Hello, I’m Pippin, and I’m a guinea pig. Today I’m going to talk about Joints. We have lots of joints in our body, and the main problem is something called arthritis, or arthuritis as we prefer to call it.

We’re helping out our Mummy, Jemima Pett, who is doing the A2Z this year by putting together all the posts we’ve done here on George’s Guinea Pig World, to make a book on Guinea Pig Care from A to Z. You can see her posts here: jemimapett.com/blog/. We’re filling in the gaps this month.

Joints

We have lots of joints in our bodies. they are roughly the same as the ones you have, save for different numbers, and size, of course. Joints arrive where bones meet, and they do that mostly so we can move in different directions. Some hold us all together, like the spine, which has lots of joints in it that don’t really move, just enough for us to bend.

And as we get older, the places where the bones meet start to get bony growths, caused by arthritis.

I have arthritis in my spine and my hind limb joints mostly. They show up as white places on my joints, and can change the appearance of the joints. At present it doesn’t cause me much problem, but then I get a painkiller every day called Metacam (aka Meloxicam). When Dr Rebekah sawe me last month she was pleased that my spine seemed to have improved – or at least it wasn’t hurting me so much.

Sadly most pigs will have a degree of arthritis by the time they are four, but some get it much earlier. I think my mate Victor had it from when he was born. Mummy thinks this was why he was surrendered to a rescue so many times – they didn’t realise that lifting him up, or ushering him along from behind actually hurt him, and he tried to nip them. It was less than a month from when we joined her that she realised he had a hip or knee problem, and took him to Dr Rebekah, who xrayed him and found the arthritis. Victor had Metacam ever after, and he was much more comfortable.

He also had a Joint Support tablet which he loved. All the older boys had them and I had a different one because I wasn’t old enough (I wasnt even one year old then.) Mummy tried to give me Joint Support tablets recently, because she said they would help, but I find them too hard to bite. I’d rather have the herbal treat one I’ve always had.

If you are looking for arthritis biscuits, you want to find one with glucosamine for guinea pigs.

And you can see in the picture on the right that Mummy has a board with what pig needs what medicine, and how much, when. Biggles had Frusol for his heart and Pimobendam for his heart, ans something else for his thyroid. I think I’ve got that right. Quite a few pigs here have had Frusol, but Biggles was the only one with thyroid trouble. I might do that later. Ludo and Locksley told me all about him.

Apparently all the older boys Mummy had before we came used to love the Joint Support biscuits, from Colman onwards. They used to come in very useful jars. Colman was very old. He lived till he was at least eight.

I hope that helps, see you tomorrow

love

Pippin xxx