Chronic porphyrin in one eye?

Advertise with us
Shop with us on Ebay
Fins us on Amazon
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.
H

handmeafish

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 31, 2010
Messages
919
Location
Colorado
We have a rat in the store right now, and I've gotten permission to seek outside advice, the vets we work with are stumped and we've treated her with just about everything we can think of.

Al little history: We received a female rat who was brought to our store by a woman who found her and her litter in a dumpster, in a 10 gallon aquarium. She had a lot of porphyrin coming out of her left eye, the tank was damp, and I immediately put her in a bigger, dry aquarium. (its unfortunately store policy that animals are kept in aquariums) This was in May. The babies have sense been adopted out to good families, and momma is left on her own, in the back, with gobs of porphyrin coming out her eye.

She's been on Baytril and Doxy, Orlyflaxin (an eye drop, i think i'm spelling wrong), they've tried stronger and stronger doses of the antibiotics sense may and it wont clear up, or even stop a little. Before I left there was a note on her cage that the opening person noticed that her food dish was covered in blood (or possibly more porphyrin from coughing/sneezing though I have not seen her do much of either). Her lungs sound clear, and there is not porphyrin around her nose.

I feel bad for her, because she's been all alone, but my guess is that she was abandoned because she had babies, and th owner didn't want the responsiblity. And based on the cage she came in, she was probably a lonely rat then too. It makes me so sad to see her like this, because she is kind of sweet, though still very skiddish.

Any ideas that I can take to the vet are appreciated.
 
Bump!!
Please, if you have any idea, I feel so bad for this poor baby. I want to get her out of the store! I have a friend whose got 2 other female rats whose probably going to take her, but can't until she's cleared as healthy.

The vets are at a loss. Any idea could send us in the right direction.
 
Well I'm not sure if this is really true, but I read somewhere that an overproduce of porphyrin can sometimes be caused by stress or illness, or if they are underfed, etc...
Here go to this site and scroll down to where it says "The overproduction of porphyrin in rats"
http://www.ratbehavior.org/porphyrin.htm
Dont get mad if I'm wrong! I'm not entirely sure on this subject...
 
Yes it can also be caused by stress, illness (does she have ANY other symptoms?), and improper bedding.
 
I'll see if we can switch the bedding around, I think she's on care fresh now, but I might be able to get her on fleece or yesterday's news. If we can find another female, ( we don't normally have them in the store) do you think it would be better to partner her with someone and then adopt them out together? or would adding a cage-mate add stress?
I will try to get a picture when I get back to work if we don't come up with anything. I guess its possible that she's just been super stressed sense giving birth and being abandoned then brought to our store and medicated for 3 months.
Its a lot of porphyin, and its constant out of the one eye. I'm especially worried about her coughing some up as well, or at least the comment about there being a lot of "blood" on the food bowl.
We basically just use overactive porphyrin as an indicator of illness in the rats, if they have it, they get antibiotics...
And i would never be mad for suggestions, any information is super helpful. I hope to have a stack to research to take back when I return in a week.
 
The other (less good) thing is it could be something going on behind the eye, a tumor or abscess.

Tilly had an eye abscess:
[spoiler:3e2c8hfv]
DSC_7161.jpg
[/spoiler:3e2c8hfv]
 
I've had a few rats with chronic porphyrin around one eye. One rats became better when I changed her diet from the awful dog food and grain mix to a much better quality block.
But the other ones, no matter what I tried it never went away. Some days were better than others but still. You could try an eye drop from the vet.
 
It does kind of look like the pic of tilly. I wonder if we can do an Xray or something to see. an abscess would just be treated with antibiotics right? I hope its not a PT or something.
She's eating the forti-diet lab block, which is not great, but not terrible, and we don't have lights on them in the wellness room, which is where she is because she's quarantined.
I'll see if we can start throwing in the greens we give the reptiles with her in the morning, that might help too. They get mustard or collard greens, kale and carrots, and sometimes apples. that might cheer her up.
 
No, an abscess/tumor behind the eye needs an enucleation. Tilly was not so lucky, and her airways collapsed within hours from the swelling of the abscess. We were already at the vet but she needed to be PTS.

I'd get your girl to a vet ASAP.
 
Oh, so she wasn't one of the babies born there, so you don't know if she'd had it before she came?
Of course you have to keep your eyes open for anything that is an issue to her, but I had a girl give birth to 13 babies and just one baby always
had constant porphyrin in one eye from birth (even named her Raccoon because if it) til death and she lived 22 months and her eye never gave her a problem, she passed from respiratory illness.
I had one boy (MacKenzie) since who was badly prone to it in one eye most of his life (never caused a problem) and he lived 29 1/2 mo's with no problems but a recurring cyst on his back in later life, and he never was sick or required meds.
So yeah, it's an indication of a problem, but not a guarantee of one.
 
My girl Milly coinstantly has a red ring around her eyes of porphyrin, shes almost a year old now nd shes been a healthy girl.. some just have leaky eyes I guess lol
 
Spoke to the vet today, we're going to try taking the bedding out and putting her on towels to see if that clears it up. She's still on antibiotics, hopefully we will be able to fix her. :( She needs to go to a good home.
 
She has mites! poor baby. I notced the scabs today... but my thought is that its possible that the mights could be causing her enough stress to be causing the extra porf... so here's hoping that both will clear up soon. :)
 

Latest posts

Back
Top