Here are more cute pictures of the toothless diabetic wonder hamster. https://mastodon.social/media/lWRto6NBc7vOVf3PY_Q https://mastodon.social/media/n0xhMSnBDJjBriBOCLQ https://mastodon.social/media/gaRri0uHmOxlO4NAiu0
Once I changed food I saw results. He's back to the weight he was at the vet, as of today, and I hope he'll return to his pre-illness bulk. Just gotta fatten him back up. I'll keep mixing food and coaxing him any way I can.
The moral of this story, if there is one, is that there's no such thing as "just" an animal. They all need care. And it's on us to give it. I'm happy to do it.
I was determined to get the food into him though. It took some doing. I mixed it half and half with his old familiar stuff and offered it that way.
He decided he'd only accept it from me. My fingers, a syringe, a spoon - if I gave it, he'd take it. But not from his dish. I made sure he had enough in his belly to keep him going for the day, then waited him out.
Overnight he ate a good amount of it. Sucker.
Lucky had been through more than enough at this point. He'd been stuffed in a carrier in a tote bag in a car for an hour there and another back. He'd been prodded, ascultated, palpated, suffered food changes, given delicious medicine, closed in a carrier for three hours for no reason he could understand. He'd had enough.
He wouldn't touch the healthy food, damnit. He was putting his tiny knobbly paw down.
I shared this with Super Cool NZ Vet Friend, and she felt comfortable in diagnosing diabetes. Because it's not enough the poor guy has a squashed bulldog head and no incisors.
Fortunately, this can be managed with diet. The food I had him on - Mazuri - is excellent, but wasn't working for him. So it was time for changes. I ordered a speciality recovery food and waited for it to arrive.
Anyway! One canceled Amazon order and two local pharmacies later, I had my keto-diastix test strips.
Now I needed a sample of pee. I thought this would be easy. I'd wake him up, put him in his carrier, give him water, and wait. I was so wrong.
A watched pot never boils and a watched hamster never piddles. Three hours later I got my sample. Medium glucose, high ketones. https://mastodon.social/media/poLpnhEG_GT0h_VfWJs https://mastodon.social/media/tRUmCtFVSLQ_MQ8rieE
Side note: the hamster you think of when you think hamster is a Syrian. Mesocricetus auratus. Aka golden hamster, teddybear, black bear, etc. Those are all color and coat variations. Same animal, same anatomy, same behavior, same needs. I've never kept dwarfs - though I kinda want to - so I don't know as much about them.
A NZTwitter friend - a super cool rotifer scientist who keeps pet rats - got me in touch with a friend of hers, a vet with a focus on small animals. I emailed her Lucky's history and symptoms, and we came up with a plan.
First thing to rule out was diabetes, which is more common in dwarfs than Syrians, but it can happen sometimes. So I had to get pee test strips. Took me two local pharmacies. They were very impressed when I said, "It's for a pet."
The vet was not a small/exotic specialist. He palpated Lucky and weighed him, said that he couldn't detect growths and his weight was within normal range, and prescribed antibiotics.
After, I took Lucky to the toy store next door, in his carrier in a New Yorker tote bag, just to do it. Ham in a toy store!
This didn't cure the problem. Lucky kept dropping weight. His spine felt like a row of needles.
About three weeks ago I noticed he was peeing a lot. He was also voraciously hungry. He'd nibble at my hands when I didn't have treats for him. Then he started losing weight. I did my research, found a pocket pets vet, and took him in.
For the past few weeks I've been treating a pet with a mystery illness. I want to tell the whole story here, sort of give long form tooting a try.
This is Lucky, a Syrian hamster with a skull defect and no teeth. I'd love to get his head scanned, out of curiosity, but that's prohibitively expensive. He's my sweet special baby and I love him to bits. https://mastodon.social/media/5fFuo37U2INu8q8sjLQ
< lj-cut > Show more
I have nothing else to say of any relevance right now, so here's a blingy alligator pendant atop the cross stitch I'm never ever gonna finish at this rate. https://mastodon.social/media/-fy4SQA3QtPJN62lZPY
TOOT. jaysus. I'm so mature.
oh hell it says toot. there goes my ability to be a rational adult on this thing.
💨💨💨💨💨
