[Gpdd] [HEALTH] Dillon's Declining...Help!

[scalabro3 at cfl.rr.com]

Hi. I hope you can help with Dillon’s health problems. When we rescued him from our local humane society, he had a respiratory infection and swollen glands that our vet treated, and he did fine. A few months later, he had a cyst under his jaw line, which our vet removed under anesthesia, and he was fine after that. Then in June, he started losing weight because his teeth were overgrown, so the vet knocked him out, trimmed his teeth, and for the most part he was OK after that. He didn’t want to eat after the tooth trimming, so I would hand feed him pellets and within two weeks, he was back to normal.  

In September, it was time for another tooth check, and our vet found that he had some overgrown rear molars, and so she knocked him out again, trimmed his teeth. He hasn’t been healthy since then, and I’m not sure what to do.

Right after the procedure, he started snorting and he wouldn’t eat. We weren’t too worried because he didn’t want to eat last time he had his teeth trimmed. When he kept snorting, we brought him back to the vet, and she said that he had nasal congestion and she gave him a week of Baytril and benebac. The respiratory symptoms cleared up, but he’s still not eating and he’s losing weight. On September 21st, he weighed 3.6 pounds. Today he just weighed in at 3.0 pounds.

He went back to the vet last Tuesday. She said that he had three sores in his mouth that look like chicken pox.  (She didn’t say it was chicken pox, she just used that to describe to us what it looks like.)  She gave him Metoclopramide syrup to stimulate his appetite and digestion.  She also gave us the recipe to “water down” children’s aspirin and Tylenol to help with the pain.  She gave him injections of vitamin C and a few other things and subcutaneous fluids. On Wednesday, he seemed like he was doing better, but he’s starting to decline again today.  He also has really tiny poos now…I think hamsters have larger poos!

If you have any suggestions for treating this, I’d sure appreciate it. We’ve gotten a few teaspoons of critical care into him. We tried baby food carrots (he didn’t like it!). I did manage to get him to eat five tiny slices of a baby carrot, and my husband got him to eat five Oxbow Cavy Performance Pellets this morning, so I hope things are looking up.  Thanks for your help!

ME – New Smyrna Beach, Florida