Cure for Myco

At the beginning of this past summer we lost one of our rats to mycoplasmosis. It was quite devastating for us to have him die in my hands from an inability to breath and a likely apparent heart attack from stress.

Soon after this, one of our girls fell ill with the same illness and was getting near to the gates of death. We were frantic and actually found a very interesting solution by a gal who has rats. In her post she explained how boron kills fungus and seemingly destroys myco. She used it successfully and long term with her rats and eliminate respiratory issues generally for her rats it appeared from what she shared.

We followed the dosage instructions and within a day our little girl began to perk back up and the labored breathing eased and finally stopped. She was cured! We were beside ourselves since we thought that we'd have to rush her to a vet and get some antibiotics and there were none open during the weekend around us that would see a rat.

We made a special water bottle for mixing the suggested amount of borax with water to use in their drinking water and were quite satisfied that we'd eliminated this particular killer.

After a few months went by we noticed that the water bottle that we'd been using to measure it out originally was gone, along with its accompanying dosage levels. So we started digging again in hopes of finding the original posts.

Unfortunately it appears that this lady's posts have been expunged from the Interwebs... We can't find a suggested dosage for borax (boron) anywhere now except for some mentions on EarthClinic.com wherein someone is using it for skin issues and also found that it helps with myco even when applied topically. In that link you'll want to go down and search for "Eric" or "rat" (here is an excerpt for posterity just in case)

Does anyone have the dosage amounts that are safe for rats? I am hopeful that someone else here may have seen this same story and amounts that we saw and have since lost.

Also, as an aside, there is this particular study wherein they gave some test rats boron and shared their dosages for long term usage with accompanying results, but I don't have access to the full article. It might provide some insightful levels if anyone feels so inclined to dig through it.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Borax is a cleaning agent... not terribly sure it's safe to consume unless you can find food-grade borax. The FDA has banned borax as a food additive. I dunno. If I'd be leery drinking it I wouldn't give it to my rats.

Yes, I realize that (and it can be used as a pesticide to kill rats), but please review the bounteous information over on EarthClinic.com about human consumption. It is quite illuminating. It's used very successfully and isn't the horrible danger that you would initially think... Further, we've used it ourselves with success over several months, but now are simply missing the dosage information. We'll expirament further, but this info was floating around for a few years until, it appears, Google delisted the original helpful posts (likely inadvertently in their crusades to rid the world of spam and such).

Sidenote:
You will be interested to see that borax can be used successfully with lupus, dog mange, rosacea, possibly pneumonia, arthritis and other issues. It's quite an interesting and undervalued resource.

soratfam said:

At the beginning of this past summer we lost one of our rats to mycoplasmosis. It was quite devastating for us to have him die in my hands from an inability to breath and a likely apparent heart attack from stress.

Soon after this, one of our girls fell ill with the same illness and was getting near to the gates of death. We were frantic and actually found a very interesting solution by a gal who has rats. In her post she explained how boron kills fungus and seemingly destroys myco. She used it successfully and long term with her rats and eliminate respiratory issues generally for her rats it appeared from what she shared.

We followed the dosage instructions and within a day our little girl began to perk back up and the labored breathing eased and finally stopped. She was cured! We were beside ourselves since we thought that we'd have to rush her to a vet and get some antibiotics and there were none open during the weekend around us that would see a rat.

We made a special water bottle for mixing the suggested amount of borax with water to use in their drinking water and were quite satisfied that we'd eliminated this particular killer.

After a few months went by we noticed that the water bottle that we'd been using to measure it out originally was gone, along with its accompanying dosage levels. So we started digging again in hopes of finding the original posts.

Unfortunately it appears that this lady's posts have been expunged from the Interwebs... We can't find a suggested dosage for borax (boron) anywhere now except for some mentions on EarthClinic.com wherein someone is using it for skin issues and also found that it helps with myco even when applied topically. In that link you'll want to go down and search for "Eric" or "rat" (here is an excerpt for posterity just in case)

Does anyone have the dosage amounts that are safe for rats? I am hopeful that someone else here may have seen this same story and amounts that we saw and have since lost.

