Rat Scabs.help?

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wont be able to get the shampoo until next week because im flat broke! luckily Genevieve is happy for the moment and the cortisone is helping her to feel better. She's not scratching/licking the scabs anywhere near as much and they're HEALING there are NO NEW ONES! and her coat is going back to her normal colour! I dont know why but her pretty greyish purple was being overtaken by an orangy colour in her scabby places. The vet called to check on her and said that after this course is finished she wants to half the amount she takes each day and gradually wean her off it and see what the lowest dose is to keep her itchiness at bay. Vet believes it is an alergy of some sort.
So at least even if i cant track down this alergy and the shampoo doesnt work Genevieve will not be miserable and will have some releif!

I can't tell you how good it is to see her healing!!! so happy! and the ferret kingdom/nation cage comes this month! horray!!!
 
This is genevieve today.

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Cortisone wasnt working as well as it first was-have tried a couple of different shampoos and am still waiting for one of them to arrive in the mail- washing her has only made them more weepy and prevents them from drying up and healing.


I'm completely frustrated and all the vet can say is that its an alergy and i may never find out whats causing it.Im extremely poor right now and dont know what else to do but keep trying..

Look how bad she looks:(

Does anyone know if there is a kind of rat-body suit she can wear to create a barried between her claws and the wounds or foot booties or anything?

i have been told about vet-tape stuff and still havent got a hold of it.it may be worth a try though..

ANY suggestions on what she may be alergic to? ANYTHING

I have just removed to lilly plants from outside my bedroom door where the rats are kept- ididnt even know they were lillies and thought up until tonight THAT THEY WERE PLASTIC.im such an idiot. I have cats too! i hope it has been the lillies..im rambling and stressed i want her to be ok:( :(
 
Have you tried the Children's Benadryl? It'll be infinitely cheaper than cortisone shots, and it's something you can try long term. If it is an allergy, that should work. How about a topical ointment? Something like Benadryl cream or anything that says 'anti-itch'?

You can trim her toenails with a pair of small nail clippers, but she's just going to chew off anything you try to put on her.

And because I can't remember and can't find it after scanning the previous posts, what are you feeding her again?
 
Javakittie- Thank you!!! the benadryl was one of the things i had forgotten about! No,i havent but will make the switch.

I havnt been given any creams by the vet so i havent known what to use.now that i know about the benadryl cream im going to the chemist to pick it up.

I have been keeping her nails trimmed too:)

(ive forgotten a lot of what was covered on this post but need to go back overit to make sure ive done everything everyone has suggested)

I'm feeding her fresh fruits and vegetables everyday -only ones that are allowed of course,i check online before i give anything new. Wholegrain pasta-cooked and uncooked-,sometimes multigrain bread/wholemeal bread,oats,some seed mix i cant think of what else right now but that is the usual diet. Is that bad??

I've done an elimination diet and addedthings slowly back and i couldnt notice a difference. one of the times i started the diet with only the pasta and added things back in slowly.the next time i started with only brocolli and added things in slowly.

Someone has suggested to me that it may be freshly cut grass that she is alergic to as they have had a rat that was and had to be relocated to the city as keeping her indoors and windows closed was not enough.

she's back on cortisone for now and im wondering if it is the grass because i know the rat bedding,once washed is sometimes taken off the clothes line by my mother or brother and is sometimes dropped onthe ground on the grass before it comes to my rats. so i've taken control and am doing it all myself.

someoen has also suggested that it is behavioural..

I feel bad for making this post go on for so long. I'm doing what everyone suggests and taking all the advice.

I havent tried doxy for a staph infection yet either as i havent been able to afford it until now. Think that will have to be the next one i try out.

All i can think is that she has some underlying problem that hasnt presented itself yet...
 
My girl Selene had a deep pyoderma caused by Staph (she might've been one of the links you saw on ratguide). Metacam once and even twice a day stopped her from scratching herself bloody, and I used polysporin wound ointment for children (vet approved) and high doses of baytril. It took months but she finally resolved.

Staph just like mites is inherent with rats and can flare up without an outside cause. Skin scrapings often give false negatives just like mites since they are both naturally there.

Can you tell us the ingredients of your seed mix? I had a girl who had protein scabs that I thought was ectoparasites. I removed the excess protein and the scabs went away. You might want to go back to a more strict lab block diet which in the end would probably be better than the seed mix.
 
Ok so now that I have just read 9 pages of info about your girl I feel I can finally add my 2 cents. I have had the same issue with my girl Suri. She used to live with Zorri, and ALWAYS had scabs on her back and shoulders...ALWAYS! Sometimes they would be really bad and other times the would be ok. My girl Zorri had no evidence of scabs anywhere. I treated them for mites...no improvement! Tried different food...nothing changed these scabs. Also I should mention that most of the time, Suri would go after Zorri and I think Zorri would just get fed up with it and pin her down and do some power grooming.

Well Suri is nearly 2 and this issue has been on going for as long as she was with Zorri. Zorri died a couple of months ago, which left Suri all by her lonesome, and I expected the scabs to go away but she was only alone for a week and I saw no signs of improvement. Then she moved in with my other 4 girls, I just took her out now and the scabs are almost completely gone. But she still has a scab on her back.

So I really think that Zorri would open up the skin and then Suri would scratch it. Thats why they never heal, when the other girls aren't causing the scabs, she is doing it herself.

