Hello! It's been a while since I started a thread here, and Miss Sybbie is one of the reasons; she's been keeping me busy!
Sybbie (officially Sybil-Rose) is a lovely Chinese hamster who I bred. She sadly got diabetes at 9 weeks old.
I know from past experience that Chinese hamsters who get diabetes at such a young age do very badly. Usually by 6-7 months old they are very symptomatic and ketotic, drinking 1-2 times their own body weight in water a day. Typically they live to about 9-12 months old. I've tried oral medication with them, but that has only helped for a short time and hasn't led to much difference in long term outlook.
So this time I thought I'd ask the vet what other options there are, and our local vet referred us to a specialist exotic vet. We talked through various options for diabetes management both oral and injectable, but concluded that insulin has the most experience in smaller animals in the pet treatment context.
It was a big learning curve and requires a lot of stuff! Sybbie moved out of the hamster room and into my bedroom so there was space for all the kit. I'm now a pro at checking hamster blood sugar levels I researched which blood sugar meter needed the smallest drop of blood which has made life so much easier.
We slowly titrated her once daily injection dose up, and monitored the response in the sugar level. My biggest fear was hypos (low blood sugar levels) as a result of the treatment. This is why blood levels were checked as hypos don't show on urine testing, and they can be fatal.
Five months on and we're now in a routine with the injections. Sybbie sits on her injection towel and after the jab gets to climb in my hair while I tidy things away! Here's a little video of her having her injection.
She tolerated her tail pricks for blood sugar testing which we were doing once a day, but found them worse than her injection. Now we have a good understanding of how her current dose is working on her body, we are able to reduce how often we are testing which is great news!
She's now 8 months old. Her drinking and peeing have reduced a lot on the insulin, though they are not as low as a non-diabetic hamster. She has no ketones and her urine glucose level has dropped from 4+ to 2+, although her blood glucose levels are still in the 20s. She's in great physical condition!
From last week she has gone up to injections twice a day so we'll see what effect that has.
I've attached some photos of Sybbie's kit and Sybbie
If Sybbie had reacted to the needles by learning to dislike handling then I would have stopped the invasive treatment, and been ready to put her to sleep (end stage diabetes in a young hamster is heartbreaking and not something I will readily put one of my hamsters through). I worked hard with her on keeping handling positive and making it clear to her which handling involves needles and which does not. This is why she has the injection towel - injections only happen on the towel. No towel = no injection. Tail pricks involve a very particular way of holding her which is not how I hold her at any other time.
I currently have two other older diabetic hamsters who are not on insulin as I don't think they would manage this regime (and also they had later onset of diabetes which tends to follow a different pattern in Chinese hamsters to the young onset).
It's not an easy choice as it needs a confident handleable hamster, access to great vets, and it takes time on a daily basis for the testing and dosing, as well as for visiting and emailling the vet for adjustments to the treatment plan. It also depends on your own views on using such invasive treatment on a hamster.
It wouldn't work out for every hamster, or every owner but, for Sybbie and me, using insulin is working well
That is an amazing story. So good that insulin can be used and work. The video dies show how it isn’t too invasive and she isn’t really aware what is happening but seems used to it. She is a lovely hamster.
Sweet Sybbie - Using Insulin for Diabetes
I researched which blood sugar meter needed the smallest drop of blood which has made life so much easier.
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