Sudden onset of cataracts in degu

[vikki]

Hi everyone,

I know there are a lot of posts on this topic but I was just hoping for some advice specifically on my degu yoshi.

I noticed on tuesday that his left eye had gone slightly cloudy. Immediately I was concerned he had a cataract/diabetes. I took him to the vets on wednesday and you could clearly see under the artificial light that he had a cataract in his left eye. However she said that his right eye was fine, and I checked this too and couldn't see one.

Then on thursday I noticed that his other eye had gone cloudy too.. and now today it looks as if he has one in that eye aswell.

The vet told me that if I wanted to know if it was diabetes I would have to take him to a specialist vet and have a blood test done. I'm not sure that I want to put yoshi through this.

I'm really confused and feel absolutely devastated. I've been so careful with what I feed my boys. They never have any sugar. The only thing I am guilty of is maybe putting too much food in their bowl sometimes.

I've also read that a sign of diabetes is rapid weight loss, which makes no sense as yoshi has recently put on weight and I was trying to put him on a diet to help him lose some.

Yoshi is about 4 1/2 years old now.

Do cataracts cause complete blindness or will he still be able to make out shapes? He seems absolutely fine, there has been no change in his behaviour at all. He is still as active and happy as ever. I haven't noticed any excessive drinking either.

I'm so shocked at how quickly these have developed. Its been a matter of days. Is this normal for cataracts? Does this sound like it could be diabetes?

[Maravilla]

I am not very familiar with this topic itself, but I have one degu, Dago, who also is (nearly) blind. This is no problem for him. We got him being blind over one year ago and in his group he is always the most curious one, the first one in discovering things etc. When I change something in the cage, he is checking this out a couple of times and then knows it. It is really nice to see. Degus are perfectly able to orientate by smell. He even learnt using the running wheel and is enjoying it a lot!!
I am writing nearly blind because I am not sure if he cannot see shapes. I know one degu with really white eyes, Dago's eyes are not that white so there might be the chance he can see at least shapes.

There are different types of cataracts. They can occur due to age (sclerosing and degenerative changes in the lens), be hereditary, be a symptom of diabetes are be osmotic.
Seems that especially the old literature says cataract = diabetes (and in all forums etc. you can read this), but new literature isn't that sure about it.

User davx wrote in a German forum once:
There are two courses of disease after the appearance of cataracts:
A first one without any further symptoms, degus don't lose weight or are even overweight. These degus seem to live a normal and normal long life.
A second one where degus lose weight drastically and only live a couple of weeks longer.

And from a medical book:
Degus with diabetes often (not always) drink a lot, urinate a lot and eat more than before.
I know that this seems to be a contrast to losing weight, but has something to do with changes in metabolism.

May I ask you what you are feeding?

[vikki]

I feed my degus on a mixture of P@H chinchilla pellets and JR Farm Degu special. They have their hay too. My degu's have never been keen on veggies, I've tried many times to get them to eat them. They've never had any fruit. They occasionally get oats, sunflower seeds and the odd shredded wheat. And sometimes I give them a P&H yoghurt drop, which are said to be no added sugar and suitable for degus.

I have four altogether and the other three are all fine.

Thanks for your reply

[Maravilla]

Are we talking about these ingredients (found them in other thread):

Wheat,
Grass Meal,
Soya Hulls,
Full Fat Soya,
Oat Bran,
Peas,
Unmolassed Sugar Beet Pulp
Brewers Yeast,
Vegetable Oil,
Dicalcium Phosphate,
Calcium Carbonate,
Fructo-Oligosaccharides.

[vikki]

This is the degu special food www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/small_pets/food/degu/jr_farm/13202#analysis

And the chinchilla pellets ingredients (reading off the back of the packet) are: Wheat, Lucerne, Soya Bean Hulls, Oatfeed, Hipro Soya, Wheat bran, Peas, Cellulose, Soya Oil, Yeast, Mint, Monocalcium phosphate, Salt, short-chain fructo-oligosaccharides, methionine, minerals.

It says that they are both suitable for degu's.

[Ady]

Hi, u could also dip some testing strip into his urine to see if he's diabetic. But this is not as accurate as blood test cause glucose is detectable in urine only if there's quite high level in blood (at least in human). Also here's some other information if u wanna have a look www.erodent.co.uk/deguinfo.htm scroll down to diabetes section.

[vikki]

thanks for the suggestion. perhaps he has got it then.. i feel like I've failed him.

guess i just need to look towards making sure i care for him properly now. he seems perfectly healthy other than these cataracts and being a bit chubby. so hopefully i will have him for a long time yet. fingers crossed.

[Maravilla]

Even if you knew for sure that it was diabetes, what would change? Treatment in degus is hard or almost impossible. The only thing you can do is monitor very well the nutrition. I personally would not give any longer these drops.

