Help! Lump found on my rat kneck

Please help I found a small sized lump on my male rats kneck, it is nearer his head than his legs and isn’t too big but I did feel it and you can’t really move it around and it seems to be attached to something. He has breathing difficulties which we took him to the vet for but nothing has worked and now I suspect it is the lump causing the problems!!! I don’t have a lot of money to spend at the vets getting it removed and loads of medication if you know what I should do please help ASAP because I’d hate for him to die because his little friend would have no one and he’s only a year old and so sweet. There is also no wound or anything! So please any advice would be amazing thank you!!!

What did the vet say the lump could be? Which meds were prescribed?

Sorry I didn’t make it clear. We took him to the vet about a month or 2 ago, they prescribed metacam because they thought he had a respiratory infection or something, this didn’t work. Yesterday as I was saying hello I noticed the lump so that made me believe that it was the lump causing the issues...... hope that is more clear sorry!

A respiratory infection can't be treated with just metacam. It's for pain management. He would have needed baytril and doxy. But the lump wouldn't cause respiratory infections. Some rats get lumps like cysts, they are harmless and you can just leave them alone or it could be a mammary tumour in which case, there's no medication for that either. It needs to be removed if you can afford it, if not, it can take a long time before it becomes too big for him to live with. Can we get a picture of the lump? Oh also, if he has breathing issues, he can't have surgery, that will be too hard on him. The main thing really, he needs his lungs looked after. He needs baytril and doxy or baytril and zithromax.

Thank you that is very helpful I will go and get some of that for him and see if it works! I’ll put a picture of him.

That might just be an infected salivary gland. I would do Baytril for that too.

as Jorats said. baytril + azithromycin (10 mg/Ib) orally, twice a day for at least 6 weeks or baytril + doxycycline orally, twice a day for at least 6 weeks. You can get baytril and doxy from a vet, and azithromycin from a pharmacy by prescription from a vet