Hi! I am Honeydew of the Piggyville girls of North Carolina. I am a
three
year old Abyssinian. I would like to tell you a story about my
ovarian
cysts. In January, I started to lose hair on both sides of my
body. I lost
my girly figure and my body became pear shaped because my
abdomen was
distended. My slave, Ann, felt my ovaries and told me that I
had ovarian
cysts. She said they felt like they were the size of the
bubbles on bubble
wrap. I had never heard of ovarian cysts before.
She explained that any
girly pig regardless of whether the piggy has ever been
pregnant can develop them. I
have never been pregnant. The reason that
cysts can form is because about
every 17 days my ovaries release eggs.
This is called ovulation. But
sometimes not all of the eggs burst out of
their sac which is called a
follicle. If the follicle doesn't break
open, or if it seals before all of
the fluid inside is released the
follicle can form a cyst on the ovary. In
many cases the next time
ovulation occurs the cyst bursts and all is well.
In my case, I had
cysts on both of my ovaries. The cysts can cause the
ovaries to have
unbalanced hormones. They did not cause me any pain. I did
not become
excessively hormonal or grumpy or start bossing around Squirly
and
Tilley. Though I did notice that my nipples were sometimes crusty and I
certainly did not like losing my gorgeous red hair.
Ann explained to me that piggies can get 5 different types of ovarian cysts.
Rarely are they ever cancerous. And the only way to find out what type of cysts
I have was to do a surgery called an ovarian-hysterectomy. That is where a
veterinarian takes out both my ovaries and my uterus. Oh NO!!! Not for
me!!! I would rather be a bald piggy with a pot belly than to have
surgery. Here are two pictures of my bald sides.
Then to really get me confused, Ann said that possibly hormone
injections
could make the cysts go away. The secret here is that only
two of the five
types of ovarian cysts will respond to hormone
injections. I decided that I
wanted the injections, so on March 1st. I
was taken to the vet’s office.
The vet knows my slave is a
rodentologist. Ann asked for a prescription for
2 bottles of Human
Chorionic Gonadotrophin hormone (HCG), 1000 units/ml. It
took about 2
weeks for the bottles to arrive by mail. She gave me a
subcutaneous
injection of 200 units and 14 days later another injection of
400 units.
For this second injection she had to use the second HCG bottle.
This is
because the hormone in only good for 24 hours after it is mixed with
diluent which is a sterile solution.
Now I noticed on the HCG bottle it said to give the injection into my muscle.
My slave explained that she was trained by Vedra Stanley-Spatcher of the
British Association of Rodentologists. Vedra had taught her that the HCG
works just as well when it is injected under the skin as it does if it is injected
into the muscle. Also, depending where you learned rodentology the amount that
you inject can be anywhere between 100 to 1000 units. Well 1000 units is
1ml and that is a lot to inject into the thigh muscle of a piggy and it
hurts a lot more too. So that is why she gives the injections under the
skin. The HCG hormone made me ovulate and this caused the cysts to
burst releasing their fluid. Like a miracle I began to grow hair back
immediately after the second injection.
Within two months of the injections almost all of my hair grew back
and my nipples are no longer crusty.
By four months after the injections I had regrown my lovely red
hair and
rosettes and I have my girly figure once again. So the moral of
my story is
that if you decide to get HCG injections be aware that they
cannot cure
every type of ovarian cyst. Most importantly make sure the
vet is using a
fresh bottle of HCG for each injection and that the
injections are given
under the skin. HCG goes by the name of Chorulon in
the UK.
