Sick guinea pig

[hipxop]

When the vet took the urine sample there were what looked like little grains in the urine. I thought that was the blood because otherwise there was no red or pink in her urine. Or maybe that’s due to her eating too much calcium, I’ve been trying to reduce it recently due to the fear of stone formation, but she loves her spinach and dandelion greens.

[bpatters]

If she's got grit in her urine and you're feeding her spinach and dandelion, you're definitely looking at a painful and expensive bladder stone episode down the road. She may be genetically prone to them, or it may be solely due to diet. If genetics, altering her diet won't help much. But it not, you can save her a lot of pain and yourself a lot of money and worry by changing her diet.

She may love spinach and dandelion, but she's not going to turn her nose up at red or green leaf lettuce, either of which is a much better choice of greens for her.

[hipxop]

Right, I’ll change her diet, I’d rather not cause her any pain in the future. The vet mentioned she had crystals in her urime so perhaps he was referring to the grit/extra calcium? Can this extra calcium irritate the bladder and cause blood in the urine?

[Lynx]

Yes it could. Read the links on the interstitial cystitis link I posted above.