Allergies to rats

Fins us on Amazon
Shop with us on Ebay
Advertise with us
The Rat Shack Forum

Help Support The Rat Shack Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Dazzle87 said:
A welt from their nails is from pee, and it is an allergy if it getting scratched into you causes a skin reaction, it is like the scratch allergy test.

I have girls, and have an allergy to them. The first time it happened was shortly after I got my first two girls. I got a severe reaction, my hand and arm blew up to twice the size from hives. I went to the hospital and was given prednisone and a cream. It still took weeks to clear up :(. Since then, I have taken precautions to minimize it. I trim nails, I wash my hands a lot, and wear long sleeves when possible. I still get reactions sometimes, even with no scratches, but it's nothing like the first time. My hand usually gets hot and itchy, then breaks out. I could never not have rats because of it though.
Click to expand...

Oh my god, that's what it was. That happened to me recently, but I didn't know what caused it, and my I ended up covered in hives with my hands and feet swollen like CRAZY! It was actually right after Fred bled on me a lot (toenail injury).
 
My allergies to rats actually seem to be getting worse. I feel so bad, because I'm not able to spend much time with them. It's gotten to the point that I literally can't breathe when I'm around all of them.. and I stay like the for days after. :sad3: I'm already on 3-4 different allergy meds.. nothing helps. I feel so guilty for not spending time with them..
 
I've recently discovered that I am allergic to my rats as well. I got my first two guys in February, so it isn't something I really noticed until the weather started getting warmer and I switched from sweaters and long pants to t-shirts and shorts. Pretty much the same way - if I get scratched, the scratch will welt up and get itchy. I also get little itchy welts on my arms and legs where they've touched me even without scratching. This only seems to happen sometimes though, rather than on every single spot they touch, so from reading this I'm starting to think I'm allergic to the pee as well and it them dribbling that is causing the welts. I don't seem to have any respiratory symptoms, but I am also severely allergic to pollen so I'm basically a giant snot-ball until the snow is down anyways so it's hard to tell. Pretty easy to handle, either way. I have a little towel to put down on my lap if I have them there (like for Whiskers to take his Baytril,) and a pair of gloves to put on if I need to grab them and they might scratch (like the two or three times a week Vin crawls into the whole he chewed in their fleece liner, and can't find his way back out without Mama rescuing him.) If I do get scratched, I also go wash them out with soap and cold water, and add some Polysporin if the cuts are deep enough to warrant it, which all seems to help. I'm glad to hear that this seems to be a common allergen. I know that a lot of my friends, when I told them about the allergy (usually after them seeing a welt on my arm) told me I should get rid of them - it's depressing to think that people would get rid of a pet just because they got a little itchy. The rat cage has been in my bedroom since day one, so that may explain why I don't have respiratory symptoms.
 
I realised I do have a very slight allergy to their pee, my 2 boys tend to mark me whenever they are out during playtime and on the bed and furniture as well, while immediate washing helps with the pee they leave on my arms and such, i usually steam clean any furniture after that, helps a lot for my case though.
 
I see this is an old post, but I'm glad to see I'm not the only rat owner who is allergic to their pets lol. Not as much with the dander, but definitely with the scratches. If my rats scratch me, it means I have 5 minutes before they turns into welts and itch like crazy haha. I have an almost instant cure, not sure if it works the same for everyone. The moment I notice the scratches, I scrub the area with hand soap or dish soap, let it get a nice lather, then rinse the area with lukewarm water at first then switch the water to completely cold. If it's a bad scratch, let the water run at least 2-3 minutes. If I catch it soon enough, the welts won't even get a chance to itch before they begin to disappear. For harder to reach scratches, like when your ratties walk across the back of your neck lol, rubbing alcohol works decently for me but not as good as rinsing with the soap & water.
 
What works for me, on my welts, is running cold water. I never get to the tap before the welts come out, I'm too busy playing with the rats. LOL
 
I'm taking notes about this. This was something that I was thinking about for when I adopt some rats in the future as I had noticed with my last rescue rat. I was experiencing an allergic reaction to her when she would hang out on me, but it seemed to only bother me the most when I had to clean her cage. I would get those welts from my previous rats as well, especially with the males so it wasn't a huge issue to me at the time. I'm just worried about how my reaction will be since I've been away from the pet rats for awhile. :?

