body. You've probably noticed these during your health checks. With both of my piggies that had ovarian cysts, there were some crusts on there and they just looked a little inflamed and bothered. So this is definitely another symptom to look out for. This is caused by hormonal changes as the cysts grow. The third symptom is changes in behavior. I didn't see this with my girls, but a lot of people do report this symptom with their pigs that have ovarian cysts. So if you have a normally laid back piggy that is now trying to be the top of the pack and being really dominant or vice versa even, this could be a sign that ovarian cysts or other hormonal issues are going on. The fourth symptom is changes in weights. One of the main things that you should be doing during a regular health check is weighing your piggy to see if there are any changes week to week. One of the first signs of an illness in a guinea pig is losing weight and this is definitely something I saw with both June and Luna before I realized that they had ovarian cysts. I had been keeping an eye on both of them because they had lost a little bit of weight and then they also had the hair loss that started that kind of clued me in as to what was going on. So definitely weigh your piggies and look for any changes, especially in a short period of time. The first thing you might see in terms of weight when it comes to ovarian cysts is kind of a change in the distribution of weight. So a lot of times when a piggy has cysts, it will kind of look like their weight drops from the top of their body kind of down lower. So if your piggy is normally kind of like a normal average plump little piggy and you kind of start to be able to see their spine and it seems like their weight is kind of like dropping lower in their body, you might want to get them checked out because that can be a sign of cysts as well. And then finally, the fifth symptom is abdominal pain. Some piggies, when they have cysts, you can kind of tell on their sides that they're a little bit swollen or they're a little bit more inflamed. It might look like they're bloated, but if you gently press on their sides, sometimes that is painful when those cysts are starting to grow. So this is often something the vets will check. They'll kind of feel around and see if there's any pain or if they can feel any changes inside your pig. So if you're going to pick up your piggy and whenever you touch their abdomen, they really don't like it or they're squeaking at you or doing anything that indicates that they're kind of in pain, then this might be something you want to check out as well. So these symptoms can obviously be signs of a lot of other illnesses as well. But if you're seeing multiple of these symptoms combined at the same time, I would definitely make an appointment with your vet to get an x-ray done and get your piggy checked out for ovarian cyst. So what do you do if you suspect your guinea pig has ovarian cysts? The first thing you want to do is make an appointment with your vet. You want to get your piggy in with an experienced exotic vet that is familiar with guinea pigs. You definitely want them to be familiar with and be able to recognize the signs of ovarian cysts. Usually to diagnosis, your vet will first do an exam of your piggy and discuss the symptoms that you've been seeing with you. At that point, they'll probably take your piggy to do an x-ray because that is really the only definitive way to verify whether your piggy has cysts or not. They can use those x-rays to confirm the diagnosis and then use that as a guide for treatment options. The vet I used with my guinea pigs is very experienced and was actually able to diagnose the cysts without even doing the x-rays. She could just do the exam and hear the symptoms that I had been seeing and that kind of clued her in as to what was going on and then before we did the space surgery for each one of them, there was an x-ray done right before the surgery to confirm that that is what was going on and so that the vet could make a plan for the surgery to make sure it was done correctly and got rid of all the issues. So what are your treatment options? This is something you are definitely going to want to discuss with your vet once they have confirmed that your piggy does in fact have ovarian cysts. So the main treatment is spaying your guinea pig. This pretty much takes all of the guesswork out of the equation. The spaying removes the ovaries and the uterus from your guinea pig so there's no risk of future cysts and there's no risk of any complications with the cysts that they have. This is pretty much the most common and the standard treatment. But while surgery is hard on piggies, this is definitely an option that you want to take seriously and discuss with your vet. Obviously, there's a lot of different factors that can go into whether your piggy is a good candidate for surgery. But this is the treatment option that I personally recommend. I just think it's good to completely take the guesswork out of it and you know that there's not going to be any issues with the cysts coming back in the future. Both of my girls that had cysts were both spayed and both of them came through the surgeries just fine. So that is something to keep in mind. You do want to make sure you find a vet that knows what they're talking about, of course, and knows how to do surgery on smaller animals like guinea pigs. But if you do all your research, make sure you have a good vet and your piggy is a good candidate for surgery. I think this can be a really great option. Make sure to take the age, health condition, and any other factors into account when you're considering surgery, however, because not every pig is a good candidate for surgery. And you also want to make sure that you have a good vet that is experienced with guinea pig surgery and spay surgery that is going to be doing the procedure. There are also some hormone injections that have been discussed that can be used as treatment for cysts. But I personally don't know a whole lot about them. My vet doesn't do them because there's no actual research to back up the long term effects of these injections. And there isn't really any research that shows that they have a huge impact. And the other issue with the injections is if you have a younger piggy, this is not something that can be done long term, which can mean ovarian cysts become an issue again in the future. So this is why my personal choice is to spay my guinea pigs if they have ovarian cysts, if they are a good candidate for surgery. If your vet does offer the hormone injections, be sure to ask a lot of questions and thoroughly research and discuss this with them so that you understand what the risks are, what the benefits are, and if this is a good option for your pets. OK, so there's a couple of final thoughts that I want to leave you with. First, there's nothing that you can do to prevent ovarian cysts. This is just something that's common and happens with female guinea pigs. Really, the only thing you can do is be familiar with the symptoms and the signs and do regular health checks to ensure that you are seeing the symptoms and can get your piggy in for treatment as soon as you realize what is going on. I also want to use this opportunity to mention that it's really important that you already have an exotic vet lined up that you trust and that is experienced with guinea pigs. You don't want to run into a situation like this and also have to be trying to find a good experienced vet. So make sure that you have that already done and ready to go now before you're having any issues with your pigs. And then finally, I did want to mention that having a vet fund in place for your piggies is also really important. It can be really expensive when these medical issues happen. To give you an example, when we had June go in for her space surgery for her ovarian cyst, the total cost with the first exam, the x-rays, the space surgery itself, the follow-up and all the medications, that total experience cost us about $1,100. So that can vary widely depending on where you live and the experience of the vet and all of those different things. But that is something I did want to mention so that you are aware of. Setting aside money ahead of time before your pets have a medical issue can be a really, really great way to reduce the amount of stress that you're under if your pet does have a medical issue. The money will already be there and you can just use it for whatever you need. So that is a tip I also wanted to share and I think it's really important as a pet owner to have that money in place ahead of time. If you enjoyed today's video, make sure to hit that like button. Let me know down below in the comments if you have any experience with ovarian cysts or if you have any questions or comments. But I hope you enjoyed today's video and you found this helpful and I will see you guys next time. Bye.