Well here is a pic of her, she will not sit still for on second so its really hard to get a good one.

 
lilratsy43 - thanks for your info. your baby looks cute!! How old do you think they'll be when they calm down a bit? Theyre a couple months off two years old now.

lilspaz68- i saw your poor,poor selenes pics on ratguide. She looked so sore:(
I have stopped feeding the seed mix a few months ago- should have added that in when i said i fed them seed mix. I stopped because i thought i could make a mix myself and i would know there were no bugs in it or other odd surprises.

I've put her back on cortisone for now to get the big oozy ulcery looking wounds under control. (and am going to pick up a few of the supplies suggested on this thread tomorrow so im all set)

If I take her to the vet this week - what should i ask to be done in relation to staph?
What medications should i expect to be given?

Is there a possibility this is still fungal/bacterial? If so what tests/meds are suitable for that?
 
Your vet would need to do a biopsy. The rat is lightly sedated, they cut parts out of the wound and send it away to culture it. In about a week, they will know what it is and know exactly which meds to give you to fight the infection.
 
I guess your girls are just relentless (sp?), Zorri and Suri started to leave each other alone after a year...don't get me wrong though, the sores were still really bad! I wish I had pics of when the sores were bad because now that she is with the new girls they have basically disappeared.

I also think Jo has good info. I think since you have been going though this for sooo long it might just be easier to have the sores cultured and find out what is causing this issue!
 
lilspaz, I was just adding my experience. Suri had sores that were worse then the ones on Genevieve, they were just more localized (her back and shoulders)...it was to the point that I didn't like touching Suri because they had gotten soo bad I didn't want to hurt her. I don't think its fair to just shut me down, I think I have a valid experience. These sores on Suri did not go away until her old roomie died.

If you read my last post, I said to go with what Jo said, so she can find out what these really are from.
 
You will never know if its a coincidence that Suri's scabs went away after her cagemate was gone. Most people will say scabs are from rats fighting/over-grooming, but usually its mites, or another ectoparasite, allergies, some type of fungal infection or a skin infection like staph. The picture you put up is a teeny scab so who knows what it was.

This is deep pyoderma... (link for the squeamish)...of my girl Selene
http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h75/r ... eday20.jpg

there is a possibility that Genevieve has surface pyoderma...and a culture (which is what Selene hasd came back with a false negative on the staph since staph is naturally in our rats skin) so it may or may not tell her anything.

Yes, you can have an opinion, but you should never tell someone they should stop trying to find out whats wrong with their rat if they are looking for answers and want to continue fighting.
 
Ok so I'm just about to make the appointment. Will ask for a biopsy. (i wonder how much it will cost! * freaks out but is excited by the thought of finally curing genevieve!!*)

Thanks guys:) Will let you all know how it goes as you've been great to keep up with this drama!!
 
I don't know if this will help or not, but I used this shampoo the last time I had a seriously scabbed guinea pig:

http://www.earthbath.com/oatmeal&aloe_pint.html

This poor animal was completely bald and covered in scabs from scratching herself from mites (to the point of having seizures), and she would tear them open and start the whole process over again. This stuff worked great in two ways -- it helped relieve the itching and it helped to dry up the sores so they would stop weeping and causing other problems. Poor girl had a mite infestation and a fungal infestation. We had her doped on Revolution once a week, itraconazole daily(oral antifungal -- nizoral shampoo would cause her to have seizures when the mites burrowed) and children's benadryl twice daily. She was also getting a Vitamin C supplement (because pigs need it), but also because my friend who is a lotion/soapmaker told me that Vitamin C, Vitamin E, and selenium, and I wasn't comfortable dosing guinea pigs with the later two.

It took about 4 weeks, but she went from this:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2157/253 ... 200d_o.jpg

To this:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3010/258 ... fb04_o.jpg

We also kept her oiled with coconut oil (from the cooking section at Harris Teeter) so that she couldn't tear her brittle skin when she scratched. It made one big oily mess. Before I found the aloe/oatmeal shampoo, I was giving her oatmeal soaks, but she absolutely hated them and it made her hair really weird. The shampoo made her soft and manageable and really dried up the sores more than anything else I'd put on her.

Obviously piggies and ratties are a little different, but hopefully some of these might help out a little (if only to allay some of the worst of her scratchings).
 
Thought i'd give a quick update -dont want to speak too soon but i think a miracle has happened!

The only scab geneveive has now is the one that was LARGE on her back in the photos.it is now very very small,dry and healing! It's got a little way to go yet.i guess it must have been deep.

I changed the washing powder again to just washing with vinegar,started cortisone again,moved a plant that was near their cage,trim nails as soon as i feel they need it and have put dermotic on the worst scab- as soon as i started doing this everything started to heal. I feel like a weight has been lifted! dramatic but true..

I dont know which it has been or the combination of everything but im not stopping until this scab is healed.

I have not had the biopsy yet as it hasn't seemed like i should. The day after i said i was going to book it a scab dissapeared and then another and another..

The vet also recommened i put her on doxy for the large nasty one that is the last one left. She didnt go into detail as i was only there to pick up meds for another of my rats but i wasnt going to argue.

It all seems to be working,i hope it continues and doesnt start all over again.

Thank you for the post jennicat. Im glad your pig healed:) I may need that shampoo so thank you.
 

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