Also, as an aside, there is this particular study wherein they gave some test rats boron and shared their dosages for long term usage with accompanying results, but I don't have access to the full article. It might provide some insightful levels if anyone feels so inclined to dig through it.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

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Borax is NOT safe for rats nor is it safe for people to ingest

You've dug up some very old and very obscure references to using borox for parasites etc that are shot down on the very site you link to. Did you bother to read them yourself?
myco is not a fungus nor a parasite.


I'm getting that red flag feeling that you may be a troll. Prove me wrong.
got any photos of your rats? where do you live? how many rats do you have now? what are their names? what kind of cage do you have for your rats?

I think you have myco confused with something else. Myco is not curable, we can only try to prevent flareups of secondary infections caused by the myco attacking a rats immune system. Breeders try to breed away from it, by using their healthiest rats with stronger immune systems, and labs can actually create myco-free rats but it starts with a pregnant female rat that is killed and her babies removed by c-section, not allowing them to go through the vagina and hence transmitting the myco. These offspring are kept very carefully isolated to stay myco-free.

Here is the link on myco...so you understand it better.

http://ratguide.com/health/bacteria/mycoplasma_mycoplasmosis.php

Rats sadly are prone to all sorts of diseases, illnesses, bacteria and issues so your rats may not have died of myco but possibly pulmonary abscesses, or pneumonia, or stroke or any number of things from the vague symptoms you provided.

The best course of action if you have a respiratory infection is antibiotics from your vet preferably a combination of broad spectrum ones like doxycycline and baytril.

Borax is not acutely toxic but it is with long term use. Please please do not give your rats water contaminated with borax. Rats require fresh water.

lilspaz68 said:

I think you have myco confused with something else. Myco is not curable, we can only try to prevent flareups of secondary infections caused by the myco attacking a rats immune system. Breeders try to breed away from it, by using their healthiest rats with stronger immune systems, and labs can actually create myco-free rats but it starts with a pregnant female rat that is killed and her babies removed by c-section, not allowing them to go through the vagina and hence transmitting the myco. These offspring are kept very carefully isolated to stay myco-free.

Here is the link on myco...so you understand it better.

http://ratguide.com/health/bacteria/mycoplasma_mycoplasmosis.php

Rats sadly are prone to all sorts of diseases, illnesses, bacteria and issues so your rats may not have died of myco but possibly pulmonary abscesses, or pneumonia, or stroke or any number of things from the vague symptoms you provided.

The best course of action if you have a respiratory infection is antibiotics from your vet preferably a combination of broad spectrum ones like doxycycline and baytril.

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great info on myco.

That page is full of nonsense. Read the comments and you will see that those people have absolutely no clue what they are doing. I'm not saying that the entire website is bogus, natural resources can be very good and helpful. But please inform yourself properly before you start experimenting on innocent and helpless rats.

I was curious, so I dug into some actual scientific literature to see what is true of the whole story posted above. I did it quickly and sloppily, just to get an idea. I will share it for those who are interested/bored enough to read it.

Mycoplasma is not a virus, contrary to popular belief, but they don't have a cell wall which bacteria usually have. So, it is unclear how to classify the thing other than as bacteria without cell wall. The experiments quoted on the page are irrelevant, since they are about plants. Plants are VERY different from animals. Let’s focus on human and mice/rat research. Specific Boron-containing drugs (so no Borax) can indeed help with infections of Gram negative bacteria and a study in rats and mice showed that the used dose of these drugs (again, not Borax) are not carcinogenic. Other Boron-containing drugs however were shown to inhibit blood platelets and other components. These things are essential for the immune system and making scabs on wounds. So, it completely depends on the specific drug, dose and patient. Boron-containing drugs can also be used for fungal infections. As Myco is not a fungus nor a bacterium, it is difficult to say what effect boron-containing drugs would have. There were exactly zero publications on the effect of boron, borax or boron-containing drugs on mycoplasma.

