Russian Dwarf's swollen eye is getting worse...

[Dominique95]

I recently posted about Nina's eye weeping and bulging. This is what has happened so far:

Monday - Took her to the vet and he said she had bumped herself near her eye and the injury had gotten infected. He prescribed a tiny amount of antibiotics. I gave her some by syringe but barely any went in so I put the recommended amount in her water.
Tuesday - Left her to drink the water.
Wednesday - Put it in the water again.
Thursday - Almost all of the antibiotics went in by syringe.
Friday - All of the medicine went in by syringe.

The problem is that the medicine does not seem to be doing much for her yet. The area around her eye is even more swollen and bald, and the eye is sticky. I had to dab it with a wet cotton wool bud and a Q-tip as it was stuck shut when she woke up. She is still quite alert when woken up but does not run on her wheel and she sleeps around the clock. When I have bathed her eye for her, she scratches herself around the area and in other places quite vigorously with her back legs and rubs at her eye a lot (not helping with the hair loss!). She doesn't appear to have mites, she has no fur loss in any other areas or any scaly patches of skin.

Could her condition just be down to her not having gotten through enough of the medication yet? The vet said it should start to clear up in a few days. Also, any opinions on using diluted boric acid for her gooey eye or giving her a mix of honey, milk and water to make her feel a little better? A lot of sites recommend these methods.

[RedSky]

One thing I would recommend is giving her a bit of manuka honey. It has to be the active stuff thought. I'd make a bit of porridge (with water) and mix some into that. Just a tiny amount should help her feel better and fight off any illness.

[BrainGirl]

Did she drink her water on the days that you put the medicine in her bottle? By the sounds of it she's only had a couple of doses of her medicine and with an infection that's become bad enough to bulge the eye it's going to take a lot longer. Plus the swelling or pus that's causing the eye to bulge has to drain or reduce after the infection is stopped. Just keep getting that medication into her!

[souffle]

It sounds as if she needs to be seen again. If the eye is continuing to swell it could rupture and this sort of eye issue is very painful for the hammy. They scratch because of the pain as it is the only thing they can do.
I'd say she needs more than baytril by mouth but also needs a steroid / antibiotic eye drop to bring the swelling down. This is usually Maxitrol eye drops.
Putting the meds in the water is no use if it has been prescribed by syringe because they would need to drink the whole bottle to get the dose which will not happen. Persevere with the syringe and use the swaddling technique to get it in her. I'd say it should be working in 3 days and if not it needs rechecked. Dwarfs can get glaucoma when the eye keeps swelling and she will need the steroid drops to treat that.
An infection or abcess behind the eye is also possible and can come up from a tooth root. Has the vet checked her teeth? Again hard to treat and painful If the abcess speads in to the brain it is very serious.
I really would consider having her rechecked if things are not better pretty soon.
Hope she rallies for you x

[kyrilliondaemon]

I was going to suggest seeing the vet again too, every time we get baytril we're told it should be obviously working within a few days and if its not then we need to be seeing the vet again (the once we were given an absolute deadline the ham started meds Tuesday and had to be improved by Friday or he'd have been back at the vets). The dose for in water is much, much higher than by mouth though. Using our mice as an example the dose they recently had in their water is about 30 times the amount of baytril they'd each get if we syringed it directly into their mouths.

I hope you and your ham manage to resolve this problem, good luck with it

[Rainbow]

My chinese has had a similar issue with his eye, he was given septrin and metacam. I'd definitely not bother with putting it in the water. Much better to make sure they get it all in.

The meds worked for Norby within 2 days, so I'd say vets again is the best bet. I do hope that your hamster improves soon, I know how worrying it is.