Poorly eye

[MontstersMum]

Hey
I've seen a few posts on here about Hamsters having one eye shut so I hope you don't mind me posting my own.
About 2 days ago we noticed that Monty's eye was half closed, we thought it was because he was tired. We wiped it with some warmish water last night but I looked at him today and I think it looks worse. It's completely closed but I did just wake him up to get a good look at it.
He did have wood-shavings but I changed his cage last night so he's now got a thin layer of Aspen on the bottom with some carefresh and Megazorb on top. We are ordering some Fitch bedding on the recommendation of someone off the Rabbit Rehome forum.
I'm going to take him to the vets tomorrow if it doesn't look any better but can anyone offer me any other advice?

Thanks

[souffle]

It sounds as if he has either injured the eye or maybe has an infection. I would say a vet trip is best to have it checked. They will likely give some drops for the eye that usually clears this up quickly x

[MontstersMum]

Thanks for the reply.
This was how it looked earlier today, I just wish i'd been able to take him today

[souffle]

That does need seen as it looks quite red around the eye area and swollen. Try and get him seen tomorrow as the eye is quite a delicate area and you don't want to take any risks with it. It likely feels quite sore too.

[MontstersMum]

We've managed to get him in the vets at 4:20pm

I got him out last night and cleaned his eye again with some warm water which opened it up again a little. It does look sore and a little red though. I just hope he isn't in too much pain. He had a good playtime after his clean and he seems ok in himself. Hopefully the vet can sort him out

[souffle]

I hope it goes well - this may be useful if you get drops to put in
How to put Eye-Drops in your Hamster's Eyes

[MontstersMum]

We have been given some Chloramphenicol eyedrops. Hopefully they will work. She agreed that his eye looked very sore. If it's not improved by Monday then she will gove him some oral antibiotics. I'm just wondering if we should still clean the eye or are the eye drops enough?

[MontstersMum]

Also can anyone tell me what Chloramphenicol is and how it works? Is it a lubricant? Wash? Antibiotic? I should have asked the vet but the Montster was being a bit naughty and all the questions I had slipped my mind

[Juliebrei]

I don't know if this is valid for hamsters but we used to use cold chamomile tea on our kittens if they got a little infected when they started opening their eyes. It always worked. But someone in here can probably verify whether or not that would be safe for a hamster.

[AmityvilleHams]

In theory it should work,but you'd have to be extremely careful not to get the hamster too wet doing that.I'm not sure if chamomile is safe or not though