hey, hoping you guys can give me some advise

GRRWHY · 10-15-2015, 06:49 AM

My Syrian hamster, a bit of an old man now (1yr 10m) has a bit of a swollen face. It isn't in his pouch its nearer his eyes and nose, and its a little pink around. I noticed it last night and I think it has gone down a bit since then. He is still active and everything and isn't squeaking to show any pain and he can still open his eyes. I am thinking I might take him to the vet but my vet works on booking an appointment 3 days in advance so... thought asking on here might give me a bit of peace of mind.
I tried to take a picture but he doesn't like to stay still. I attached the best I could get
Thanks for any help you guys can offer

cypher · 10-15-2015, 08:21 AM

Hi & welcome to the forum.
Does your ham chew the bars at all or could he have been rubbing his face against the bars or anything else in the cage that might have caused it to get a bit sore?
It's hard to see what might be wrong from the photo, if he seems fine in himself then I would just keep a close eye on it to see how it goes, if it doesn't improve within a day or two then getting the vet to have a look would probably the best thing, as they get older they are prone to a whole range of problems so it wouldn't hurt to have him checked out, given the 3 day thing could you make the appointment just in case then cancel it if he doesn't need to go?

GRRWHY · 10-18-2015, 05:34 PM

okay, thank you for your advise. No he isn't really chewing the bars or rubbing his face on anything
The swelling has gone down but underneath his eye has gone quite pink, I started wiping salt water over it yesterday because i read that it was a home remedy and that vets can't really do much, but today the eye was sealed shut by gunk. I'm thinking it might be pink eye, but I'm going to make an appointment just to be safe.
sorry about the slow reply