# Colitis- please help!!



## TzusnHedgies (Sep 25, 2012)

My hedgehog, Caramel, was diagnosed with Colitis yesterday. So that means it's very painful in his abdominal area and that's why he hasn't been moving around much. 

I guess I should go backwards and mention the first part of this. Caramel was slowing down all of his activities for the last three days. Going from running on the wheel a little to none at all. I also saw him straining very hard to go potty and he actually squealed in pain. So I knew something was really wrong with him, and that's when I took him to the vet, yesterday. 

The vet was familiar with hedgehogs, but told me he was in no way an expert. I thought that Caramel had a UTI, but he tested negative for that. They didn't find any parasites or anything else in his stool. What did happen is that while he was in his cage he had a very mucousy, unformed stool and also the area was very inflamed and irritated. 

$207 later, all I know is that he has Colitis. The vet recommended another guy, who said he's the best hedege vet In my state (Virginia). The guy's name is Dr. Stahl He's a couple of hours away and the office fee just to walk in the door is $185. This is money that I don't have! I knew that there would be vet bills. But Caramel is just over 3 months old and I've had him a week! I don't have a lot of confidence in Dr. Stahl, because on his website he recommends hedgehog food.

Does ANYBODY have ANY idea what could cause Colitis in a hedgehog? I've searched and searched on the internet, but can't come up with anything. I don't know how to fix this or whether it's something that could become life threatening. Help please!!!


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## TzusnHedgies (Sep 25, 2012)

I forgot to say that the breeder was feeding a cat food with 40% protein and 20% fat. Could that be a cause of Colitis in a hedgehog?


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## moxieberry (Nov 30, 2011)

I'm no expert, nor have I dealt with this personally, but what I know of colitis is that it's sort of a general term meaning inflamation of the colon; it basically describes a symptom instead of identifying a cause. In dogs and cats (which, I assume, is applicable to small animals like hedgehogs), it can be anything from an allergy, to something bacterial, parasitic, or even fungal. It can also be either a short-lived, one-time event or something chronic.

I really doubt the protein level has anything to do with it. It's possible that he has a food allergy, though. Often a change in diet is a good first step for trying to figure out the cause or solution of a problem that's related to the digestive system, if nothing turns up in tests. If it's allergy related, it might help to switch to a food that's made from a different protein source; the limited ingredient diets from Natural Balance or similar are good choices to try.

Do you know the specifics of the fecal tests that were run? I know some generalized tests aren't the best for catching certain specific things, though off the top of my head I can't give examples; wait for someone like Immortalia to chip in, she's the one who actually has some medical training. However, the only way that the protein level would be able to do damage is if his kidneys already weren't functioning well.

40% isn't very much higher than the suggested range for hedgehogs (30-35%) and protein that's higher than ideal isn't actually going to do any harm in a hedgehog that has healthy organs. Same as in people - very high protein diets can be bad for people who already have decreased kidney function for some other reason, but if the person is healthy and their kidneys are functioning normally, it won't do anything. An inflamed colon doesn't seem like it would be connected to kidney damage, either, and the kidney is what would suffer if it were related to the protein content.


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## TzusnHedgies (Sep 25, 2012)

Thank you for your response! I'm going to read it again throughly, but just wanted to mention that it's not the protein I'm concerned about; it's the fat. The food he's been on has 20% fat.


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## moxieberry (Nov 30, 2011)

Ah, sorry for the confusion! Same general reply though.  Higher fat could cause obesity, and eventually fatty liver disease, but I don't see a connection to a colon problem. Especially since he's only 3 months, higher fat is fine - a lot of people opt for higher fat content prior to 6 months because a hedgehog is still growing in that time, and other than it making them chunky if they're not active enough, and long-term strain on the liver that goes along with a hedgehog being overweight, I haven't heard of other problems caused by high fat. Not directly anyway - obescity comes with a list of problems, of course, but I don't get the impression that yours is overweight?

It could be the food in general that isn't agreeing with him, not the percentages in particular; what kind of food is it?


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## TzusnHedgies (Sep 25, 2012)

That's okay! He definitely is not overweight. The only information I can find is for humans and it's pretty confusing! Some saying that it could be an auto immune disease or caused by virus and bacteria, and many other possible causes. Also, I was able to find that the first symptoms are abdominal pain and constipation, lower appetite and not wanting to move very much. That's exactly what Caramel has. The vet did a fecal and didn't find anything at all. He doesn't want to prescribe antibiotics when there's no evidence of an infection, because antibiotics have side effects of their own and shouldn't be given unnecessarily. I agree with that. He also didn't want to prescribe dewormers and anti parasitics with no evidence of those. He referred me to the other Dr. So he feels that he's done everything he can for us. I REALLY respect that he didn't do test after test to make money, when he wasn't very familar with the species.

I put Caramel in the bathtub awhile ago, because I read that a very warm bath can be pain relieving. I filled the tub so that Caramel had to swim on one side and could touch the bottom on the other side. He swam around only did one midsize poop that was very mucousy and some little green ones. I think he felt better after that because he ate and drank. Still didn't run in his wheel though. He went back to his snuggle sack. I'd say he's at least 75% less active than when he first got here.

