Blood in urine?

Penn · 01-03-2017, 12:19 PM

Hello one and all, it has been a while, but it's getting to that time again, Jarvis is nearing 2 years old now!

Around the start of December I noticed a lot of red bedding where Jarvis was urinating and then a very large red puddle in his wheel (he tends to pee while he runs) I finally managed to watch him while he was urinating once and confirmed that's where the red was coming from, so I dashed him to the vet who prescribed 1week of Baytril twice daily (I will admit I laxed on this a bit as he really did not want to take it and was even spitting it out, so some days he would only get one dose.) and some Metacam. I asked the vet if she thought it could be diet-related and she said it was unlikely, but just to be safe I did a shuffle around of his food while he was on the meds.

The meds seemed to do the trick and he cleared up over christmas so I phased back in more of his regular food, as well as giving him dried dandelion leaf treat mixes as I heard they were good for digestive issues. But I've now noticed blobs of red again in his urine. I cleaned his cage out last night, and it doesn't seem to be every time he urinates, but it is very disconcerting.

I found out there is Beetroot in one of the leafy treat mixes I was giving him so I made a point to remove all of it as I know that can cause red urine, but because of that I am now uncertain if this is to do with his food or is something like a UTI, kidney/bladder/urine stones, or something worse.

I feed Jarvis the Tiny Friends Farm Harry Hamster mix mixed in with the Supreme Science nuggets. For treats he gets monkey nuts (plain) and the very rare peice of fresh veg. At the moment he has has a Woodlands Dandelion and Marigold Wheel in his cage and the treat mixes I've been feeding him on the side are the Woodlands Dandelion Mix and the Naturals Rosewood Herb Plus Small Animal Treat (This is the one with beetroot in it)

The image below is the redness I found today. I put Chinchilla bathing sand in a ceramic 'pot' for Jarvis, and while he doesn't use it as bathing sand, he does like digging in it and urinating in it, before anyone wonders what it is!

Can anyone make any suggestions or guesses as to what this is? Jarvis is behaving like his usual troublesome self so I don't know what to do!

cypher · 01-03-2017, 01:21 PM

It sounds as though you've eliminated any dietary causes, if it was a UTI sometimes they need more than one course of meds so it's possible that could be ongoing but with it not clearing up & being intermittent I would be concerned about kidney stones, I think it would be worth going back to the vet again for another check.
If you need to feed meds again try putting them on some porridge or baby food, most hams will take them like that & you can be sure he gets the whole dose.
I wouldn't feed any dandelion with possible UTI or kidney problems as it's herbal properties could be a bit too strong & may even aggravate things.

Penn · 01-06-2017, 03:02 PM

Thank you Cypher for commenting ^^

I have removed all of the dandelion from Jarvis' cage except for the Dandelion and marigold wheel, but I may remove that now along with the rock salt lick he has (Although that's been tied high up since all this started and he's not been able to get at it.)

I began giving him Selective Science nuggets with a little bit of his regular mix as the Selective Science stuff is pretty good and he likes it! He had a day or two of his urine being fine and clear but today there was another condensed blob/puddle of red. I didn't take a picture of it but the red even looks as though it's clotting? It was stringy/tacky on the tissue paper I put it on.

Does this sound more like kidney stones than a UTI? As I live in the UK it's very rare to find a vet who will put a hamster under anasthetic for surgery, although my vet did suggest sedating him to get an xray, because of his age I'm weary to do that. So I'm wondering if there's anything else I can be doing to try and ease/break up the stones outside of medication? As cruel as it sounds, I can't actually take him to the vets until late next week so if there's anything I can be doing in the meantime to help Jarvis, I want to be doing it.

Sazzle · 01-06-2017, 03:57 PM

Hello Penn

Sorry to hear about your hammy. Just wanted to share an almost identical situation. In mid December my little boy (Ricky) passed some blood in his urine so I took him to the vet. (He's about 17 months old). She diagnosed a UTI and gave him Baytril. He took it for a week and seemed fine in himself. Eating & drinking as normal etc. All was well, and then he went in his ball as usual about 12 days ago and I was alarmed to see that he'd weed in it and it was full of blood again. He's had another weeks course of Baytril - the vet did say that they may need more than one course.

I'm pleased to report that he fine again now - lively and the bleeding seem to have stopped. It took Ricky a while to want to drink the water with the Baytril in but it seems to have really helped him. I have another thread on here about my experiences if you wanted to have a look.

I really hope your little boy makes a good recovery. I just wanted to let you know that you may need to give it time before he gets better.

InkyPen · 01-06-2017, 04:37 PM

If it's nothing dietary, it's got to be something related to the urinary tract, so kidney / bladder.

Blood in the urine is often an indicator of a UTI in humans, and I would presume that that would be the same in hamsters. I can, from bitter personal experience, tell you that a UTI is exceedingly painful (only codeine touched hte pain for me) and (while I've never had one) kidney stones have the same reputation too. I don't really think you can leave him in this situation if the vet can't cure the problem

cypher · 01-06-2017, 10:36 PM

It's very hard to say whether it would be a UTI or kidney stones, I think you really need the vet to confirm that. If he did have kidney stones he would be in a fair bit of pain so would probably show signs of being unwell or changes in behaviour but hamsters are very good at hiding signs of illness so not seeing that is no guarantee one way or the other.
Salt licks & mineral stones aren't good for them & if he has a good diet giving things like mineral stones or vitamins can unbalance things & cause problems so avoid things like that entirely.
In the UK it's not generally as hard to find ham experienced vets as it can be elsewhere & using anaesthetic when needed isn't uncommon at all so you shouldn't really have any problems getting the correct diagnosis & treatment he needs.

racinghamster · 01-07-2017, 01:10 AM

If he`s able to pass urine that`s at least a positive because sometimes when they have blood coming from the urinary tract, it can cause a strain and prevent them from being able to pass urine and this would be an emergency.

I would be inclined to get him back onto Baytril for TWO weeks and twice a day. Hit this hard. Small animals like mice and hamsters have fast metabolism so they usually require these medications longer than normal. When I dosed my mice with Baytril, they were dosed twice a day for up to three weeks. I was using it at a lower dose for a week before that and paying for wasted trips to my vet, who soon realised that the dosage needed to be given more often and for longer.

Remove anything that might cause a redness in the urine (like beetroot) and the dandelion for obvious reasons.

Maybe ask the vet to palpitate his abdomen, see if S/he can feel anything in there. Crystals can form in the urine too so the urine is more alkaline. I would suggest cutting out sunflower seeds and feeding some acidic foods like apple.

Hope your wee man recovers from this. x

cypher · 01-07-2017, 03:22 AM

A tiny bit of apple might help but I would go easy with any acidic foods as a ham's digestive system isn't equipped to deal with them, vitamin c can help with bladder/kidney stones too but I wouldn't use anything like that until you've seen the vet & have a diagnosis.

Thin Lizzy · 01-07-2017, 06:26 AM

Blimey, that's quite an amount of blood in the pic. I would defitinitely get him back to the vets. Sometimes they need longer on antibiotics.

Penn · 01-07-2017, 06:57 AM

Yeah I am sad to say that the red in the picture is from a few days ago and is nothing compared to what I'm seeing now.

The Vet I go to is really great and I'm hoping I'll be able to ask them if they can just hold the payments for now and I'll pay when I actually do get paid. It's either that or I ask my folks to help. Jarvis still seems fine in himself, aside from being slightly less inclined to snuggle.

It just worries me that it's something enviromental/that I'm doing unknowningly because it cleared up on the baytril and Metacam, he was fine for 2 weeks after that and now it's back with a vengeance.