Register FAQ Calendar Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read
Navigation
Front Page
Forum
Gallery
Wiki

Ads by Google


Go Back   Hamster Central > Hamster Central Forum Topics > Hamster Healthcare

Notices

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 09-30-2021, 06:36 AM   #1
Kikya
Newborn Pup
 
Join Date: Mar 2021
Posts: 30
Default Documentation of possible Cushings disease

Hello,

I'm not posting on here much but I do read the forums. I have 4 Syrian hamsters and one of them Dipper has had some recent health issues. I thought I would make a post and updated it as we went along so that maybe it would help someone else's hamster along the way.

Adopted him and his brother off craigslist in March 2021, not much is known about their age or medical history previous.
Age: 1.5 years (estimate)
Sex: Male
Species: Syrian
Weight around time of adoption 160g

Photo Documentation:
Imgur: The magic of the Internet (Dipper his first week)
Imgur: The magic of the Internet (Dipper 2 weeks ago)

Any specific physical changes:
Eating more, losing weight, drinking more water, more frequent urination, hyperactivity, nervousness, hair loss on face and upper back.

I thought I would document my little boy Dipper's condition to help any future hamster owners.

About a 2 months ago, I started to notice some signs of strange behavior. I suppose you wouldn't notice unless you spend as much time with him as I do. I noticed he had been more active/hyper lately (more wheel activity, more hyper when I handle him) and I noticed he'd been hungrier and more thirsty. Getting up more during the day to eat and drink. He had started losing some hair which I had attributed to getting older, as my best guess of his age was 1.5 years. His brother Nibbler who I also adopted had some hair loss though not as much as Dipper. I noticed there was more urine when I sifted his sand bath. So I decided to do some digging and I came with a idea of what I thought the cause might be and I messaged MissPxy, who confirmed what I had been thinking. Endocrine/thyroid issue.

So I found an animal hospital more experience in hamster care and we did some tests. Here are the notes from the first visit.

On physical exam, Dipper was bright, alert, responsive and his vital parameters (heart rate and respiratory were within normal limits. He was 125 grams. Auscultation of his heart and lungs was normal. His abdomen was soft and non-painful on palpation and there was no obvious evidence of organomegaly or an abdominal mass. He had some mild hair loss around his neck, which could be normal age related change or secondary to an underlying endocrine disease or dermatologic disease. The remainder of his exam was unremarkable.

The combination of Dipper's signs that you have been noticing at home may be due to an endocrine disease, such as Cushings disease (or hyperadrenocorticism), hyperthyroidism and/or diabetes. Laboratory hamsters have a high incidence of increased growth of the adrenal glands that produce cortisol (increased cortisol causes Cushings disease). However, there is very little published literature on clinical cases of Cushings disease in hamsters (only 4 cases in Syrian Hamsters have actually been reported). Even less is reported about hyperthyroidism in hamsters. Given Dipper’s age, we also cannot rule out the possibility that his signs are due to some form of neoplasia (cancer).

Dipper was anesthetized for x-rays and a blood draw. He did well under anesthesia once we gave him injectable sedation ahead of time and recovered uneventfully. His x rays revealed no obvious signs of abnormalities. His complete blood count and chemistry were largely unremarkable. One of his white blood cells (lymphocytes) were decreased, which is often seen in stressed patients and is unconcerning for Dipper. His creatinine kinase was elevated – creatine kinase is an enzyme that is expressed by various tissues, primarily muscle cells. We often see an elevated creatine kinase in patients that are stressed and very active during exams due to muscle exertion. His glucose level was normal so we can rule out diabetes at this time. The remainder of his CBC and chemistry were normal, however, we cannot rule out Cushings disease or hyperthyroidism or neoplasia based off these findings. We are still waiting for his T4 level to come back, and we will contact you with that result once it returns.


One thing they didn't mention, was under just normal anesthesia, Dipper started to have tachycardia and an arrhythmia, they undid the regular anesthesia and woke him back up and then called me to suggest doing the injectable sedation with much lower dose of anesthesia. This worked and Dipper's heart was fine. Injectable sedation takes long to wake up from and recover from but its much less stressful on the heart. Consider that as an option for your hammy if you think he might have a heart condition or ask them to make sure they monitor the heart rate (they should do this by default but you never know)

After that, I took him home and they called me to tell me xrays and bloodwork were mostly normal and they wanted to send out for a T4 test. A thyroxine test measures the level of thyroxine (T4) in the blood. Too much or too little T4 can indicate thyroid disease. This took about a week to come back and it was normal meaning his thyroid (which is in the throat area) was functioning.

