Antihypertensives and rats.

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Dewi

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 5, 2007
Messages
1,474
Location
Australia
Has anyone used Fortekor (benazepril hydrochloride) on their rats? It's an ACE inhibitor and used to reduce blood pressure.

My rat Chutney is breathing quite heavily and this is causing her heart to race and be irregular at times. The vet recommended Fortekor as she thought that this would help to reduce the strain on her heart. Having not used this medication before, I'm a bit nervous about it. Has anyone used Fortekor or something similar, and did it have any negative effects on your rat?

Chutney is also taking antibiotics (baytril & doxcycline) and an anti-inflammatory (prednisolone). I'm also thinking about nebulising her with asmol (a bronchodilator) but I'm worried about doing this as she hates the nebuliser. The poor rat is taking so many meds.

Sigh... I hate respiratory problems.

Dewi
 
Lilspaz68 on this forum is about to put one of her rats on it I believe. I'm pretty sure she's got some experience with it. I'll let her reply when she comes on.
 
I haven't used it on any of my rats yet, but that is what my vet uses rather than enalapril. My friend who runs a guineapig rescue uses it all the time, and has used it on her rats as well. It works well.

From what I understand its a better grade of enalapril. My vet also doesn't use lasix (is it illegal here now?)

Good luck with your little man. I have a girl with what seemed to be symptoms of CHF, but its possible she had a stroke or something before we got to the vet. I'll let you know more later on after our appointment. If we get prescribed Fortekor I will let you know how that goes as well.
 
http://ratguide.com/meds/cardiovascular ... loride.php

There's the info from RatGuide. From what I'm currently reading on it, it's the better medication to try, especially in older rats. I've never used it personally, but it does seem like a good medication. Used on it's own, it should help to regulate your girl's heart rate.

Good luck, and please keep us updated on how she does!
 
Hmmm...I'l ask today. :)

Oooh I found this...

*Note: due to its dual excretion in liver and kidney this drug may be safer to use in older rats , or those rats with progressive glomerulonephropathy, than first generation ACE inhibitors. )

I think enalapril is first generation. I like safer in older rats since thats when it usually presents.
 
I have used enalapril and Lasix (furosemide) on two rats diagnosed with CHF. It is a difficult drug to use and you really have to play around with the dosages. If you get it pretty close you will see an improvement almost right away.
It isn't a cure, but it was successful in extending my rats lives for a few more months.
Fortekor is the better drug and now more commonly used, benazepril doesn't have as many negative side affects as enalapril.
Many vets won't even consider heart meds for a rat, or at least won't give them a try without running hugely expensive diagnostic tests, so I am glad that people are seeing vets that will at least give it a go. It is worth it to see if it improves their lives for a while.
 
Hi again.

Well I went ahead and gave Chutney the Fortekor, I started this on Saturday. It hasn’t had any negative effect, but I haven’t noticed any positive changes either, or at least not yet. I’ll slowly increase the dose to see if this helps.

Chutney isn’t look all that well. It’s the worse I’ve seen her. She had an x-ray on Friday and it showed that part of her lungs are consolidated. On the up side she hasn’t been getting worse since then. I’m still hoping that the meds she's taking (all 6 of them) will help. It’s only been 2 days on the current combination. She’s still eating, walking and drinking. So I’m grateful for that.

On a different note, is there something up with lasix that would cause it to be made illegal? They use it in Australia as I’ve seen people in hospitals being prescribed it.

Thank you Joanne, Lilspaz68, javakittie and Vanessa for you help. :)

Dewi
 
Give the new meds atleast 3 days to see any real improvement. If she's still doing poorly after that, you should speak with your vet about upping the dosage some, or possibly adding something else. 3 days tends to be the magic number for just about everything with rats. Since she's not getting any worse, I'd say it looks like it may be helping some.

Have you spoken with your vet about using a diuretic [such as Lasix, heh] along with the Fortekor? If she has fluid around her lungs/heart, it would make the Fortekor not seem to be working as well, since her lungs/heart wouldn't be able to expand to full capacity. It might not even have to be long term. Might be worth speaking to your vet about.

As for Lasix being illegal, I don't know of anything it could do or that's in it that would make it illegal. I think it's mostly just the majority of vets being hesitant to use it. As Vanessa mentioned previously, it's usually difficult to even get a vet to try heart medications. Even then they can be iffy about what meds and in what combination they're given.
 
I would definitely go ahead and ask for the Lasix. My vet gave us the Salix (Lasix) first. If that would have worked, then we would have tried the heart med.
 
My Rhonda spent the last few months of her life on Fortekor and Lasix, and it helped her a lot. An X-ray had shown an enlarged heart, but we didn't start meds until she developed intolerance of any exercise. Then the meds helped her for a long time. She was never back to her old self, but she was able to get up and down the FN from top to bottom (I lowered the top shelf to make the ramp more shallow) and she could get into hammocks and tunnels if they weren't too high.