I do know that there is a link between high saturated fat and Colitis and that when people are having a flare up, they are supposed to eat low fat food. That's the only real link that I can find, but I could be totally wrong! The food is Blue Buffalo Wilderness, chicken variety.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but the foods that I've chosen for him are Wellness Healthy Weight and Simply Nourish Sweet Potato & Salmon. Both foods are in a really good range for fat and protein that I've seen recommended for hedgies. Before that I was mixing in Innova Cat with his old food (there wasn't much of the new food in the mix). Yesterday afternoon I tossed the Blue Buffalo.


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## TzusnHedgies (Sep 25, 2012)

I have to say that his breeder is being very supportive. She has a lot of contacts and hopefully she'll have some good input. Crossing my fingers!


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## Lilysmommy (Jan 7, 2009)

I can't really offer much advice or anything, with very limited health experience and never having heard of colitis. I just wanted to say I'm sorry you and your boy are going through this and I hope you guys get things figured out soon! Sending some extra cuddles and good thoughts to Caramel.


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## ashjac18 (May 18, 2012)

I find this strange, because I was just in the er and was told i have colitis.
Mine is an infection that I'm on antibiotics for but sometimes colitis can be caused by stress or a non balanced diet.
Try balancing the diet, see maybe if you can get stool or urine sample to the vet? They might find infection or rule out more things.
I'm not sure how to help much but I know the pain aha.
I really hope Caramel gets better <3


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## Immortalia (Jan 24, 2009)

Ok, I'm really sorry, but I'm going to be blunt.

Firstly, I need a few things cleared up. What tests exactly did the vets say they were going to perform?
You said something about wanting them to find out the exact strain of possible bacteria (so essentially, a culture and sensitivity test). 
Now, we(I'm in school for vet tech currently) did similar stuff last year in lab, where we grew unknown bacteria, and performed a series of tests to determine the strain(bacteria reacts to different chemicals in different ways). The entire process took 4 days. 2 days for the sample to grow in an incubation chamber. Then we transfered some bacteria into several different test tubes and petri dishes that were filled with different chemicals. This set was then incubated for another 48 hours in the incubation chamber. In total, it took 4 days to properly perform all the tests (And we didn't even cover overly indepth stuff! We only had to determine the family[e.coli, proteus, etc etc], not even the actual genus and such). Now, I'm sure labs nowadays are more effecient... However....

By the time the vet gets the sample, they must then seal it away and call purolator(or whatever shipping company they use), which then gets picked up(usually in 2-4 hours), and eventually delivered. So for the most part, anything that is actually sent away to a lab takes several days. The results are then usually faxed to the vet clinic.

Colitis is a very general term of "inflammation of colon". As said above, it's a symptom. I'll probably go through my books in a few to read up more, though it really is just a symptom, and how do they know it's the colon? Were xrays done? Xrays would show a swollen colon.

So everything just sounds a bit "off" ,to the point where the vet clinic just didn't know what they were talking about, made up some bs story, and ripped you off.


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## Immortalia (Jan 24, 2009)

Ok, diet wise, for a dog or cat that has colitis, the diet is canine/feline Hills w/d and d/d, and canine l/d

d/d for controlling dietary antigens
w/d is diabetic gastrointestinal
l/d is hepatic health (liver health)

Another question, when you said test for UTI, what tests did they do?

Ok, and I've checked 4 different books (cytology, common diseases, physiology and general vet tech book), none of them have any other information. Just one little blurb on horses. 

Any talk of a colonoscopy?
Or blood cbc and blood chemistry?
The blood chemistry can tell more of organ function. Though a cbc may not reveal a whole lot, maybe just increased wbc's if there's an infection or allergic reaction going on.
Did they prescribe anti-inflammatories? Since I'm assuming they saw some sort of inflammation somewhere to be able to "diagnose" with colitis.


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## TzusnHedgies (Sep 25, 2012)

I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but the vet ended up being almost no help. I've never seen him before. I just went there because they could see Caramel sooner than the regular exotic vet that I've seen in the past. The breeder had my vet fax Caramel's records to her vet. My vet had just done a test urine strip. Her vet said that there was a small amount of bacteria, but based on the fact that Caramel had started eating and drinking again, that it was probably something going away.

As far as the green poop- the breeder and her vet both think that was from the stress of being at the vet. For an animal with colitis, wouldn't they use i/d? I worked at a vet awhile ago and I had a cat with sensitive digestive issues.

Thank you for researching this! It's seems that almost no one has any answers! We need more research on hedgehogs!

So the breeder's vet said to watch Caramel for a few days and if he's not better, then to take him to my regular exotics vet. It looks like I'm probably going tommorrow, because although Caramel ate and drank well last night and was active; tonight he is very sluggish and has only had a little to eat and drink. I had put him on white paper towels to monitor his pottying and it looks like he didn't go yesterday or today so far! That is not, not good. I know that cats can get blocked and their bladders could rupture. 

There was no talk of any of the diagnostics that you mentioned. Just to watch him and take him back to the vet (different vet!) to be examined again.


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## Immortalia (Jan 24, 2009)

So is he straining to poop or straining to urinate?
Urine dipsticks aren't very accurate either and an actual manual urinalysis should have been done. 

Food wise, that's just what was in the book. Though they do make sense. Perhaps the diabetic gastro is better? Lol not totally sure, as opposed to normal gastro i/d. 

If the vet still seems adamant on colitis, then he should be on an inflammatory to bring the swelling down. But make sure it's a real diagnosis and not just bs


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