Excess Porphryin Question

[OldsGal]

Hey all,

I have a weird situation that I have never experienced before and was wondering if anyone has any insight. I have a rescue boy here who gets a lot of porphryin pooled up in his eyes. This is not dried build up this is pools of wet tears in his eyes. It is not coming out of his nose. He is not sneezing, weezing nothing. His eyes look healthy. I take a kleenex and wipe the excess out of his eyes and he looks fine. Then he goes for a few days and I don't notice it and then he will have a huge pool in both of his eyes. Then a few days without. Anyone know what I am talking about. Should I be worried. Is this vet worthy?

Staci

 

[jorats]

I do know what you are talking about but each time it would happen to my rat, I knew something stressful was happening. Could it be related to something environmental? Sometime as simple as a fight between you and hubby, or a dog got too close? If you can't find a stressful situation occurring at that time, then I would then think there may be something internal, something that is hurting him, cramping, or something like that. Can you match it to a specific food? I had one guy that just couldn't take bananas.

 

[mamarat]

I had a few patchwork ratties who were like that. Vet said his eyelashes were causing it. They would get long and curly.

 

[mamarat2]

One of Dustys' eyes has a tear duct issue. He normally has porphyrin surrounding the eye off and on. had him to the vet and she said it is probably a clogged tear duct, as long as there is no sign of infection he is fine. Some days he has lots of porphyrin other days not. His eye still looks healthy otherwise.

Vet said there was nothing to be done about it in a rats case, if it was a dog they might be able to perform surgery but rats are too small. Also in Dustys' case its not painful.

 

[OldsGal]

You know Jo I think you hit on something that didn't occur to me. Normally I keep my cages very clean however, I have had some issues lately and have not been able to keep the cages as clean as I like for the past 2 weeks. They are not filthy by any means but are a tad smellier then I normally like them. I bet that is it. He is just sensative to the environment change for him. I am hopefully going to have time Saturday to spend the day cleaning all of my cages spotless. My brain is bascially mush from what I am going through right now and I didn't even think of that and it is a new developement with him in the last few days.

Thank you for your insight.

Staci

 

[Godmother]

That's an interesting possibility! I forget that our ratties might well be sensitive to all sorts of things, especially changes. Change is harder to handle if you have no control.