With having birds in the home that produce a lot of dust, I have to have a HEPA air purifier on as much as possible and wipe everything down every day. It does help a lot.
 
I stopped getting welts after about 4 months of having rats, I guess i developed some kind of immunity!

Back then, I always had antihistamines around, so it was, play with rats -> take pills -> Sleep for eternity.
 
I have rather severe contact reactions to my two boys. Not just from where they scratch/pee on me, but also where they lean on me. For example, when they cuddle up to my neck the whole area where they touch welts up.
Right now I can't get them neutered, although it is on the list, so I was wondering if wiping their fur down with a damp cloth or a baby wipe would help. I know a full bath would make them produce more grease, but would a wipe down that just got the dander/pee off the surface of their fur help? I don't really mind the scratch welts, they're small in scale, but having a rat-sized red, itchy welt is really annoying.
 
So, I wiped Wee Mad down with a baby wipe today before holding him for about half an hour. Oh my goodness the difference it made. Instead of having rat-sized welts on my neck and shoulders, I have a rat face-sized one (I didn't wipe his face). One!, just one, only the size of his face! The scratches didn't even welt! :dance: Obviously, I'm a little excited about this. Now I can finally cuddle with my boys.
 
Exposure therapy is sometmes a wonderful thing. I have asthma and allergies too. I used to wheeze cleaning a cage with 2 boys. 5 years later I have 15 boys in 4 cages and breathe fine on cage cleaning day. Took a lot of stubborness tho' :)

Sent from my SCH-I415 using Tapatalk 2
 
I'm allergic to rats! I don't remember being allergic when I first got into keeping ratties, I got allergy testing done to confirm earlier this year. I get itchy and welt up for a day. I don't do anything about it, just take it as it goes. I am on allergy pills anyway and immunotherapy for other allergies (weeds, dust, grass, etc).
 
I get those red itchy welts from rat scratches just like so many of the rest of you do. sometimes it's really bad other times not so much. I also have asthma, but the rats don't aggravate it.

one thing I have gotten is pompholyx eczema on my hands. I have never gotten it before, and I don't know anyone in my family who has ever gotten it, but I thought it was brought on by stress, as I lost my job at the end of August this year, a job that I had for 11 years, and then my father died the day after, so it's been tough. but then I found out the woman whom I got the rats from has also been getting the same thing on her hands, and she was tested for allergies, and turns out she's allergic to rats. she was into breeding them, but she had to get rid of them all.

I was treating the eczema with conventional corticosteroid creams, but I didn't like using them because of the steroids in them, so I switch to a homeopathic cream and remedy. still, it took several weeks to get rid of it, and in the meantime it looked horrible. I was embarrassed to have anyone see it, as people seem to think that things like that are contagious.

anyhow, I'm breaking out again on my left index finger. so far it's not really itchy, but it blisters. it's quite discouraging, but I really don't want to get rid of my rats. I guess I'm just glad that my asthma isn't affected by them.

Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk 2
 
Blah allergies are not cool . I'm allergic to most animals. I'm allergic to my rats but I just put up with it. I have to take ventolin a bit for asthma which I've never had before this year. I use baby wipes for the welts as I find them the most effective for taking the itch out. There are animals that I could never have as pets unfortunately :-(
 
I had very severe allergies to my rats. It got to the point that I was unable to keep the cage clean because I had an asthma attack and nearly passed out from lack of oxygen during one cleaning. The welts were not too bad, but as I was clearly allergic to them as I am with most( If not all animals), they were also rather severe and could take a day or two to be gone. But honestly, I still loved and cared for my rats, I worked around it, I invested in heavy duty puffers, switched to fleece bedding as it reduced the dust, and a cool clothe over welts as soon as they would show.
 
Hi,

I'm Isabelle, mom of 2 kids who would love to have pet ratties! So far great, but before we drive to the breeder we need to be sure my hubby is not allergic as he is to some but not all animals...

Can anyone who lives in or around Toronto and has only rats please help us by allowing us to briefly visit? I know it may be a little strange but it would really help us! Please call me on xxxxxxxxx if you can help us, thanks. :urock:

Thanks,
Isabelle

Please PM Isabelle if you wish to contact her. I removed the phone number. jorats
 

Latest posts

Back
Top