My degus don't like veggies either. Have you ever tried dandelion or daisies, fresh or dried? Mine love them.

I will have a closer look on the food you give them. The Degu Spezial I know, the other mentioned contains a couple of things which I have to look up. But one thing which is obvious is that all the food contains lots of crops in different forms. Do you see any possibility to reduce it a little bit?

[vikki]

Is it a bad combination then?...

I can reduce the amount I feed him yes. If my degu does have diabetes is he only allowed to eat pellets and hay? (As suggested on several sites). Or can they eat some sort of degu mix?

Its all so confusing.

[fred]

First of all, there is nothing in what you have fed your degus that suggests that it may have caused or contributed to diabetes. You have done nothing wrong!!

If he is diabetic, his nutrition from now on will of course be particularly important. The combination of your two hard feeds has quite a lot of crop components, as Maravilla has pointed out. The JR Farm Degu Special is very popular in Germany and definitely the better of the two you are using. Personally, I would phase out the nuggets.

JR Farm Degu Special is often used as a basis to which natural ingredients (dried leaves/flowers/herbs) are added. We will shortly start a new thread on this forum discussing how best to get and mix these natural ingredients, so I would suggest you have a look at this in a few days time. It's so much healthier and interesting to our degus.

[deguconvert]

Hey Vikki! I think you can take a deep breath and relax a bit. Everyone is being really quite encouraging. You foods will not have contributed to diabetes. Cataracts can form as a result of many causes, only one of which is diabetes. The descriptions you give of Yoshi sound vigorous and healthy in all areas except for this sudden development of cataracts. Now, I have a couple of time heard from other members where cataracts suddenly, almost spontaneously, developed and then seemed to clear up over time. I have also heard of cataracts spontaneously disappearing. I have no idea what drives this mechanism, but it hasn't been life threatening. They are shocking to see, there is no doubt of that, but I think you can breathe easy about Yoshi at this point.

I would certainly encourage you to keep your eyes open for the new thread that Fred was mentioning, it will be most interesting!!

[vikki]

I would much prefer to feed them the JR Farm over the pellets.. as it is their preferred food anyway

I'm going to have a look at getting some dried leaves etc for them.

I will definitely keep an eye out for that thread.

Thanks for all your replies.

[vikki]

deguconvert

we must have posted at the same time as i missed your reply. its very reassuring to hear that. its definitely made me feel a lot better and i'm glad i decided to post on here today.

thanks for all the advice and reassurance. i will keep you all updated on his progress

[Ady]

If he is diabetic, there's some degu safe plants that can help regulate blood sugar- dandelion, Jerusalem artichoke, chicory.

[davx]

Hi,

First, cataracts often are a symptome of a metabolic disorder (also in case of diabetes). In many cases of blind degus, diabetes as cause is doubtful. But it doesn't matter, we can't cure diabetes. Blind degus also often do well.
What we reconmend is to adapt the diet, use more fresh vegs and when possible also fresh herbs. The degus take advantage from a more natural diet. For us owner it is of course more effort.

Do cataracts cause complete blindness or will he still be able to make out shapes

they are able to make out shapes and they uses more their other senses.

edit:
I have to point out the importance of fresh food. The water content of food support the metabolism, in particalar in case of diabetes, it sometimes is even more important than the sugar content. Also if the kidneys are affected (it could also cause diabetes like symptoms) the water content is important. Degus often prefer tasteful leave-vegetables like cabbage, chicory, etc. But also dandelion, grasses, clover, basil, parsley are good a choice.

The JR Farm food I also used for several years. It is not bad as basical mixture, you can use it as Fred also mentioned. The pellets I also disadvice. Apropos the drops, well I wouldn't feed, but it depends strongly on the quantity. There are really more important issues as long as you feed them occasionally and in small quantities. Fresh food I think is the most important and the degus have to get used to it. You also have to find out what they really like, because the tend to ignore many sorts of vegetables, some they learn to eat, other they never like.

[vikki]

Hi everyone,

I tried again with some different fresh veg and herbs today (I checked the degutopia website to see what I could give them), and they went down a treat. I'm very pleased, they normally don't touch it. I didn't give them too much to begin with. Its hopefully something I can phase in slowly to their diet.

;D

[Maravilla]

You can also check plants here. I (and lots of people I know) feed all these plants regularly and there aren't any problems.

[NightwishRaven999]

Sept 3, 2011 19:44:45 GMT vikki said:

Hi everyone,

I tried again with some different fresh veg and herbs today (I checked the degutopia website to see what I could give them), and they went down a treat. I'm very pleased, they normally don't touch it. I didn't give them too much to begin with. Its hopefully something I can phase in slowly to their diet.

;D

This is good news indeed !
Hopefully vegetables and herbs will become a larger part of their diet as time goes by. You are doing the right thing by introducing these foods to the degus slowly.

Well done, keep us updated !