The next step of diagnosis was to do an ultrasound of his adrenal glands. He was sedated again and they shaved his little belly and they found that his his adrenal glands looked slightly enlarged. They did tell me they didn't have much of a size comparison to go by but that they looked slightly larger than a few other sources. The one on the right being slightly larger than the left. So the provisional diagnosis is that he has Cushings disease.

So now they said we can either do more testing (a CT scan) to try to confirm more certainly (though they said it may not be more certain than with the ultrasound) or they could try to get enough blood from him to do a more bloodwork for a cortisol test or that they could start him on some trilostane (brand name is Vetoryl) to see if he has any noticeable improvement from the medication.

I decided to forgo more diagnostic testing to save Dipper the stress (since they weren't sure it would help anyway and they would end up recommending the same medication) and see if he improves on the medication. I plan to take careful notes on his behavior and perhaps will start bowl feeding him for a while to measure how much he eats and of what and weighing him weekly. I hope this will help some hammy in the future on here or at the hospital that I will be sending the notes to at the request of the vet.

Notes from second visit:

Dipper originally presented on 9/21/21 for signs including weight loss, increased appetite, increased thirst, increased frequency of urinations, mild hair loss and hyperactivity/hyperexcitability. At the time, we were most suspicious of Dipper's signs potentially being due to an underlying endocrine disease, such as Cushings disease, hyperthyroidism and/or diabetes. During his initial visit, we performed bloodwork (CBC, Chemistry and T4 level) and x-rays and the results of all of those diagnostics came back unremarkable so we could not rule out Cushings disease or less likely neoplasia at that time.

On physical exam today, Dipper was bright, alert, responsive and his vital parameters (heart rate and respiratory rate) were in normal limits. He weighed 126 grams (vs 125 on 9/21/21). Auscultation of his heart and lungs was normal.

Dipper was sedated for an abdominal ultrasound. We used a similar combination of injectable medications compared to his last visit and he did very well. He was stable throughout the entire ultrasound, and we never heard any arrhythmias or murmurs. His ultrasound revealed a mildly enlarged right adrenal gland compared to the left and they were both mildly enlarged compared to measurements of hamster adrenal glands in histology paper. There was also a cystic structure within the caudal abdomen that we believe to be an incidental finding (shouldn't effect Dipper's health or wellbeing). The enlarged right adrenal gland may be suggestive or a benign process called hyperplasia, a benign neoplasia called an adenoma or it may be due to adrenal dependent Cushings disease.

Given the ultrasound finding of mildly enlarged adrenal glands based on the paper we found, in combination with all of Dipper's other signs you've been seeing at home, we are most suspicious of Dipper having Cushings disease. This disease causes the body to produce too much cortisone, which is a stress hormone, or related hormones in the body. Long term elevations in these hormones can have debilitating impacts on the body over time. We recommend initiating treatment for this condition with a medication called Trilostane, which is an adrenal steroid synthesis inhibitor.


I will add updates to this as he goes along. I will say the diagnostics were expensive (so far about $1400 in MA at Tufts) but I didn't just do it for Dipper but to hopefully help other hamster owners get the care they needed by documenting it with the vets.

The vet agreed to try the medicine for a while and I will be documenting his food, output, weight, and any behavioral changes to report back to the vet.
Kikya is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-30-2021, 11:58 AM   #2
Pebbles82
Hamster Antics
 
Join Date: Sep 2014
Posts: 23,533
Default Re: Documentation of possible Cushings disease

I am sorry to hear about Dipper. A member on here, Coco, after blood tests, used Vetoryl for Cushings - she has a thread on the treatment progress throughout her hamster’s life- it may be of help also.

I hope the medication helps- it should slow disease progress. Did they look at the pituitary gland on the scans? There are two types of Cushings - one from the pituitary gland, one from the adrenal glands.

Either way I hope your hammy lives out his life comfortably.
Pebbles82 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-30-2021, 12:00 PM   #3
Pebbles82
Hamster Antics
 
Join Date: Sep 2014
Posts: 23,533
Default Re: Documentation of possible Cushings disease

This Coco’s thread on Cushings

Cushings and Treatment
Pebbles82 is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
adrenal, cushings, dipper, disease, normal

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

Powered by vBulletin®
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Search Engine Optimisation provided by DragonByte SEO v2.0.43 (Pro) - vBulletin Mods & Addons Copyright © 2024 DragonByte Technologies Ltd.
Copyright © 2003-2022, Hobby Solutions
All times are GMT -7. The time now is 10:02 PM.