Posts Tagged ‘syrian’

Suspected Folliculitis

August 5th, 2010

In mid-July, I noticed dried up blood that had completely shut Daddy Hamster’s right eye. Of course I panicked & brought him to the vet right away. The vet cleaned up DH’s shut eye with this solution:

After DH’s eye was cleaned, the vet inspected the eye, which looked healthy. That’s when the vet suspected that it was folliculitis (inflammation of the hair follicle, specifically inflammation of the hair follicle surrounding DH’s eye). DH was prescribed with an eye ointment (the same one that was prescribed to Baby Hamster for his cysts) to be applied twice daily right on the eye, for 7 days. During those 7 days, I could see that DH’s inflammation was getting better. I also had to continually clean his eye with wet cotton bud.

Fast forward 2 weeks to today, this is how his right eye looks like (warning: graphic photo). Obviously it doesn’t look good. I’m going to make a vet appointment right away for tomorrow & I’ll be updating on how DH is doing.

ps: DH is about 2.5 years old, so I’m just hoping that this is a symptom of ageing & it won’t affect his entire well being.

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War Against the Bloodsuckers

January 9th, 2010

Has been won by the hamsters!

Last month, just as the robo girlies were finishing up on their mites medications, I noticed that Daddy Hamster’s skin was a little dry & flaky. He is all good now, but poor DH has also been attacked by the mites since the robo girlies’ cages are below DH’s cage. When I brought DH to the clinic, vet said that the mites on DH were still at the early stages, which was good. As for DH’s Ivermectin routine, his doses weren’t as far apart as the robos’ (the robos had to take their mites medications 2 weeks apart), DH’s medications were 8 days apart because he is a larger hamster.

The new year has started on a healthy note!

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Evil Weevil

December 19th, 2009

Found in Daddy Hamster’s cage:

DH weevil

I had just cleaned his cage a couple of days ago, so I suspected that the weevil came from the food! I hope that I don’t have to discard the newly opened bag of food :-(

Vet said that these weevils are harmless. Nevertheless, since then, I have cleaned DH’s cage with bleach & threw away his cardboard hideouts.

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Weekend Scare

November 10th, 2009

This past Friday as I was about to give Baby Hamster his steroid gel, I noticed that there’s blood coming out of his penis. I looked around his cage & also found a drop of blood in the bedding. Good thing the Animal Clinic was open on Saturdays for emergency. Vet said that it could either be urinary prostate infection or tract infection .. I hope it’s the latter. He’s on Baytril for 10 days.

I don’t know what is going on, but it seems like almost all my hamsters are coming down with something …. *sigh* & I don’t like writing about sick hamsters either.

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No More Lumps!

November 5th, 2009

This past Monday, Baby Hamster went for a second vet visit to have his sutures taken out (from the removal of the ‘mobile’ cysts found under his neck) & to have another surgery (the removal of his skin below his left ear that houses the smaller cysts).

BH sutures

The sutures & where the large cyst was (under BH’s neck)

As the vet was examining the smaller cysts he was about to operate on, they have actually subsided to the point that the vet decided surgery was no longer needed :-D I think it must have been the 7-day dosage of Baytril that really helped the smaller cysts to go down. Now he’s been given some kind of steroid gel to be applied on twice a day, for a week.

Yay for a successful recovery!

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Smaller Lump

August 15th, 2009

I took Baby Hamster in the morning to see the vet who managed to squeeze out the abscess with no effort! I told him how I tried doing that, but nothing came out. The vet said that the abscess probably wasn’t ‘ripe’ enough to come out. The abscess was light green & sticky, yum. The vet shaved off the area around the lump & squeezed out as much abscess as he could. Now BH is on antibiotic for a week.

BH abscess going down

When we arrived home, his abscess was still bleeding, so I compressed the area with thyme tea; by nighttime, it was already scabbing. The lump has gone down significantly, but the vet said how the cyst will always be there. As whether the abscess will come back or not, only time can tell. The vet also complimented on how BH was the best hamster he has ever handled; he didn’t bite or nip him at all :-)

Since BH has been on the antibiotic, he’s been sleeping a lot more. Not only that, I noticed that the fur on his back isn’t as thick as Daddy Hamster’s. Maybe BH is the daddy, and BH is older than I thought he is (I estimate his age to be about 1 1/2 years old)? Well, I hope that he’ll stay with my for a little while longer. So I hope that the sleeping is the side effect of the antibiotic & not of his age.

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Vets are gone!

August 10th, 2009

I go to this particular animal clinic, which is the official clinic for the local zoo. The clinic has 3 vets, but the one I always always see for rodent problems (chins & hamsters) has relocated out of state and my alternative (who treated Dee Dee & Winnie) is on vacation. The third vet has been under the guidance of those 2, but he’s only worked at this clinic for a couple of years and not as experienced with rodents. There’s a new replacement vet, but the staff I talked to doesn’t know if she’s experienced with rodents.

The problem is, I found a lump near Baby Hamster’s left cheek.

BH sick

I tried putting hot compress on him to release the abscess (I think it’s an abscess), but I wasn’t successful. I was afraid, most of the time, of hurting him. Plus, he wouldn’t stop moving. He was very patient with me though; at one point when he’s had enough, he gave me a friendly nip (not the painful ones Syrians can give, so I wasn’t punctured). Afterwards, he was still as tame as ever. I’ve read somewhere that Syrians, once they’ve been tamed, they will always stay tame. As for other hamsters, if you don’t handle them regularly, they will forget what it’s like to be handled & will bite again.

Since I’m reluctant to go to another clinic, I’ll give this vet a try.

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