Ongoing discolored urine - He passed. <3

Shop with us on Ebay
Fins us on Amazon
Advertise with us
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.
The vet recommended Pet-Tinic for Merle as in iron supplement for the blood loss, but I would prefer to give him a vegan form of supplement. Any recommendations? With this type of blood loss, are there any other deficiencies I should be worried about, or supplements I need to keep in mind for him? Also, is there a chart anywhere with recommendations as to how much of each vitamin/kg for a rat?
 
I'm doing better with it now, mostly because by all appearances he is still a happy boy. The shock of it the first day and my lack of any knowledge or comprehension had me in a frenzy, and I'm sure I'll get back there when he declines, but for now at least I feel like he is happy and have done/are doing all we can do. He's here now, and he's happy now, so we'll take all we can get.
 
When ours were going through it, my vet never mentioned supplements, but I think that would be a good idea.
I believe there is a break down on Sorraia's blog. http://nom-ology.blogspot.ca/2010/08/ar ... erals.html
Rats require 35 mg/kg of iron. Signs of deficiency include anemia, hyperlipidemia and low tissue carnitine concentrations, failure to grow, elevated resting metabolic rate, reduced exercise capacity, low milk folate concentrations, compromised immune system, reduced antibody production.
 
thanks for that info. I'll have to give that a peek. For now I've just been scraping a bit off some of the iron tablets I have at home.
 
Last night I noticed Merle has some rapid breathing going on. I'm not sure if it was costal breathing, but it was kind of inconsistent on the rhythm of it. He would do a series of rapid, short breaths, and then a few deep, slow ones, lather, rinse, repeat. Since I didn't think the baytril or clavamox would do that, I had to wonder if perhaps the dex could. It seemed backwards to me, since dex is usually used for issues of respiratory troubles, but I began lowing his dose just in case. Today he still has that same breathing going on, and seems a bit anxious, but is still eating, drinking, peeing and pooing. I noticed today that when I checked lightly on his belly, he walked over and did a large pee that was not bloody like the previous ones this week. The large bloody pees began after the sub-q/ultrasound/xray vet visit Wed - up until that point I was seeing tiny droplets of red pee. So, I'm not sure if this is improvement, or just him moving back to how he was before the subq/ultrasound Wed., but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't the tiniest bit hopeful. After moping up puddles of bloody pee with a tissue the past few days, it was nice to mop one up that looked close to normal, and in a normal volume. I would be feeling even more positive if it wasn't for the rapid breathing I'm seeing, which I'm not sure how to interpret.

I also gave him his carprofen today for the first dose, since I've seen more of the body twitches and I think he might be in some pain. & he's also getting some iron supplement, cranberry supplement, vegan yogurt (away from his baytril/clavamox dosing), and a puree of leafy greens/flaxseed oil for iron. I did notice one very loose stool yesterday, though one I saw today looked a bit more solid. I'm assuming that's from the antibiotics. Is the yogurt what's best for that issue, or is there more I need to consider?
 
I vote for hopeful. Less blood in the urine has to be a good thing, although the breathing is a puzzle.

As for loose stool, yogurt can help. I recall lilspaz68 recommending the BRAT diet for diarrhea: Banana, Applesauce, Rice, Toast. Rats love all of those things, so it can't hurt.

Good luck with your sweetie.
 
Thanks for that recommendation. The BRAT diet is definitely easy enough. His stools looked better today, so perhaps I just started the yogurt a day late. The breathing still puzzles me as well, but I figure it has to be either the dex (seems likely as he just started it two days ago, and I've never had him on it before so I can't say if he has a bad reaction to it) or his body failing for other reasons (since he had sneezing issues as well, or the suspected bladder cancer). I figure I'm simply tapering the dex back down and seeing if he improves.

I haven't seen any more large bloody pee areas, and I saw another normal sized urination with no bloody look to it, so fingers crossed. <3
 
His urine is still clear but his breathing is still very rapid. It looks like he is breathing with his whole body... quick, rapid breaths like someone who has just ran up a flight of stairs. I'm not honestly sure what to do with that symptom at this point, but it doesn't seem good for him if it wont stop.
 
any chance he's got a heart problem? maybe he needs lasix?

I'd call the vet as soon as they open and tell them what is happening, tell them he's got rapid labored breathing
(that's what it's called when he needs to use other muscles to breathe)
 
I plan to check in with the vet. My hunch just leans towards it having something to do with the medications, as he went to the vet Wednesday, then went back again Thursday and has the sub-q fluids/ultrasound/xray, came home around noon and had his first dose of the baytril/clavamox/dex. Second dose of each was given Friday morning, and before his third dose Friday night I began noticing the rapid breathing. So, while I know if he does have bladder cancer things could simply be taking a turn for the worst, the timing of it seems likely to me for the meds. He did have some bad sneezing going on before the appointment which was a concern as well and something we hoped these antibiotics would help if given long term. So, again, we've got a few different variables, a few issues going on and it just makes it tough to know what exactly is going on with the bugger. He has had multiple x-rays taken over the past few weeks, and no mention of any suspected heart issues, though I know the heart doesn't always look enlarged in the early chf stages. For now I'm simply weaning him back off the dex and hoping the breathing was perhaps a bad reaction to that. I'll ask the vet for his opinion tomorrow.
 