As the specific boron-containing drugs mentioned above affect bacteria, eating such drugs is not a good thing for your rats. Their intestines and skin are packed full with bacteria, including many Gram negative species. They need these bacteria to help digesting your food, keep their intestines working properly and help defend them against diseases and parasites. Taking drugs that kill bacteria would mess up their health. Many rattie antibiotics have the same effect, but at least their working and dosage has been tested and approved of, so that the medicine will be effective without bothering the rat too much.

And then we come to the most important point: the poster and website do not even consider the specific drugs tested in the publications. Instead, they take Borax. I even read on that website that people bought scented laundry Borax. Yum, laundry detergent. At least it is not free Boron, which can be highly toxic. Instead it is a Boron-containing compound that is…still toxic when overdosed, which is easily done in rats. It can counteract the toxicity of some other heavy metals, but it can also affect genes and chromosomes, plus mess up its immune system and organs, which can make the rat very sick.

If a rat perks up after getting borax, it is probably because the secondary infection caused by bacteria has been taken care of. But, you have no idea what damage you have done to your pet in the meantime. Morale of the story: DO NOT FEED YOUR RAT BORAX!

Ya um. Myco isn't a fungus.
But I won't repeat the information that has already been stated about what myco actually is.

Have you ever drank borax? Would you subject yourself to only drinking borax-ladden water, not fresh water? I seriously challenge you to go drink a big glass of borax water and let us know how it goes.
If anything, get some baytril/doxy/amoxi online to keep on hand in case your vet is closed.

I think you were bamboozled by someone who was paid to represent borax in as many good ways as possible. The fact that Google removed it from it's searches isn't because it's spam, in so much as it's paid for or incorrect information.

You do also realize most of the information that you linked is dated to the 1990's, correct? All of the newer dated "information" is from "testimonials", most likely paid writers. Trust me, I have looked into working from home - and writing stuff like this is an incredibly popular way to make some extra cash.
And, this is the same website you keep quoting. What are your other sources? Right on the bottom of every page of the website is the disclaimer :
"DISCLAIMER: Our readers offer information and opinions on Earth Clinic, not as a substitute for professional medical prevention, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult with your physician, pharmacist, or health care provider before taking any home remedies or supplements or following any treatment suggested by anyone on this site. Only your health care provider, personal physician, or pharmacist can provide you with advice on what is safe and effective for your unique needs or diagnose your particular medical history."

I just found pages upon pages of results for how to poison rats with Borax.
I know that Borax can need higher amounts to cause death but you are giving your rats Borax in their drinking water and thus you have no way to monitor if they are getting too much.

The simple fact is that we know that myco needs antibiotics to alleviate the symptoms. Sodium borate/tetraborate is not an antibiotic.
I can't even imagine giving any of my rats a cleaning product instead of fresh water.

We're you thinking that Myco is caused by a fungus (because of the name?). It's not.

Like the others said, mycoplasma is endemic in rats and not curable. It is a terrible thing to see a rat in respiratory distress, though, and we all wish there was a cure.

You don't want to trust articles unless they are in a reputable peer-reviewed journal and unless you read the whole article. Sometimes an author will email you a copy if you request it. Reading an article is a challenge unless you have research training.

I hadn't seen the last two posts before I posted mine. Thanks to those who looked into the articles with a good scientific eye.

I'm sorry to say that you guys are exceptionally wrong in your various assertions. We love our rats dearly and they have been drinking it for 8 months and just happened to run out. Heck, we know people drinking it as well with tremendous results for some fungal infections and other issues (surprise) and usage for skin fungal issues demonstrate that it is amazing. I'm sorry you're closed minded enough to not look into it.

