The Yorkshire Vet deals with a curious case of a hedgehog which looked more like a puffer fish

Yesterday, one afternoon slot had the words Pigeon, swelling near gonads. This was hard to imagine, since the gonads of a bird are usually well and truly hidden inside the body.

However, somewhat disappointingly, it turned out that Pigeon was simply the name of the patient. It also turned out that the patient was a rat!

This morning, the penultimate consultation before lunch was a hedgehog and its problem was clearly stated- Balloon Syndrome. I imagined a spikey wild animal coming in attached to a long string as it floated upwards.

The truth was not very different because the poor creature, called Hoggy, was a classic example of this strange condition. I rolled him out of the box.

Whilst the hedgehog was quite poorly, he didn’t seem to be in immediate distress and it was hard not to make a few light-hearted comments, partly to lift the mood. “Well, I suppose he’d do very well if he fell into a pond. He’d be good at floating!” I said.

Hoggy had a closer resemblance to a puffer fish than a hedgehog, with a perfectly spherical body covered in spikes made perpendicular to his skin by the curvature of his surface. Of course, these creatures are adept at morphing into spheres, but this one was an extreme example.

To touch, Hoggy was as gassy as a beach-ball and he was larger than a melon. Balloon syndrome is more technically called subcutaneous emphysema, which means air is trapped underneath the skin.

It’s usually caused by a small tear in the skin, oesophagus or airways, allowing air to escape from its proper place and then get stuck, a bit like a functional one-way valve.

Apart from being odd to look at and inconvenient to a small, spikey mammal, the condition is serious because it can lead to death by suffocation. Treatment was required.

Luckily, Jackie, the hedgehog-rescuer, who was very knowledgeable about hedgehogs, recognised the condition and we could crack on promptly.

The last time I treated a patient with subcutaneous emphysema was a border terrier, several years ago. He’d been bitten on the neck by a neighbour’s dog, I think in some sort of territorial dispute.

A colleague had sutured the wounds, which turned out to be a bad idea because it allowed air to be trapped under his skin in just the same way as Hoggy. He waddled in like a Michelin man, legs pushed out to all corners.

“He’s like a balloon and his skin feels like a bag of crisps,” his worried owner explained. Luckily, he responded well to treatment and I hoped today’s patient would too.

Hedgehog numbers are thought to be declining- about one third of the UK population has disappeared in the last twenty-five years, due to reduced habitat, traffic accidents and more. It’s nice to be able to help them.

I took some X-rays, to see if there was air displaced internally as well as under the skin, but also because I knew it would look dramatic.

Next, I set about draining the air from under his skin. A large syringe, a needle and a three-way tap was the required equipment. I sucked the trapped air out from under his skin and, within twenty minutes, Hoggy had returned to a normal size and shape, less round and in the normal proportions.

He went home, with instructions to report back if he reinflated. The prognosis was not perfect, but at least Hoggy was breathing more easily.

Fingers crossed for a happy outcome! In any case, please don’t let him go swimming!