| 1218Singapore
dwarf hamster facial wound, pet health and welfare educational for animal lovers,
excerpts from The
Glamorous Vets, Singapore, sponsored by AsiaHomes Internet.
Last Updated: 18 December, 2001 The hamster with a swollen eye  "My hamster bites," warned Ms Tan as she put on two pairs of cotton socks onto her hand before catching her pet out for examination of a swollen and half closed left eye. It was moving all the time, up and down Ms Tan's hand, squeezing away nimbly from her grip. As it wriggled towards her arm, she quickly pushed it towards the protected hands area to avoid being bitten. She must have been bitten a lot of times. "It has a cut below its left eye," I said. "It had rubbed its sore and you could see a swollen left eye area without any hair." It was trying to relieve itself of the itch. "How old is the hamster and how long had it been rubbing its left eye?" I asked. The older the hamster, the more risky it will be to anaesthesize it for treatment. Ms Tan said "It is two years and nine months old and it just has this swollen eye."  This was a sprightly ball of geriatric dynamite and in good
bodily condition. Most dwarf hamsters seldom live that long and Mr Tan could not
believe it was that old. A quick phone call to his wife confirmed the age.Definitely, it would be impossible to inject it with the anti-itch and antibiotic injection as it does not stay still for a second. We could wrap it round a towel but it would still wriggle out. Maybe it would just die suddenly of fright and this would be traumatic for the ten-year-old Ms Tan and her slightly older cousin Elsie. I could put it under a gas anaesthesia so that it would stop moving and then inject it. What if it dies of stress under anaesthesia? Should I warn the young owner of the risk? She might start to cry. Should I just leave it alone and gave some medication? Most owners find it difficult to medicate a dwarf hamster. Based on its general appearance of good health, the risks would be lesser. I recommended a gas anaesthesia and did not warn of the risks.  "How much it would cost?" asked Mr Tan. He had taken some
time off to bring the pet to a vet who was open at 5 p.m on this Hari Raya Puasa day and
had to rush to celebrate the breaking of the fast with his Muslim friends."Fifty dollars for the gas anesthesia, the consultation and treatment," I said. The two cousins said "wow". It was two times more than the cost of a new dwarf hamster. The general practitioner charged around fifteen to twenty dollars for a consultation and medication of a common cold. I said nothing. Mr Tan agreed to the fee. The hamster was put into a small plastic container padded with cotton wool. It was given a whiff of the anesthetic. "A strong smell," said Ms Tan covering her nose as I put in the anaesthetic soaked cotton wool into the box. "Will it suffocate inside this box?" asked Ms Tan. "No," I said. "We will take it out once it stops moving." I thought it would be good to educate the pre-teens on how a hamster is anaesthesized and reinforce their love and care for small animals by their active participation in veterinary anaesthesia. After ten seconds, I took out the half dazed hamster, put it on a table and searched for its skin to inject it. The cousins were watching like a hawk. Suddenly the hamster moved, extended its head and the two girls screamed. A shrilling scream of worry in anticipation of the hamster biting or running away? My heart missed two beats. I pulled back my injection hand in a reflex action. What were the girls screaming for? The hamster was not fully knocked out to minimise the risk of death under anaesthesia. But it should be all right for the injection. It move and it would bite soon and I guess the girls were worried. Or it was just their personality. This scream could be distracting for a vet attending to a biting hamster. "I guess you girls must go elsewhere if I have to do my job properly," I said as I banned them from watching and asked them to go into the consultation room. It was more traumatic to them. I put the hamster back into the container to get another whiff of the anaesthetic. The hamster was injected and put inside its container. "No more dusty wood litter or pellet food for the next ten days," I said as I put an eye drop onto this hamster's left eye and put tissue paper into its container. The hamster was already moving just after the injection. The cousins changed the tissue paper as the hamster had just passed water. "It would be best to leave it alone just after anaesthesia," I said. "It may just die of heart failure." The hamster was all right. The cousins went home happily. They know that the dwarf hamster may have only three months of its life span left as dwarf hamsters seldom live more than three years. Nobody knew what cause this facial cheek wound as the hamster was living alone. There were no sharp wires inside its cage. What will happen if this hamster was not given an anti-itch injection? Most likely, it will rub and rub its left eye till the whole area loses more hair and get infected badly. It will lose appetite and develop bacteraemia, an infection of the blood by germs. By then, it will be too late to do any treatment as it will be too sick to survive. The vet will then be blamed for killing the hamster after the injection. I wonder how such affected hamsters will survive in the wild? Most likely they will not survive such itchy wounds. |