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Old 01-16-2010, 06:06 PM  
Pompompoms
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Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Hampshire
Posts: 6,758
Default Re: Poorly Robo

A full recovery!

Well it took a little while, and I didn't think he was going to make it, but Jam pulled through.

After my last post he got even worse for a couple of days and lost yet more weight, going down to 15g. He was like a tiny skeleton, you could see all his bones, and he was so weak he was just in bed all the time.
I kept him, with me all day and checked on him once and hour, then had him in my room at night checking on him every two hours and giving him water from my finger and a little mushed up food to keep him going.

He absolutely detested taking the medicine, after a good start with the syringe, it clearly became the enemy, and he would fight with his little hands to get it away from him which would stress him even more. He had to have it three times a day, and he started stress scratching under his chin where he'd get a bit wet from it, so he also developed sores and lost all his hair.
So I took my 15g skeletal hamster with no chin hair to the vet and he just about managed to get out of his nest to try and avoid her. I was almost in tears as I thought she was going to say that was it for him.

As I said before he'd had a very dirty bum while all this was going on, the vet popped him on his back, and pulled out (and this is no exaggeration) an inch and three quater long, and cm wide poo. It was full of cotton wool, you could see all the fibers making it up and sticking up out of it. I actually couldn't believe it, no wonder he was so ill!!!!!!!! He'd been trying to pass that for three days!
That was the real turning point, there were a couple of very large but not as bit ones also stuffed with bedding, then things started to settle down. By the time we went back to the vet again on the Monday she felt his tummy and said all the lumps were gone.

The change in him was as dramatic on the way up as it had been on the way down, he was wheeling away again, and I was packing him full of protein to bulid up his strength.
Looking and him now (he's sat on my lap having a stroke) he's put on all the weight again, his hair has all grown back, and he looks super shiney and healthy.
It was a close one, but thanks to the info on here, and the help of the vet, he pulled through!!

As I said earlier Pets at home are paying his vet bill and wrote to the manufacturer. I have had a letter from the manufacturer of the bedding myself, saying that they think it was just one of those things, and that they sell so much of the bedding without problems. I will be writing back to them to ask them to reconsider the labelling on the product as soon as I have the vets report.
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