Chirping noises, antibiotics not working?

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rmn34

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2020
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96
Location
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Both of my little ones have been making noises lately and sneezing. They have both had sneezing in the past, but the first time it was treated successfully with baytril.

My little guy is sneezing as well as making a sporadic chirping sound. It started out a few times a week but now it is more frequent, almost daily, and I finally got a good recording. See attached (3 times looped 14sec clip)

He has been on baytril/doxy combo for around 10 days (baytril alone was not helping) and it is still going on.

Should I be worried that whatever he has may be resistant to antibiotics, or viral? There is no decent info as to what to do when this happens, they just say "don't give too little or for too short a time so they don't develop a resistance...", well what happens then?

How do I know when I should increase from the recommended dose?

I am thinking mycoplasma due to this description on ratfanclub:

Rats with mycoplasma (all pet rats) will frequently exhibit a behavior that is often mistaken for hiccups. The rat experiences rhythmic jerks of his body for between several seconds to several minutes, usually about 2 jerks per second. Sometimes a sound can be heard at each jerk, but often there is no audible sound. This is not hiccups. It is a sneezing jag caused by the mycoplasma respiratory infection.

He definitely has the jerking movement at the described frequency, and only sometimes chirps.

But again, the baytril/doxy combo seems to not be working.

Please advise.
 

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Should I switch to azithromycin and/or stop the baytril maybe?
 
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Ratfanclub put out a LOT of erroneous information. Hiccuping should be silent, but if there's a sound, that usually means you have a possible respiratory infection brewing or you have scarring of the lungs from previous infections.

You said he's had a myco flareup before and he was were treated with baytril successfully? How long was his course of baytril?

He's on doxy and baytril now, how much does he weigh, what are the concentrations of each (mg/ml or %) and how much are you giving him of each? I just want to doublecheck the dosages to make sure they are effective and we can go on from there.

Can you post a video of him sneezing? That to me tells me a lot more than the chirping with the hiccups.
 
I'll try but so far I can't get him sneezing, it's too infrequent. All I can say is that when he sneezes on my neck it is wet. Usually it is one sneeze, rarely more than one. The chirping however seems to happen most often first thing in the morning when I first remove him from the cage, perhaps because the mycoplasma has been settling while he is still? Then he will go the rest of the day without doing it. (Perhaps like how smokers hack up nasty stuff when they wake up in the morning)

The chirping/hiccuping is becoming more frequent however so I was able to get that:



The first time I treated him for sneezing was last year sometime. He was on baytril for a few weeks.

The second time I tried the same baytril treatment for sneezing it did not work.

Doxy alone did not work either, I tried that on 5/11 for a week or so. Long enough to see it was not working.

The most recent course started on 7/13 and that's when I tried both at once.

As of yesterday I switched the baytril to azithromycin per the myco article.

He is ~250g

Baytril was Bayer 10% soln. Dose was 0.05ml po q12h

Doxy was initially 2.5% aq soln made from pills, then I switched to doxyvet 5% liquid suspension due to concerns about degradation of the active ingredient in aqueous solutions. Dose was 0.05ml of 2.5% then 0.025ml of 5% po q12h

Azithromycin is powdered from epic pharma, 1200mg active / 30g bottle (1mg active/25mg). Dose is 200mg po q12h


I try to dose then withhold food for 2h, other than the small amount of ensure I use to mix the meds.
I give ~1/2" of benebac every day or so.

Thank you!!!
 
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if its just sneezing like this, it might not be an active infection that your antibiotics can attack. Hmmm

As for the azithromycin. The daily dose should be 20 mg/kg once a day.
Is this a box of powder in a bottle you are supposed to reconstitute with water? Is it 100 mg/5 ml or 200 mg/5 ml?
 
200/5ml. But it says to dispose after 10 days so I just mix individual doses so it lasts longer.

I dont understand. These incidents are definitely happening with increasing frequency. What you see in the video did not always happen. It just started a few months ago.
 
After a couple months they were having no effect on the chirping/hiccuping, so I stopped the antibiotics.

Now the chirping has stopped but the sneezing has returned.

What does this mean?

Is it possible that the chirping and hiccuping was a result of the antibiotics treating the infection? i.e. somehow having the myco dried up in the lungs caused an itch or something that makes him chirp?!?
 
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