Kidney disease in rats

[dspch911]

Here's a video of Pip, I took on the weekend. He's been like this for awhile now. It's not PT and not a bladder infection. He's been on Baytril for awhile too.

http://vidmg.photobucket.com/albums/v53/jorats/videos/pip_zps08776991.mp4

I had forgot about Finn's head swing until I saw this video. The pred helped this, Finn had a horrible head swing and it looks like you rattie is getting one.

 

[jorats]

I'm worried that pred or even dex might be harder on his kidneys.

 

[Petunia]

I don't recall seeing a head swing like that in Norry, but to be sure I'll go back and look at all his videos from when he first started having trouble about a month- 2 mos ago

The thing he does, that is so much like a renal failure cat, is that he'll be sitting there and his head will start drooping, til his chin is resting on his chest almost.
or he'll end up on laying on his mouth/chin, but he goes down slowly. Not quickly like he fainted, as his vet was suggesting- she thought he might be fainting due to his heart rate being so high and oxygen not getting to his brain or something. There could be cardiac stuff going on too, I don't know,
but the thing with him falling asleep in his food or his head drooping, that's spot on for what happens to kidney cats, and I think it has something to do with potassium and dehydrating but there may be other things that cause it as well

Norry is no where near as energetic as your guy is Joanne, but then, he's never been a high energy rat.

I will try to make a list of the specific things I see in him that make me think "kidney" and not PT, when things settle down a bit. Remind me if I forget ok


i would not do pred or dex on a cat with potential renal issues, either. I hope you can figure out what's going on with him. I'm saying goodbye to Norry tomorrow and I *still* don't know for sure what is wrong with him. :/

 

[dspch911]

Petunia, I know you don't want a necropsy and I always felt that way too, but I am so glad I had one done on GMC and Snickers. I am looking at it as another surgical procedure and I don't let them touch their heads. Snickers has helped others and I do believe GMC will to with what they found.

The head drooping and falling asleep in his food sounds so much like a PT symptom. Finn had a terrible head swing - it was so bad at one point he could barely eat - I cannot believe I forgot that. Unfortunately, we didn't know about the vets we have now the only time Finn and Curley saw them was to be pts.

 

[Petunia]

Petunia, I know you don't want a necropsy and I always felt that way too, but I am so glad I had one done on GMC and Snickers. I am looking at it as another surgical procedure and I don't let them touch their heads. Snickers has helped others and I do believe GMC will to with what they found.

The head drooping and falling asleep in his food sounds so much like a PT symptom. Finn had a terrible head swing - it was so bad at one point he could barely eat - I cannot believe I forgot that. Unfortunately, we didn't know about the vets we have now the only time Finn and Curley saw them was to be pts.

I've offered some of my rats to the vet to do a necropsy but she doesn't do them, not even if you pay. personally I think she doesn't really like working on such tiny animals, she's much more comfortable with larger ones (For any kind of surgery i mean)

it would be nice to know, I agree.

OH, head drooping is a PT thing too?
its been a long time since i Had a PT rat, I forget everything that goes with it

I do know that even today, NOrry has NO trouble picking things up in both paws, he was just gnawing on a regal rat pellet. his head went down while he did it, and it even went off to one side, so I dont know-
I guess he could have a very very slow growing PT

but I am 99.9% positive he's had some sort of kidney trouble going back a few months now.

 

[dspch911]

Poor Norry seems like he has multiple things going on. Hopefully Dre doesn't inherit any of them like my boys did. I was always afraid one of my PT boys was going to drown in their ensure since they would just drop their heads into it. Sorry again about Norry ... ♥

 

[Petunia]

Poor Norry seems like he has multiple things going on. Hopefully Dre doesn't inherit any of them like my boys did. I was always afraid one of my PT boys was going to drown in their ensure since they would just drop their heads into it. Sorry again about Norry ... ♥

thanks

so far Dre seems ok. he was checked out when Norry was first diagnosed with the heart issue, and even though he was really super nervous, his heart rate was lower than Norry's was.

 

[temblabamomo]

@petunia *hugs*

I saw no mention of this on ratguide or this thread, but doing my own search and reading had a lot of stuff pop up on Google (which I haven't had time to read yet). One of the first hits says pruritus can be a symptom of, among other things, kidney disease.

I posted earlier about how Sid has been itchy the past month. He's had Revolution and full parasite cleaning routine, olive oil topical and oral, and humidity in case the room is dry. The past 48 hours he shows mild disorientation/confusion, wobbly, drinking a log of water but only from bowl - he hasn't touched his bottle, which is why I left the bowl.

He is very very off, very similar to Wolfie's state with his sudden renal failure. His eyes are dull but not bulgy, equal pupils, no clouds. Just glazed a bit and not right.

He isn't eating with his usual gusto - he's a real piggy. Yesterday was his second birthday and he had a tiny piece of cake - normally he'd go bonkers but he just kind of slowly mechanically ate.

His back feels hard now, where a week or two ago he was squishy fatty boy. He passes pinch test so not dehydrated. I did pick him up a while ago and his bits were soaked in normal looking urine.

Anyway long story short I've been trying to figure out mites dry air or an allergy the last month, wondering now if the itching is actually a symptom if kidney disease. Thoughts?

I am going to give him some fruit to stay hydrated in case. I read few years ago that cherries have something in them that boosts kidney function.
:/

 

[jorats]

Thanks Morgan for those symptoms. I haven't noticed any itchiness on Pip but he's got severe HED so he wouldn't be able to scratch himself anyway. I've been doing my daily routine with him though. My vet once put my mom's rat with kidney disease on the cat food for renal failure. Not sure if that helped much. Apart from doing subq, I don't know what more we can do.

 

[temblabamomo]

I've never read or seen itchiness is rats or animals with kidney disease, just the last couple of days his symptoms kind of hint at kidney failure, so that prompted me to search pruritus + kidney disease and get hits.

Our last cat to pass from kidney failure developed really clumpy fur during his last months, vet explained how kidney disease could affect skin and fur. So maybe something to skin conditions being related to it.

When Wolfie had acute kidney injury we basically couldn't do anything except give fluids, offer proper diet, and hope.

 

[Canarats]

Petunia had a huge point. I just rushed two mid-age rats (20 moz?) this month to the emergency vet with renal issues that mimic severe respiratory issues (not eating or drinking, mouth-breathing, gasping).

Not that they *didn't have *any resp. issues, but it was kidney causing the massive system failure. The one treated for respiratory died on the way home (and yes, the vet contra-indicated for fluids, as in pneumonia, as the OP experienced too). The brother, who received enalapril *only (a CHF med), did a 360 turnaround, and is literally jumping somersaults, eating everything in sight to make up for 2 days without food or water. He was scheduled to be euthanized yesterday, but today I've never seen him feel this good, popcorning like a ratlett.

I've understood that where renal issues are present, CHF is implied .
Does it look like we can make a strong case that respiratory and renal are equal culprits in deterioration of older (esp. male) rats?
Is the scenario likely enough, that we need to establish a protocol for early testing for kidney compromise, for example, urinalysis after rat passes one year of age, and then every 3-6 months?
Which vets have a tail cuff to measure blood pressure (also implicated in kidney disease)?
What about diabetes testing? In hindsight, my passed rat always chewed his feet a lot. The surviving rat did it only last week, when his kidneys started to fail too http://www.afrma.org/med_diabetes.htm

 

[dspch911]

Finn had balance issues, did a lot of circling, and showed some PT symptoms.