Hamster dragging back leg

[Coco61]

Yup! I had to give one drop a day for a year. I was given a tiny plastic syringe by the vet and used it to withdraw from the bottle and deposit one drop onto the porridge, babyfood or wheatgerm. I used these treats in rotation over such a long time. About half a teaspoon each time and he happily took it from the teaspoon until he was used to the routine and then I could leave it in his treat bowl overnight. You might want to supervise it via the teaspoon. In this temperature, the porridge would be a good treat to mix it with.

[cypher]

Glad to hear things went better with this vet & you got the metacam, that should really help him.
If you haven't been given a syringe you can get them cheaply enough & as Coco said that is the easiest way to measure out the dose.

[Nube]

Thanks. Actually the bottle has a drip thingy, so no problem there. He has eaten the first lot of spiked baby food, will wait and see

[Nube]

Well I don't know yet if the meds worked but just discovered that he must have gone on a rampage last night as he managed to detach the snack stick from the cage (HOW??? i usually struggle to do it myself) and has picked it bare... am worried there is a werehamster in the house - maybe they gave us wrong meds?

[cypher]

lol! I think you could say he's enjoying being pain free then

[Nube]

It's still early days but today is his first proper time running around our living room after starting the meds and there is definitely a difference. He has recently just stayed around me without any interest to run around and explore his favourite hamster spots doing his favourite hamster things. Although he is obviously not well he is at the moment rummaging inside his hideout = shoe box, has wiped the dust under some of the furniture and stashed a bit of apple I gave him somewhere. A bit more like the hamster we know. Fingers crossed it will stay this way....

[cypher]

That's really good to hear, metacam won't cure anything, it's like us taking pain killers & anti inflammitory drugs, but it sounds as though it's relieving his symptoms well & he's a lot more comfortable & enjoying life much more again.

[Thin Lizzy]

Great news that the metacam is helping his symptoms.

[Pebbles82]

Excellent the Metacam is helping and he will probably be really enjoying baby food as well

[Nube]

Well a few days on he seems to be much better today, even using his bad leg a bit which I have not seen for quite a while. On the other hand his tummy and bottom are really dirty. I try to clean a bit every time he is out but am not getting very far. There is also usually a bit of poo poking out of his bottom, is that normal?

On another subject, am going away for two weeks and husband will be in charge. I can just trust him to feed and water the beast and shove some food with meds in. Which hopefully be enough. However am worried if pain meds could run out. Its a teeny bottle. Rang the vets today and they assured me it would be enough but still in doubt. The bottle is 3 ml, two drops each day, how long should it last...