Ok... I feel like I *might* be getting paranoid, but I am certain I have now seen Minca doing type of twinges I saw Merle doing when I thought he might be in pain/straining to pee. I've watched her carefully for the past 20 minutes, and when she stands still or lays down flat, I've seen her slightly twitch her body up, like a rat might do if they had a twinge of pain. I feel ridiculous writing it, but it's just making me wonder even more. I haven't seen any other issues with Minca beyond the constant sneezing both she and Merle share. Both the new naked girl who and Munster who I got and lost so quickly after his tumor surgery were quarantined for 3 weeks, and the sneezing for Merle and Minca started way before new naked girl came home a few days ago... but I'm hoping that on top of everything else I'm not seeing another issue creeping up for Minca. My mind also remembered that I've seen a flea here and there on just one of the cats. She's had a flea treatment on the 12th and the others were dosed yesterday, so part of me wonders if perhaps the twinge movement I'm seeing might be fleas even though the cats never go into my large room and I've only seen 3 fleas to date... but at this point if the twinges continue that's my most hopeful guess.

Otherwise, I don't know what might cause the same twinge movements in both rats. The major viruses didn't mention that symptom, and certainly they both wouldn't have UTI or bladder cancer.... but I'm certain I've never seen Minca do those twinges until today either so I'm a bit worried.
 
Merle's breathing isn't any better this morning. His last dose of dex was yesterday morning, so I was hoping if it was a bad reaction to it he might be showing signs of improvement soon. Up until now his breathing has been very rapid and he was mostly resting in his hammock. I checked him an hour ago and it was the same, but now I found him propped up in his litter box, leaning against the sides with his head as high as he could get it. So now I have seriously consider heart issues on top of everything else that may be going on.

I'll be calling the vet when they open, but I wonder if throwing lasix at him as a diagnostic will be too much for his system. I figure either:

-he actually has bladder cancer, and somehow the abs/dex/rimadyl helped make his pee clearer but the disease is still progressing and causing the issues I'm seeing.

-Or he has a very bad UTI and some ongoing respiratory issues, and either the vet visits or the dex aggravated other issues and resulted in the labored breathing.

-Or he also had heart issues I was not aware of that are showing up worse because of all of the stress this past week.

He has been breathing rapid like this since Friday night, so I can only imagine how tired he is at this point, but obviously it's hard to make a call to put him to sleep when he's still eating and mostly just seems wiped from breathing issues. Without knowing what is really wrong with him, and having multiple scenarios that I can all see being possible but that all point for different courses of action, it's very hard to decide how best to proceed. I suppose the only real option I can think of, medication wise, is lasix as a diagnostic, as for most breathing issues one would use dex and he's already been on that this week and it didn't stop it. I just worry at throwing another med at him when he's had quite a few this week.
 
hopefully the vet will be able to pinpoint the problem by his symptoms. I think that cancer can also cause ascites, where fluid builds up in the abdomen, and that could be making it hard for him to breathe? I am so sorry you are both going thru this.
 
I left a message with my vet. I'm just a bit stunned at this point, because I let myself get hopeful when I saw the blood in the urine go away so quickly and saw so many good, normal sized pees. Then it felt like wham... a new bad issue and dex was already off the table.

I just thought there would be more time than this, and it's hard to imagine letting him go when it feels like the labored breathing should be treatable. Like... if it wasn't for the labored breathing, I wouldn't even be close to considering letting him go, I'm just stunned. He was eating well, coming out, peeing/pooing well, seemed like himself even with the bloody urine going on. It just seems like he should be ok, and I can't get him there.

I left a message for the vet to see what they think. I can't really think of anything other than lasix at this point, and the only lasix I have is quite old so I'll see what the vet thinks.
 
How are his extremities? Are they pink or bluish?
Is his fur all poofed up? Is he eating normally or only special treats? Are his eyes bright or dull?
One thing you could try is to put him into an oxygen chamber at the vet's and see how he responds. If his breathing goes back to a more normal rate, then you can assume that there is a problem in the lung/heart area.
Has he done any panicked runs around the cage? If he has, then it is getting to the point where something needs to be done right away. I said goodbye to my boy Calvin when it seemed he couldn't catch his breath anymore and was starting to do panicked scoots around the cage.(He couldn't run, but he could scoot!)
I hope the vet has an idea of what's going on.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top