Safe & Unsafe Medicines

 

It may be surprising to hear but occasionally vets will prescribe medication for hamsters that will cause them a lot of harm, this is usually due to the vet being under qualified or not trained in hamster treatments. Please check before giving your hamster any medication to make sure your vet has not given something harmful. If they have then contact the vet to explain and change to a vet who is trained in hamster treatments.

 

 

Safe meds for hamsters

 

• Bacitracin

• Carprophen (anti-inflammatory pain reliever)

• Cephaloridine (Loridine)

• Chlorampenicol Palmitate (Chloromycetin)

• Chloramphenicol Succinate (Chloromycetin)

• Gentamicin (Gentocin)

• Enrofloxacin (Baytril) *has proven effective against Wet Tail **Shouldn't be given to Nursing or Pregnant hamster

• Metronidazole (Flagyl) #flagyl should only be used with caution. Stop usage if there are any changes in hamster's appetite, and possibly to proceed with force-feeding something like Oxbow Critical Care if necessary. Thanks to CharlieLilah for pointing it out at thisrelated post.

• Neomycin (Biosol)

• Neomycin Sulfate Oxytetracycline (Liquamycin)

• Septra**

• Sulfamethazine

• Sulfamerazine

• Sulfaquinoxaline (Sulquin)

• Tribrissen

 

 

 

A list of toxic meds: 

Never accept a prescription for any of the following for your hamster!!!

 

• Amoxicillin

• Ampicillin (Polyflex)

• Cefadroxil (cefa-drops) - related post

• Clindamycin (Cleocin)

• Erythromycin

• Griseofulvin (Fulvicin U/F) (Thanks to birthdayHamster for pointing it out)

• Lincomycin (Lincocin)

• Penicillin

• Penicillin/Benzathin/Procaine (Bicillin, Flocillin)

• Penicillin Procaine (Azimycin)

• Streptomycin (Biotec)

• Tetracyclines

• Tylosin (Tylan)