Pulmonary Abscesses

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jorats

Loving rats since 2002.
Joined
Jul 20, 2007
Messages
45,196
Location
Northeastern Ontario
Between my family and I we have been fortunate enough to have cared for and love 164 rats.
Our vet performs post mortems on our rats because she is an exotic specialist and this is how she learns the cause of death, also learn the effects of long term medication and how to best help our rats.
In the past, in our early years of rat keeping, our rats would pass on from myco and at a too young an age. These were rats from breeders and pet stores.
Post mortems revealed each and every time pulmonary abscesses. (Tumours in lungs) These abscesses are walled off so it's very difficult for medication to reach it and cure it. But meds can slow the growth.
In some case, the abscesses would grow so big, it would completely fill the lung which meant certain death.
In other times, the abscesses would harden so much, it turned the lung like cement and some would even break away from the healthy lung and fall into the abdomen.
When taking xrays, these abscesses would look like a dark spot in the lung which most vets would tell you is a tumour or even fluids.
Pulmonary abscesses start at the earliest stages of myco and keeps growing and forming new tumours when the rat is not medicated. Sometimes we learnt this the hard way and that's when we would lose our little guys around 12 months old. This is why catching it early and medicating is so important.
I've read a few places that when you see the first signs of myco, it is already too late.
 
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