Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi,
I've been giving my dwarf hamster medicine because he has been having lots of discharge from his nose and his eyes. Also, he is having respiratory problems. Those symptoms have been going on for a week now, and prior to that he just had a little runny nose every so often for 2 weeks. But now he looks so bad...I don't know if this is just one of those things where it will take him a while to get better, or if he is gradually dying. He shows signs that both make him look like a hamster that is dying and a hamster that is trying to live. On one hand he doesn't run around on his wheel anymore and looks really unkempt, but on the other hand, he still tries to groom himself and he gets up to eat like a normal hamster. My vet and I decided that if he got worse over the weekend that I should put him down, but he hasn't gotten worse. To me, it looks like he's been hanging on by a thread this whole time, but if had been hanging on by a thread, wouldn't he have died already? He's been sick for a month now. My question is, should I put him down? I really don't know how I can bring myself to do it if the little guy is actually getting better and it might be another month until he gets better...Right now he's just sitting here heaving trying to stop his runny nose.

Thats very sad, I'm so very sorry your hamster is sick
Definitely sounds like a respiratory infection, what has your vet given him, what antibiotic?

Poor lil guy, I can not tell you what to do, as far as putting him down , I'm a bad one to ask, because I always exhaust all possibilities, before I think of that final option.

Have you asked you vet or another vet if ther is another kind of medicine you can try if the one he first gave you is not working? Thats what they would do for people, try a different antibiotic.

One more thing, can't hurt go to the rats forum, and leave a post for Typhanie, say PHEve told you to ask her about the herb she uses for the rats when they have colds or resp infections.

Or I will ask he rot come here, sure hope ya can get the little guy back up and around and feeling good again
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PHEve / Eve

I'm sorry to hear your hamster is sick. Do you know what the drugs your vet prescribed were? The absolute best you could ask for is Baytril and Doxyciline in combination with rodents with respiritory infections.

You can also try some Echinacea. I use it regularly with my rats as well as some of my hams. It's an herb that boosts their immune systems to help them fight off their own illnesses. You can get capsules of it at your pharmacy for pretty cheap. Just break open one of the capsules and put some of the powder/herbs inside it into something the hamster likes. Perhaps apple sauce or yogurt or baby food. The great thing about Echinacea is you can use it in combination with drugs and it doesn't have any known side-effects. Plus the hamster would probably have to eat a whole Echinacea plant to OD.

Unfortuneately respiritory problems are common with most rodents. It's a chronic problem so if he pulls through it this time it probably will come back every now and then but that's not to say he can't live a happy life. Just by curiosity is he being bedded on cedar or pine? If so you might want to change your bedding as cedar deffinately can irritate their lungs and some people still think pine can too (I'm really not sure myself but it's better safe then sorry!) And remember to feed him some probiotics after he's done with his meds (yogurt works great) to build up the good bacteria in his gut again. He'll be thankful for it!

Good luck. I hope he pulls through.
Typhani
Oh Rats Rodentry

Your the best! Great advice sure hope he tries it
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PHEve / Eve

Thanks so much guys for all the advice!!! I was supposed to put my hamster down on Tuesday, but I still didn't think my hamster was quite ready, so I waited a bit, and I'm glad I did. He's getting better! Or from what I can tell, he looks like he's getting better. To answer your questions, he was on Tribrissen syrup at first, and he seemed to do okay with that except his nose was still runny. So, we switched him to Baytril a week later, and that's when everything went waaay downhill. The vet was pretty surprised the Baytril didn't work, so after a week of Baytril we switched him back to the syrup. Now I don't know what was going on, but my hamster Felix is a lot better now. I put Terramycin ointment on his eyes, and now his eyes are bright and clear again, and his fur isn't as scruffy. He actually ran in his wheel today for a minute too! He hasn't done that in a month.

However, Felix is still sneezing occasionally, and his body still looks tired and worn from being sick--so I will definitely try the Echinacea that Typhani recommended. Although, is it okay that he's a dwarf hamster? I don't know if Syrian hamsters take to herbs better than dwarf hamsters. Also, how much of it do you recommend giving him a day? Oh, and the bedding I use for my ham is the Carefresh kind with the aqua green package.

One thing to mention also about Felix is that he has some masses on the outside of his body, which my vet said could also mean that there could be bad things internally in Felix that we wouldn't be able to detect without an xray. So, she said that if he had some sort of lung cancer it could have lowered his immune system to nothing, and getting sick didn't really help either. And although the antibiotic syrup seems to be helping him, I don't want it to rot his gut either--so I will definitely give him Echinecea and yogurt.

Once again, thanks for the support!

The Echinacea should be fine for dwarf or really any rodent that I know of. Knowing how bad off he was you'd probably want to give him a little more then usual perhaps 1/4th of a capsule which is a heft dose for a little guy like that. That's quite a bit by any standard but luckily Echinacea is pretty much impossible to OD on so it should be OK. For milder problems you'd give less obviously.

I've never heard of the drug you said but I do know Bayril doesn't always work on it's own, that's why Baytril and Doxyciline combos usually work best (they attack infections in two different ways making a nice partnership.)

Unfortuneately rodents do have a lot of Cancer in their lines from inbreeding too much so I can't honestly tell you that that isn't a possibility but I do know that it's more likely just a respiritory infection that got out of control. It happens all the time but now you know what to look for. His lungs will be scarred now from this ordeal so I doubt an X-ray would be helpful (it'd probably pick up the scaring!) Good luck with him. I hope he continues to improve and hey whatever works works!
Oh Rats Rodentry