BALSAL (short for Break a leg shake a leg, my child named her) has a chronic issue with sores around her mouth. I thought she was chewing her water bottle, so I removed it and gave her a water dish.
Every six weeks or so BALSAL decides to do something to her mouth somehow. She ends up with sores or scrapes around it. Usually I take her to the vet, he giver her an antibiotic and the Dentahex(?) mouth rinse used on dogs and cats, and then it heals up.
I usually wash sores twice a day, either with saline solution or dawn dish soap and warm water, then put manuka honey on them after the vet's treatment.
The problem is that they are recurring about every six weeks. She's got one scar and after this last bout she's probably going to have a worse one. I think it is related to wearing her teeth down but I don't know how to stop it without removing everything in her cage so she won't have anything to wear her teeth down at all. Any ideas? I'm pretty sure its related to chewing on stuff, but I can't confirm. A pic of hamster's latest scars (on both sides of mouth) and her wooden bridge (which has chew marks all over it in one place) are attached.
Please help! It gets expensive to take ham to the vet every six weeks and then the antibiotics are even more, plus I'm sure it's not good to keep giving them so often.
PS The manuka honey was suggested on a forum here and it's great.
-HammieMomSilverSpring
Help for My Hamster
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