This post is very long. If you want the tl;dr version, here it is:

After months and months of combined research, me and my vet have (almost) determined that:

Symptoms in neutered, older male gliders that mimic UTI infections (painful urination, trouble urinating, severely reduced stream) that don't respond to antibiotics and have sterile urine cultures can be caused by low testosterone.

By supplementing a balanced diet with increased animal fats (yes, the "bad" fats -- saturated), as well as maintaining proper levels of vitamin B (berries), vitamin a (orange veggies), zinc (broccoli, cauliflower and the like), and calcium, lowered testosterone levels can be returned closely, if not entirely, to normal levels, which will rid the glider of most symptoms, allowing for normal urine stream and severely, if not entirely, reduced pain.

Avocado and nuts also work well, but to a lesser extent than animal fats.
(Also please have your gliders teeth checked out by a vet before feeding them nuts or any hard foods -- dental problems are a severe issue in domesticated gliders and the cause is still unknown so no matter what diet you feed, they are still at risk.)





Here is the long version for those that are interested in finding out why and how I've come to this conclusion:


Hi, I posted in this forum a while ago concerning my neutered male John F. Kennedy.
Since August he had been having trouble urinating -- frequent need to urinate with only a few drops coming out and it was obviously incredibly painful for him. The symptoms would come and go -- sometimes he would be fine but other times not.

We did rounds of different antibiotics, for different lengths of time, and there were no results.
We did a urinalysis and a urine culture and there were also no results.
We did x-rays and I even drove to Colorado to get an ultrasound done -- no results.
I changed his diet several times, trying to reduce protein or increase carbohydrates, etc., also with no results.

Eventually we ruled out the possibility of an infection (according to a specialist at Colorado Veterinary Teaching Hospital, UTIs are actually very rare in gliders and typically the problem is actually kidney stones, or so he said). We ruled out cancer as well as every type of kidney stone. We ruled out behavioral, as some case studies have suggested can cause these symptoms. We also ruled out enlarged prostate, as it didn't show on x-rays or ultrasounds and he's also neutered, which typically prevents enlarged prostates.

We even had a terrible scare where he couldn't urinate at all. He had to have his bladder drained with a needle twice (and really a bladder that small can only handle so many pokes in it) and was on valium for a few days as well.




Finally, however, I think I may have gotten to the bottom of this. Me and my vet are still working out the kinks, but I can maybe provide some insight for anyone else who's dealing with a male with this kind of problem (and believe me when I say -- it won't just work itself out and it won't just be a 'condition' -- it is most definitely fatal).


I realized a few things during the course of his treatment:
1) despite staying in the same environment, his symptoms would change, so I realized it wasn't temperature or humidity dependent (although increased humidity does seem to help somewhat). The only thing changing was his diet, so it had to be dietary.
2) his symptoms had a tendency to worsen anytime that he stayed with my parents for a few days (if I was out of town or something). My parents have a tendency to feed them edamame with their vegetables, and all the gliders absolutely love them.
3) during the two days when he was completely unable to urinate, I fed him mealworms, cashew nuts, blueberries, and some egg. Despite what the emergency vet said (who was not a specialist and claimed that it was either cancer or kidney stones, both of which would require expensive surgeries that had low survival rates), after two days on this diet, he miraculously got better and was able to urinate again.
4) it was only him with symptoms, not the two females. This could be because he's older (though they're all rescues that have been traded multiple times on craigslist, so it's hard to say who's how old -- I know the two females are over 6 yrs and the male is over 9 yrs).

Finally last night I realized a trigger -- I had forgotten my BML mix at my parent's house the night before, so I fed them edamame instead, since it's high in protein. The next day, he was unable to urinate. I figured it could have been due to edamame specifically, but I don't feed it that often, maybe a few times every couple of weeks, so it didn't explain his continued history.



I think the problem may lie in low testosterone levels.

In humans, older men can experience a condition called "interstitial cystitis". The cause of this condition is unknown, though it's known that it's not due to infection. The symptoms include, "painful urination, frequent need to urinate, reduced urination, sterile urine cultures, and no response to antibiotics".

Recently, some studies have suggested that this is tied to low testosterone levels in men (though the cause in women is still unknown). This would make sense as John is a neutered male, older, has an "unknown" condition with the same symptoms (although he is a sugar glider and not a human but whatever), his symptoms get noticeably worse after ingesting foods with estrogen (edamame) and no symptoms of his condition are found among his cage mates.

