Sudden personality change?

[Penguin]

Tiny Kiki had her first trip to the vet today and do to me being overly protective; I would love a second opinion or thoughts on what's going on.
Be ready for a long post:

The last week or two, her behavior suddenly almost reversed. She went from:

• coming out to see what was happening if I was cooking, just walking by or if she heard my voice
• being out often during the day
• being excited, climb the bars as high as she could go and chewing on them to get my attention
• happily walking onto my hand to be picked up
• come running as if her life depended on it whenever I changed her food

To:

• hiding all day and rarely even peaking out before all light is off and I have gone to bed (I might want to mention that I live in a one-room apartment)
• I never really see her eat or drink, I do however see her food bowl being buried in substrate and I can see that some food is gone in the morning
• she rarely want any of her favourite treats, the only thing she will take is mealworms and occasionally a pea flake (she used to go crazy about pea flakes and sunflower seeds)
• refusing to step onto my hand unless I have a mealworm on it - she has, however, been walking out of the door on the front of the cage and onto my hand (yesterday) as she used to, so I guess I can cross out the idea of her being scared of me?
• she seems to run less in her wheel

This is one of the things that worries me the most, yesterday I saw her curled up in a ball and grooming her belly for a good 1½ minute. I picked her up to have a look at it and she had a thin line on the exact middle of her bottom half of her belly, where some fur was missing and it was an irritated red colour. I touched it and she squeaked to tell me that it hurt. I had a look around an hour later and the red colour was gone and you have to look carefully to see that the fur is missing.

Now the point of this whole post is: I took her to the vet to get it checked, told him about how she had suddenly changed and the accident she had had with her house a bit ago where she got her leg stuck. He examined her and said it could be that she was feeling a bit of pain. So after a fight and my tiny fluffball making horrible sounds that I had no clue a hamster could make she got an injection with some painkillers.

Seeing as I'm going to leave the country for 2 weeks I left her at my mum and sister's place. I will admit that she seemed back to her old self when I put her into her cage (around an hour later) with all of her stuff, and she happily walked around and checked that everything was as it used to be. BUT, I am not sure if she was that energetic due to the relief of being out of the carrier and 'home' in her cage, or if the painkillers helped her.

I have been searching the internet about her sudden behaviour/personality change and also tried to find anything that would link her over-grooming of her belly and that together - but it seems impossible to find any clues on either and especially those 2 things together.
Does anyone have any clue what might be going on in the tiny head of hers? Stress? allergy? nothing at all?

[cypher]

It does sound as though you're little one has been through a fair bit of stress lately, the accident where she got her leg stuck, a trip to the vet & having an injection, moving to your mum's will all have stressed her out.
Whether the stress may have something to do with the over grooming I'm not sure but if she's been in pain & possibly still is it really isn't surprising that you've seen these changes in behaviour.
I would just monitor her for now but if she doesn't begin to improve or shows any more signs that concern you go back to the vet & let them have another look at her.

[Pebbles82]

Cypher has said it all there really. She might be overgrooming to distract her from pain. Did the vet say whether there was any damage to the leg (I guess not, or he didn't know). Giving painkiller suggests relieving muscle pain or a torn ligament or something - that is supposed to heal on its own. But presumably that will wear off. It does suggest she has pain in her leg after the incident and that is probably why she is not using her wheel - very sensible of her! And resting in bed is probably helping her healing. She maybe needs some time to heal, and it's a bit of a worry for you if you are away for a couple of weeks, but just ask your Mum to take her back to the vet for a check up after a week maybe unless she becomes more active. Were you happy with this vet by the way? Some are very kind and gentle with small animals like hamsters and will give you more information. I get the impression that this vet didn't tell you much and maybe hurt her a bit too (which might have happened anyway if she was in pain, but was he good with her, or a bit cack-handed?). Anyway - if you think he could have been more helpful then check out other vets in the area online and see if you get a 'feel' for their attitude generally and towards small animals. Then maybe see a different one in a week's time. If she is doing ok for the next couple of weeks (your Mum could take the odd little video maybe so you can see) then leave it till you get back for the next check-up with a different vet. Poor little thing. In fact I would suggest another opinion - if it is broken she would be in a lot of pain and it might need splinting - although I'm sure he'd have told you that, but there are plenty of hammies who have had broken legs from getting trapped in a toy and hanging by a leg.

[Penguin]

Thank you for replying, I'm really worried and seeing as the vet couldn't tell me much I hoped you guys could point me in some direction. This vet is the best in my area when it comes to small rodents though. He definitely was gentle with her, and made me hold her while examining her to stress her less as she was calm in my hands and not in his. Kiki is a lady who isn't going to let anyone hurt her, so he had to hold her in place when giving her the injection to avoid her hurting herself.

I probably should have mentioned that after the episode with the treehouse she has been home with nothing to disturb her for those 2 weeks where I saw the drastic personality change. It wasn't before Thursday night when I saw the pulling out her fur that I decided she had to see the vet the following morning. And she then was moved directly to my mum's place after the trip to the vet.

I'm positive that the leg isn't broken. But I can't understand if that episode has caused her to be this distant and antisocial, especially when she used to be so outgoing and curious. She still runs in her wheel, just as fast and confident as before but just less. I thought it might be the heat so I put a cold mug in the cage after chilling it in the fridge, but she doesn't use it and would rather bury herself down the substrate where she now has her nest.
I asked my mum and sister to keep a close eye on her while I'm away and to keep me updated.
I'll definitely take her to the vet again if she isn't getting better, of course taking into account that she is aware that she isn't 'home' and how that might affect her. It's kinda killing me that I can't be with her myself lol

[cypher]

If she's still running in the wheel then she probably isn't really in pain so it does sound as though the leg is ok.
Just moving to another environment, even in their own normal cage, can upset them quite a bit & stress them out so I think you need to wait until you get back home & get her back to her normal routine in her own home & see how she goes from there.

[Pebbles82]

It's probably like the old thing of animals retereating to lick their wounds - I do it myself sometimes! I'm sure she will start becoming more sociable when she has healed a bit.