Little Lada's neck

Tonight's pictures:

In the top and bottom photos you can kind of make out a circle in the fur on his neck. This is the area where he went bald before. It's getting hard to tell if you don't know what you're looking for, so I would definitely say he's getting better.

Looks like the vitamins in his drinking water is helping. He hasn't eaten a lot of the new food yet, he is getting a mix of old and new and seems to prefer the old. But it'll still be a couple of weeks before his feed is completely changed over.

Vitamin deficiency?

New vet, new theory.

Lada went to the same clinic as before, but got to see a new vet. Third appointment, third vet. And this one agreed that his fur is thinner in the neck area. However, she couldn't see any indication of mites. Last time he got a mix of vitamins and medication, so she wants to see if maybe it's just a vitamin deficiency. So this time he got a shot of vitamins, no medication.

If it's a vitamin deficiency it means I need to change his diet around, maybe try another brand of hamster food or something. I told her what he eats and she said it's fine, but this particular hamster might need something else.

We're off to Italy tonight, so will check on Lada again when we're back next Thursday. If he keeps losing fur, it wasn't the vitamins and he will need to go back to the vet again. If he's better then, I'm going to have to track down some place that sells a different brand of hamster food.

Relapse

Last night I realized that Lada's neck fur is getting thin again. I called the vet this morning and got an appointment for 9am tomorrow. So Lada will be off to the vet again. Looks like the mites are back. It's not very obvious yet, but definitely the case, I think.

This is Lada tonight. His fur is definitely getting thinner in the same area as before.

Damn it. He looked so good. I had really hoped he didn't have chronic bad immune system, but it's starting to look like he does.

On the mend

It's been 5 days since Lada's vet appointment and he looks better already.

And he still has gigantic ears. :-D

Preliminary diagnosis

Lada went to the vet today and got a preliminary diagnosis of hair follicle mites. He got an injection of medication and vitamin B, and a new appointment on Monday 19th for a follow-up injection if the first one seems to have helped. If it hasn't helped, the diagnosis was wrong…  So we'll see. Fingers crossed!

Doctor's appointment tomorrow

Poor Lada seems to have come down with a case of... fur mites? Hair follicle mites? Something like that? I also just now discovered the site WikiVet. The Internet is wonderful.

Yesterday I booked my first ever vet clinic appointment. Lada will be seeing the vet tomorrow at 6.30pm.

This is the current state of affairs:

Poor little Lada!