# Hedgehog x-ray



## Lucy (Jan 13, 2014)

I'm posting x-ray pics of my hedgie Mr Quills for those, who are interested in seeing "under the quills" 
Mr Quills had an x-ray done because I was concerned about something that might be wrong in his tummy because I heard him crying a couple of times with no obvious other cause, so I wanted to be sure. It seems, he was just having nightmares (see my other post) because the pictures were negative for any visible pathology. I wanted a sonography as well, but since the examination was done at school during our seminar, there wasn't much time to sedate Mr Quills and he's not a really cooperative hedgie, so it was just the x-rays done. Maybe someday, if there's a chance and a reason, I'll do the USG as well, but I'm not going to sedate my animal just for the fun of it...
Since he wasn't sedated, it was impossible to position him or fix him in any way (he would just curl up into a ball and jump around puffing at as all) so we just left him in his towels and did the pics when we thought he's still. We had a lot of fun and there were about ten people from our diagnostics clinic to have a look at x-rays of a hedgie being done :-D We managed to get theese two pics for the first time - I didn't even want more projections because of unnecessary radiation.
So, there's a dorsoventral projection (never mind the "R" - it's his left side and the doc put the letter on the wrong side). You can see his stomach just in front of his left knee (the bean-shaped gas-filled thing ) and next to it propably the liver (it surely is in this position, but it's hard to tell from the picture :-D). And the rest are bowels filled with digested food and some gas in the colon (the "bubbles" right before the pelvic bone). 
And the other picture is the latero - lateral projection done by horisontal rays from the left side. There's just the stomach filled with gas (we did wonder, if it's not colon, but it is a bit more cranially placed then it should be, as well as the stomach should be more ventral, but since it's filled with gas, it propably "floated" up - if anybody knows for sure, i'd be glad to know...). And you can see the heart a bit - it's just under the antebrachial bones, and the lungs, but theres a lot of superposition due to the cloth, Mr Quills was wrapped in and we couldn't position him, to free the sites of interests from bones (it would be best, if the legs were stretched out so the thorax and abdomen would be more visible). And he wasn't even sitting straight so it's not a proper latero-lateral projection :-D
It's not easy to x-ray a hedgie and specially one like Mr. Quills but we managed 
So if anybody has any comments or better knowledge than I (or have I written something wrong) please do tell me and all other readers, that might be interested...thanks very much


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## Tongue_Flicker (Jun 11, 2013)

Figured that much with the hedgie's spine, just didn't know it was THAT curved 

And look at that set of teeth


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## bobandelisabeth (Dec 23, 2013)

Thanks for posting these. So interesting to see their insides!


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## Annie&Tibbers (Apr 16, 2013)

<3!

I'm amazed at how clear his quills are! These are really interesting, thank you so much for posting!


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## sklock65 (Jan 9, 2013)

Pretty cool!

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## fishhead (Nov 18, 2013)

Wow, those are really fascinating, thanks for sharing them. Poor Mr. Quills, he doesn't look very happy in there.


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## Annie&Tibbers (Apr 16, 2013)

The more I look at that side view, the more he looks like the perfect cover art for some hard metal rock album, or the starting character sketch from some evil-clown. It's amazing!


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## CrazyHedgieLady! (Dec 30, 2013)

Awesome! Thanks for sharing!!!


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## CrazyHedgieLady! (Dec 30, 2013)

Wow!! Super cool perspective! Thanks for sharing!


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## sweetergrrrl (May 5, 2009)

I think this falls under the "Creepy-Cute" category. Really neat to see beneath the quills though!


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## ceopet (Sep 20, 2013)

That is really cool


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