Izzie... Possible Seizures

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pinkies_mama

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 4, 2009
Messages
132
Location
Nebraska, U.S.
Just to recap... about two months ago or so Jeremy and I had been giving our oldest girl, Izzie, baytril and doxy for a day or so when we witnessed her have a very scary seizure (she fell off her box a good foot and a half onto the table and was jumping around, it was frightening). We talked to our vet and she said it was most likely the baytril, since we had never had something like that happen before, so she got switched to zithro and finished.
Everything has been pretty much fine until recently. After Izz had her seizure, we noticed she picked up - she was always the laziest girl, but she became more active.

Last night, I was putting the other girls onto the table for playtime, and I went to reach for Izzie. She had drunk some water then had gotten back in her bottle (her fav sleeping place). When I saw her, she was drooling and unresponsive to me, like she couldn't even see or hear me. After a minute of me talking to her, she fell out of the bottle (about 4 inches). It seemed like she was trying to get out but didn't have the coordination. Then she stood around for another five minutes or so, while I stroked her and talked to her gently before I picked her up. She seemed so fragile.

When I put her on the table with the other girls, she went right into a house and stayed there pretty much the whole night. She came out a little but I had to give her some Harlan to eat since she wouldn't come down and I fed her some baby food to keep her hydrated.

Jeremy said that when he left for work this morning that she was fine, happy to see him, sniffing around, running with the other girls, and even almost fell out of the cage when reaching for him.

What do you guys think???
It's quite disheartening to see her like that....

comfyizzie.jpg

(Sorry for the long post)
 
Epilepsy is possible in dogs, and I see no reason why it couldn't happen to rats.

Some animals that seize don't have an increase in severity or frequency, but most will get worse with age. Be careful when handling her when she seizes, and don't unless she's going to severely harm herself... I have heard of dogs biting and locking on during a seizure, through no fault of their own.

It may seem very scary at first and it can take a while for them to come around but as long as they don't suffer any particular trauma during the seizure like a bad fall or hitting themselves on something extra hard or sharp, they should come through it fine with no ill effects, although sometimes issues with breathing can happen.

Seizure-proofing the cage is a good idea, to minimize falls.

http://ratguide.com/health/neurological/seizures.php

As a small aside, at a recent seminar about dog behavior the speaker mentioned that REM sleep is as much a seizure inducer as some drugs. So if you need to wake her perhaps give her a moment before attempting to handle her, just in case.
 
Thank you both, and Moon, that article was very informative. I'll have to bring that to our vet, since she is also a rat owner.
However, I am running into the problem with the one level cage idea. Right now we have a CN double, which holds our four girls and soon to be Jack (once the period is over after his neutering).
Although of course we cannot monitor her 24/7, this is only the second time I have seen her like this.

Are there any suggestions regarding the one level cage? The only way I would be able to attain this is if I seperated her, something I refuse to do right now, since she seems to have good days and bad days.
 
Yes, SQ has it... hammocks that run the length of the open area from level across would be perfect.
 
We had a girl who developed seizures at 2 years old. It's certainly possible in rats, and I've seen it in two of mine (thankfully, my other rattie had adolescent seizures and grew out of them).

With Ellie, her symptoms were these:
She'd just stop whatever she was doing stare off into space at any given moment....you could see her start to slowly lean off to one side, then the seizure hit. She would fall to her side and start twitching :( and would fan her hands in front of her face like she was swatting at flies (or how you would if you ate something really hot). Her eyes and ears would twitch too. The seizure was unmistakable. They say not to bother them or try to hold them, but I always held my baby, so I was there when she came out of it, disoriented and scared. She did however, bite me during this time on several occasions. So I had a fleece blanket near the cage and would hold her in that. Sometimes she would lose what was in her bowels...that's where the blanket came in handy too. The seizures would last about 20-30 seconds, then she would immediately try to run in a panic. So if i was holding her, she'd know I was there, and just flop from exhaustion. She would lay very still for about another half hour (I kept holding her and comforting her), then she'd seem ok. I'd put her back in her cage, she'd eat something, then just crash for several hours. When she woke up, she'd seem absolutely fine.

The seizures grew to be more and more frequent (started with weekly, then got to every couple of days, to daily). We even put her on phenobarbitol, which seemed like it helped at the time, but looking back, I don't know that it really helped much. We had to keep upping the dose. Eventually, she started to suffer neurologically from the seizures. She had a head tilt, then towards the end, started circling. Her kidneys were failing her too. When she stopped eating, we had to let her go. She lived about 3 months with her seizures. :cry3:

We had Ellie in a one level cage and left her with her pals. I too, was not about to take her away from her friends. We had the entire cage fleece lined. I'm with SQ...if you can't take out the ramps, then strategically place hammocks all around the cage to catch her, if she falls.

I hope she doesn't have any more seizures, or they are very infrequent. Ellie's just broke my heart.
 
The funny thing about seizure is that the petite mal seizures can have a ton of different physical outputs, depending on what part of the brain is seizing. So a weird behavior that may not look like a typical seizure can, in fact, be one.
 
Another thing to keep in mind... when a rat is choking or gasping for breath, they will do the fall/flop down and small jumps as well. My Cado had numerous gasping attacks where he never really opened his mouth but simply did these little jumps. It was frightening to see him that way.
 
You could also look into connecting the two sections of your CN horrizontally instead of vertically, at least for the remainder of her life.
That way your rats would have 6 feet of horizontal space along with the two balconies.
Would not be a one level cage, but close to it.
 
Thank you everyone for the great advice. I am waiting on an email back from our vet, to see if we can get her on those meds. We won't do anything drastic right now, but I am also waiting on some hammocks I ordered. In the meantime I'll get some more from petco or something, at least so they are there.

You all are awesome and have wonderful ideas. Thank you all!
 
My little one also has seizures... Look for the batting of the paws up in front of the face... This is a sign of possible epileptic seizures... As I understand, in the long run, these are relatively harmless, but the short term effects could include such a scare from it that they could have a heart attack. If you can, whenever you see your rat having a seizure, comfort it with soft coo-ing noises, or try to make sure that she knows your there... Never pick her up without something that's thick enough that she can't bite you... I'm another one who's learned from experience. Anyways, I hope your rattie is ok...

EDIT: Also, something that I have seen, is that with seizures, if they get scared afterwards, they will start running really fast, make sure that they can't get hurt by running into stuff, so remove all sharp corners in the box. Also, if at all possible, not only line the cage, but the corners of the cage, so if (s)he takes off running, (s)he won't hit their head on the corners and hurt themselves even more...
 
Well everyone, we got Izzie on phenobarbitol, 0.2ml 2x a day, and she is doing so much better!!! :happydance: Our vet said that it will take a few weeks to take complete effect, but we've noticed a wonderful turnaround! :joy: I hope it continues, and we will go day by day :tumkiss:
 
Oh I sure will send continued good thoughts for little Izzie. Do expect to see that she'll be a bit lethargic and kind of "zoned" out. It's a pretty serious drug and does make them a little zombie like until they get used to it.

I hope she does well on the Phenobarbitol! :nod:
 

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