Treating my hamster
I think Michelle the hamster is probably dehydrated.
I google searched a bit about fluid therapy for hamsters. Found some information at research sites that use animals for research.
For example
http://www.medresearch.utoronto.ca/b_9_2.html
I checked with an online friend who has brought his hamster to the vet before and he said the vet injected fluids into the skin and stomach.
I reckon thats subcutaneous and intraperitoneal fluid replacement.
After I finish work tonight, it's off to perform some hamster fluid resuscitation at home.
Meanwhile my wife is doing some syringe feeding at home.
posted by Dr Oz bloke @ 3:59 AM
7 Comments:
Erh...Oinkle, you are a medical doc, not a qualified vet. By injecting some homemade concoction into the poor hamster, michelle, are you sure you are not committing animal abuse?
The SPCA sure would like to read your blog!
Now, you are a real quack..........
vet!
It's not a homemade concoction. It's based on protocols.
The vets use the same fluids as we do.
Anyway my wife was saying that the hamster was free (costs $10 from shops). Going to the vet would cost about $70.
Might as well give it a try.
My experience with vets have never been good. Brought my first dog to the vet because he became blind. And the vet said. He is blind, nothing we can do sorry.
When he was sick and had difficulty breathing, I brought him to the vet and they gave him medicines that were identical to what we give our pulmonary edema patients. My dog still died. I was a medical student then.
In the end I realize the diagnosis is challenging. But a lot of the treatments are very similar physiologically.
Animal abuse? Hmm that's an interesting possibility depending on how you view it.
Is having a vet doing the same procedure (eg injecting fluids subcutaneously), or a medical human doctor doing the same procedure, or a lab technician or researcher doing the same procedure to lab animals ( they do use hamsters) any different?
A hamster costing 10 bucks and you think it's illogical to get the vet to look her over for 70 bucks?
What about my wife who once had a pair of terrapins and one of them went blind. She brought the poor creature to a vet and do you know what the vet said? "Junk it into the garbage bin!"Why? because the little turtle only cost 50 cents and he, the devil reincarnate wanted to charge my wife 50 bucks to instil some liquid into the poor creature's eye plus giving her a tube of eye antibiotics. My wife chose to cough up the 50 bucks. I really love her for that even though I was the eventual paymaster.
Simple answer. A qualified vet treating animals which is what he is trained to do, is not animal abuse. You don't want him to be doing a hysterectomy on your wife do you?
A medical doctor treating animals is animal abuse because he is not professionally trained or qualified to do so. Both branches of medicine although having the same roots are different because animal physiology is different from human physiology although all of us evolved from the same cosmic dust.
A lab technician or a scientist is empowered by law to conduct experiments using mice and hamsters and what they do is not treatment per se but part of the experimental process.
So, dear OZ, can you kindly bring Michelle to a QUALIFIED vet before she calls it a day at your hands?
SO did the terrapin recover?
No, poor thing she didn't. But she lived a good long life under the tender care of my wife. The 50 bucks was money well spent because I became aware that my wife was a good person and understood the need to do all she possibly could for life even of a 50 cents terrapin.
Hey uglybaldie,
why you always call me oinkle?
Am I a pig?
Sorry doc. typo error.
Some keys on my old keyboard very cranky. When I type "Uncle", it always come out "Oinkle". How huh? Are you a computer expert too?
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