SQ used Fortekor with Caleb, and it extended his life by several months.

Scritches and banana mash and a kiss or two for dear Chutney. CHF takes the joy out of life for sure. I hope that she feels better soon.

Although I don't know a lot about nebulizing, I would recommend against it for a rat who has heart problems. The warmth in the container during nebulization can be hard on them. I have noticed that many rats feel panicked during nebulization ( I helped SQ do hers for a while), so I am now very leery of it.
 
If you accustom the rat to being nebulized prior to actually giving them the treatment, they generally don't have the adverse reactions. A very sick rat, in a strange box, with nasty tasting air, and a loud motor is not a happy rat. The stress alone would cause them to worsen.

I acclimate my girls to the nebulizer, just in case I do ever need to use it for them. They all do just fine, though I haven't yet had to use any medications. Being in the box with the nebulizer running is a bit freaky, but they aren't panicked.
 
Godmother said:
Although I don't know a lot about nebulizing, I would recommend against it for a rat who has heart problems. The warmth in the container during nebulization can be hard on them. I have noticed that many rats feel panicked during nebulization ( I helped SQ do hers for a while), so I am now very leery of it.
Click to expand...

I agree with this too.
 
I've had good responses with lasix and enalapril myself, we've given it some of our older ratters and sometimes it has a positive effect, sometimes no effect at all.

The nebulizing might be really stressful for a rat with resp issues. I know I have two now that are currently just on aminophylline due to just lung issues (not heart) and if someone they do not know handles them or they are put in an unknown type of situation they start stressing and it aggravates their breathing.

Hope she starts responding to the heart meds!
 
Hi,
Sorry for the delayed reply. I wanted to see how Chutney was going before providing an update. She was actually given some diuretic during her vet visit on Friday and I got some lasix as Joanne suggested, so now I have added this to her meds. She started the lasix on Monday afternoon.

As for Chutney, she has not shown any definite improvement but, as mentioned, she’s not gotten worse either. I’ll also talk to the vet on Friday if she has not improved. Fortunately she is still eating and seems happy most of the time, although less active than what she use to be.

Chutney’s okay about being nebulised; she doesn’t like it, but doesn’t panic. I think it’s the smell of the stuff being nebulised that bothers her the most, rather than the hissing. I’ll keep nebulising until Friday and if there is absolutely no change or she gets worse I’ll stop.

Really what she needs is oxygen, but that’s one thing that I’m having trouble getting hold off. You’d think it would be quite normal to take a small O2 cylinder home for your ailing pets.

So thank you all again for you feedback.

Dewi
 
I have had several rats who were treated for symptoms after being diagnosed with CHF.
My vet used fortekor, atenolol (a beta blocker that slows the heartbeat - vet had the drug store make it up), and lasix as their lungs were filling with fluid. I found that this treatment gave them a fair quality of life for quite a few months.
Debbie Ducommun recommends atenolol for rats who have CHF along with enalapril and furosemide (lasix).

A low sodium diet is important.

When I nebulized my rats, it was a very bad experience as godmother previously mentioned. They were not ill and were being nebulized as a preventive exercise to help their lungs. After nebulizing, Caleb became very ill and we struggled from Feb to June or July trying to find out what was wrong and trying different drug combos. My vet consulted with jorats vet. I drove Caleb for hours to get an opinion from a vet who had experience working with rats ... no exotic vets in the entire province of NB ...
Eventually changes in Caleb's heart showed that he had CHF and he improved on the previously mentioned meds.

I would never nebulize rats again as I have since discovered that rats in the martimes seem prone to CHF (gene pool from rat mill in Quebec where the maritime's pet store rats and their decendants (byb rats) came from :( ) As far as I know, nebulizing is not good for rats with heart problems ... due to the stress, I imagine.
 
Well Chutney has improved significantly, although she has not returned to her former health. I stopped the nebulising after a several days, seeing as it was stressing her out and there was not obvious improvement. I swear, when she was being nebulised my blood pressure went up as much as hers!

She is on 2 antibiotics (baytril & doxycycline), fortekor and once a week gets prednisolone. She is also on a very low sodium diet. She had two episodes when her heart would race and she would be agitated and short of breath. These occurred after she had eaten some food.

However each day Chutney has been improving and she is happy, eating well and loving the extra attention. Unfortunately I'm going away for 3 weeks and I hope to goodness that she will still be alive when I get back! My husband will at home, but I want to be there for her if she does get ill again. I know she will be wondering where I am, and I don't want her feeling I've ditched her if her health goes down hill. Wish I wasn't going away now :(.

Dewi
 

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