Being unable to take him to an emergency room, I looked up foods that can boost testosterone and fed them to him immediately. This included yogurt, cheese, meal worms, and, as with last time he "miraculously" became better, cashew nuts.

By this morning he is peeing normally, with a heavy stream and only slight discomfort.

As I said, my vet is out of town so we're going to test his hormone levels when she gets back and see if we can identify a causal relationship, but at least to me, it seems pretty clear at this point.

I'm going to continue giving him dietary supplements of foods that are thought to increase testosterone.

These foods include: avocados, nuts, blueberries, a tiny bit of cheese, broccoli, sweet potato, and animal fats.

Saturated fats (animal fats) are the foods that appear to be most closely correlated with elevating testosterone levels. This is important, since in our society saturated fats are basically considered the devil's food. Obesity is also a problem amongst domesticated gliders (if you didn't know that, you should), though this is usually tied to excess sugar instead of excess fats (too many fruits, those terrible 'yogie' treats, etc.).

Red meat and shellfish is the best source (though I'm avoiding feeding him that, at least until I have some veterinary supervision). Fish meat (polyunsaturated fat) actually reduces testosterone levels, though I don't feed them that anyway. Avocado (monounsaturated fat) is slightly linked with increased testosterone.

Vitamin B (blueberries), Vitamin A (sweet potato), and zinc (broccoli) are also closely related to testosterone production. Dairy, particularly dairy with high fat content, is strongly linked -- partially because of the calcium, mosty because of the saturated fat.



Any comments or concerns about the advice I'm giving here is welcome, obviously, but please try to keep it respectful -- no I am not a vet, I'm only an undergraduate biology student with a working knowledge of how to use google scholar. However, even specialists have remarked that this sort of condition is either very rare or very under-reported/misdiagnosed as UTI and that it's cause is entirely unknown. Treatments are therefore, as well, entirely unknown.

I'm willing to debate about my findings with you, but please don't say I'm putting my glider's life at risk by modifying his diet -- I'm modifying his diet because his life is already at risk.

Thank you.

I am very interested in this and appreciate the post. Keep it coming with what you learn on this issue. Perhaps you can try to pick up some specific numbers from the vet along the way. Anything we can learn about our little critters normal test numbers could help inform people with future issues.

I might even have a boy right now with this issue and I will try to follow your advice and see what changes.

I think once you get some definative answers from your vet.... if you are able to compact this up a little ....it would be a great addition to Gliderpedia.

You may also want to see about adding it to The Sweet Spot forum!

Unfortunately, my vet is out of town until the 4th, so I can't do anything definitive until then.

I'm also pretty sure that I can get readings of his hormone levels but (somewhat) unfortunately, if he stays recovered like this (as of tonight zero pain during urination) then I can't have his hormone levels tested when he is in pain and having symptoms (simply because I won't risk his life or put him through that pain again if I can help it). Thusly I can't prove that it's due to low hormone levels.

And if he goes back to having bad symptoms, then my hypothesis is probably wrong (though if he does I imagine we'll try hormone treatments -- dietary changes may not be enough for one his age, in which case I could provide a definitive case study).

I am hoping though that once I work this out with my vet and once it's been long enough to ensure that he's fully recovered due to the dietary changes, I can tell the vet I met with up at CSU about it. My vet doesn't see that many sugar gliders, but CSU does, so hopefully they could test hormone levels and determine if it really is a causal factor or not.

But once my vet gets back into town I would like to have his hormone levels tested. Perhaps, Kazko, if you get your little guy's hormone levels tested as well it can provide some more insight. Naturally, though, if the dietary changes work for him as well, we're in the same situation where we can't determine if levels are lower when symptoms are present.

It's such a relief to finally see real improvement in him, and noticeable improvement within 24 hours as well. Considering the time he stopped being able to urinate, and the fact that last time he barely lasted 8 hours without urinating, it was a very real possibility that his bladder would have burst had my experimental treatment not worked (or had the 'miracle' not happened, since I'm not 100% sure if it was my treatment or not). Ever since the last scare I've had 10 mg of valium on hand that the vet gave me in case the worst should happen, and I was very much not looking forward to putting him down, especially not by myself with no veterinary supervision.

While it is unfortunate that I may not be able to get hormone levels while he's symptomatic, it's been 8 months+ that he's had this problem so I'm so relieved to see him urinating normally.


And yes, once I have actual numbers and I can discuss it with my vet, I'd be happy to write up, or help write up, something more "official" for the site. I won't include the whole long road backstory -- I only included it here so I didn't come across as some pseudoscientist pulling answers out of my a**.

