Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Glipizide!
I'm feeding Tink Glipizide now! It's an oral medicine for controlling high blood sugar. I'm not entirely sure how it works, or even what it is--is it some kind of insulin? Anyway, I started it on the 27th of October...so it's been about 5 or 6 days now, but I haven't done it regularly enough. Maybe fed it to her 3 times in the last 5-6 days, because Clara came down for Halloween, and I've been very busy. Will try to do better this week! I gave her some tonight, so there you go, I've already begun.
The vet said to call her with a local pharmacy's number, and she would call the prescription in. I gave her Target's number, because they carry Glipizide. The only problem is that they only carry it in tablet form. ( I think the ideal format for hamsters is in flavored drops. Banana is preferred, apparently. I know that's what people from the HoneyHams group generally feed their diabetic hamsters. But maybe the drops are ONLY for pets, I don't know.)
The human form seems to be tablets. And boy are they a pain to feed to a hamster! First off, they're extended release tablets, so you're really not supposed to crush them, or even cut them. Too bad....I have to. There is absolutely no way to get Tink to eat a crumb of a tablet. And even if I got it past her (quite) formidable teeth, there's no guarantee that she's actually eating it, rather than pouching it. So I'm crushing the tablets anyway (they don't crush EASILY, of course), and mixing the bits with some chicken broth and feeding it to her with a dropper. So far so good--she's drinking the broth without complaint, and ingesting some of the Glipizide, I hope!!!
[Note: I know she might be pouching the broth, too, but I'm hoping not. I've only caught her doing that once, and it's been a while since that one time I saw her do it. She was fighting pretty fiercely against drinking that time--I think pouching was her last resort against the Merciless Mama who was trying to force nutrition down her throat.]
Of course, the other problem is there is no way to control the dosing, doing it this way. Especially since I think that crushing the tabs ruins the whole ER effect of them. But it WAS pretty inexpensive, and fairly convenient to get it from Target, and treating a diabetic hamster is hardly an exact science, no matter how you go about it, is it? Am I just rationalizing?
Anyway, I can't tell if it's making any difference or not! She seems about the same. She hasn't given me a good piddle puddle yet, so I haven't been able to test her pee. Soon....soon....
The vet said to call her with a local pharmacy's number, and she would call the prescription in. I gave her Target's number, because they carry Glipizide. The only problem is that they only carry it in tablet form. ( I think the ideal format for hamsters is in flavored drops. Banana is preferred, apparently. I know that's what people from the HoneyHams group generally feed their diabetic hamsters. But maybe the drops are ONLY for pets, I don't know.)
The human form seems to be tablets. And boy are they a pain to feed to a hamster! First off, they're extended release tablets, so you're really not supposed to crush them, or even cut them. Too bad....I have to. There is absolutely no way to get Tink to eat a crumb of a tablet. And even if I got it past her (quite) formidable teeth, there's no guarantee that she's actually eating it, rather than pouching it. So I'm crushing the tablets anyway (they don't crush EASILY, of course), and mixing the bits with some chicken broth and feeding it to her with a dropper. So far so good--she's drinking the broth without complaint, and ingesting some of the Glipizide, I hope!!!
[Note: I know she might be pouching the broth, too, but I'm hoping not. I've only caught her doing that once, and it's been a while since that one time I saw her do it. She was fighting pretty fiercely against drinking that time--I think pouching was her last resort against the Merciless Mama who was trying to force nutrition down her throat.]
Of course, the other problem is there is no way to control the dosing, doing it this way. Especially since I think that crushing the tabs ruins the whole ER effect of them. But it WAS pretty inexpensive, and fairly convenient to get it from Target, and treating a diabetic hamster is hardly an exact science, no matter how you go about it, is it? Am I just rationalizing?
Anyway, I can't tell if it's making any difference or not! She seems about the same. She hasn't given me a good piddle puddle yet, so I haven't been able to test her pee. Soon....soon....
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Hamster dreaming...
Hullo...It's been a while, but I'm back to writing for good! Had to fix the fan in my computer.
So I've been wondering about these bizarre positions that Tink has been sleeping in. She seems to like sleeping squashed against the glass in one way or other. It looks incredibly uncomfortable, but there's no question about it--this is her new favorite way of sleeping. Maybe it's because she's turned her little house into her stash-storage place?
Maybe she's hot? I keep the apartment about 70 degrees Farenheit all year round. So it's not hot in here by human standards, though I have no idea what hamster standards would be.
The other thing--isn't it hard to breathe all squashed against the glass like that? And her sense of smell is really good, so why would she sqash her nose against the glass where she can't smell anything? It's the cutest thing...you can see her little teeth when she does it this way. But how come she doesn't fog up the glass? Does that mean that you can't use the old mirror trick to check if a hamster is breathing or not? And should her teeth be that yellow? And are her nails too long?
I also wonder if hamsters dream. Or fart. Or burp. They are so tiny...it would be hard to tell.