It DOES cure myco or at least stave it off and I wish that you guys would dig into it further.

I imagine that you love your rats. What really bothers us is that it seems like a lot of folks here are of the mindset that will end up killing your loved ones (yes, humans too). Do you trust your family to "traditional" medicine that prescribes chemo or radiation therapy to cure cancer? Well, let me tell you, I've lost plenty of loved ones (human and animals) to that very mindset in the past and with other family members. It is a dead end.

This kind of inability to explore and think outside of the box will never avail you anything in this life.

What a deeply disturbing and troubling experience I've had here from a group of folks that I thought would be excited and more open minded on such matters, especially when there's a lot of evidence contrary to your assertions.

And do a little more research about mycoplasma! I think you're screwed up in your kingdoms and genera. Just 5 minutes of some searching and reading of pubmed and other various resources clarified that my assertions are correct.

Good luck and happy trails. I just don't feel that our family has found a welcoming environment here to help us out. Rats included.

We do not think you are purposefully harming your rats, just that you are misinformed. I may surely hope that I do not have my kingdoms mixed up, as a microbiologist, lol. I am curious to your references from pubmed, as I used the same resource and couldn't find anything credible. But as I did only a quick search I might have missed something. Pleaae share your references and educate us. It is not that we are not opento new cures, just that we want to see them scientificly proven before we subject our babies to it.

Ps: mycoplasma is definitely NOT a fungus.

Mycoplasma refers to a genus of bacteria that lack a cell wall. The name Mycoplasma, from the Greek μυκής, mykes (fungus) and πλάσμα, plasma (formed), was first used by Albert Bernhard Frank in 1889. He thought it was a fungus, due to fungus-like characteristics. (from Wikipedia)

Additionally, rats generally are infected with M. pulmonis not M. pneumoniae like humans tend to get. M. pulmonis is not something you see in humans.

Borax works in the same way chemo works. Just the right amount = kill mostly bad stuff. Too much = kill everything. Same with any medicine, "traditional" or not. If you get the dosage right, it's helpful. Too much, and it's just another poison.

Well good news: rat saved again with borax solution. We ended up finding the mixture amounts after my initial post and are so very happy.

For what it's worth, I'm simply ignoring all replies in this thread from folks who simply are not open minded enough to look into the facts. Perhaps someone will value the sharing of OUR family's experiences in saving and prolonging the lives of our precious rats.

Also, if anyone is interested, I have a family member who just recently beat a terminal malignant brain tumor and epilepsy with a ketogenic diet (MCTs are the trick to kickstarting ketosis within 30 minutes of consumption; probably would have the same results for rats from the research I've seen).

If you want anyone to take you seriously,
post links to credible, peer reviewed research articles so we can have a look at them

SQ said:

If you want anyone to take you seriously,
post links to credible, peer reviewed research articles so we can have a look at them

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LOL, Re: Keto diets, there are plenty of resources from exceptionally credible resources if you look for them. But facts are facts and I don't have to prove crap to you. If you're interested in anything here and have loved ones to save (human or rat), after the interesting reception before, I won't be investing any of my time doing any of the work for you.

:welcome3:

soratfam said:

LOL, Re: Keto diets, there are plenty of resources from exceptionally credible resources if you look for them. But facts are facts and I don't have to prove crap to you. If you're interested in anything here and have loved ones to save (human or rat), after the interesting reception before, I won't be investing any of my time doing any of the work for you.

:welcome3:

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I was referring to your claims regarding rats.
Many people have requested that you provide creditable references for the claims you have made since you claim the research exists.
If you can't or won't provide that information no one is going to take your information seriously, since the information we do have says that what you are doing is unhealthy at best and is likely to harm or kill our pets.

Borax is used to preserve animals during taxidermy. I would never put it in LIVING animal's water and force them to consume it. That sounds like an awesome way to slowly poison them.

Without proper scientific studies to support the claims that borax is beneficial we can not recommend it's use.