Also I will be posting this to the Sweet Spot forums... once I can remember my password. >>'

EDIT: I remembered my password, but not my username. The one thread I had created regarding Johnny's situation has been removed (for reasons I don't know and wasn't contacted about), so I can't find out my username. I created a new one, but I don't have permission to post in any threads, nor to create topics in seemingly anywhere on the forum. I suspect this is because my account is so new?

Either way, if someone would be so kind as to post my story on there for me, I would really appreciate it. If not, I'll try again in a few days.

I'd also like to add that eggs have primarily polyunsaturated fat -- therefore, while they are considered a 'healthy' protein, they may also decrease testosterone.

Mealworms are a bit more complicated -- since they're so small and don't have musculature, the type of fat is difficult to determine since you can't see the state of the fat at room temperature (saturated fats are solid at room temperature, unsaturated fats are liquid).

However, it is a general rule of thumb that saturated fats are found in animals because animals are warm blooded, or endothermic. Mealworms and superworms are "cold" blooded, or ectothermic -- they have no need for, nor the components to, modify their own body temperature. Saturated fats is one of the components that keeps body temperature at regular levels.

So it can be assumed that most of the fat in a mealworm is unsaturated, however, fat content and the types of fat present in insects isn't exactly something you can just look up on google. I'll try looking around for more information but if that fails I can just go to the entomology museum at my school and ask my old professor.


Also, if one does decide to follow my advice in the hopes of relieving some pain for a little one, please don't overload them with too many saturated fats, or cut out unsaturated fats completely.
Hormones account for very little of the actual content of an animal's body, but they have very big effects. Increasing hormone levels could be simple and require nothing more than a couple small servings of high fat cheese a week. At this point I don't know.


If one does follow my advice, I suggest trying to feed your glider as few saturated fats as possible, as they're known to raise cholesterol levels, which can lead to heart problems, at least in humans. Gliders are also omnivorous, so unlike cats, they most likely suffer from similar problems if given exclusively saturated fats. Also in female (humans), there is little to no benefit for having lots of saturated fats in the diet.

It's not generally known why saturated fats are so bad for you, or if they even really increase cholesterol, but it is safe to say that a diet that is completely one way or the other is not a healthy choice.



In the coming days, now that I feel a bit more confident in my ability to help Johnny if he is in serious pain again, I'm going to try just giving him supplements that are slightly lower in fat content to determine how much is necessary to keep his pain at bay (assuming his pain is at bay due to the higher fat diet). As of tonight he's eaten cashew nuts and cheese as a supplement. The cheese is a high fat content cheese (rennet), so I would like to phase it out if possible.

Tomorrow I will try a supplement of dark meat chicken, as well as cashews (or avocado if I can find them ripe somewhere) and see if doing that for a few days brings about his symptoms again. Hopefully it won't and I can stop feeding him high fat cheese (though he'll be pretty disappointed about that I imagine!).


But as a quick fix for raising testosterone, high fat cheese and red meat are your best options, followed fairly closely by avocado and nuts (preferably cashews or walnuts, as they have the highest fat content). Also remember that testosterone is produced during sleep, so you may need to wait until your little guy has had a full nights rest to see any results. This isn't based off of my experience -- I actually learned all of this by researching how to raise testosterone on body building forums and livestrong.com. So it's fairly well documented that these things are true, though I haven't searched for articles in medical journals or anything to that effect yet.

Most importantly -- keep a close eye on them! I check my gliders every morning to make sure they're all back in their box (they're given free range of a whole room) and all sleeping soundly. Had I not done that every day, then I wouldn't have noticed that Johnny was merely sitting in the box awake, I would have gone to work for the rest of the day, and he probably would have died.

Even last night when we had another urine-stoppage scare -- when he woke up he was able to urinate, although with difficultly. By about two hours later he was entirely unable to and in severe pain. So watch them carefully! (Though most of you I imagine are in a situation like me that if something happens, the only thing you can do is wait until morning.)

Oh no, I am by no means suggesting you run out and get this done or put your sweet baby thru un-needed pain and testing just to "prove" something to people on a forum.

I just wanted to put the thought in your head, when all is said and done, you may want to write up a gliderpedia article,.... and I think Terry might agree.... it wouldn't even have to be something carved in stone; simply your experience, the results that were found. You could always add a disclaimer just like you did in your post....

You are not a vet, but this is what happened to YOUR glider, this is what you and your vet did to remedy the situation and this is the result.


Of course it may not be a blanket diagnosis or treatment for every glider but as Terry mentioned...every bit of information can help us to learn more about our little loves.