Mr.Biggiesworth
Member
Hi Everyone,
I am wondering if anyone has any knowledge about, personal experience with, or any direction to point me in, regarding respiratory illness in rats--*specifically exercise & fluid build-up leading to quick deterioration in health* as well as *reddenning skin around the eyes/snout*.
I have never posted a question on a forem before, so pardon if I am in error in some way. I checked the search and history to see if I could find a thread (I think that's what they're called?) but I could not find anything about my specific questions there.
Before exhausting the search and history here, I have been all over google and other sites as well, in addition to asking a bunch of different Vets. I can't find any sites or even psych journals/experiments that mention this, and none of the Vets I spoke with had even heard of these two connections.
My rats have a particularily virulent strain of respiratory illness--three baby girls from the same breeder. The first two females passed quite quickly after the onset of the respiratory illness symptoms.
(1) I noticed a correlation between exercise and heavy fluid build up. The first two that passed were particularly active females, and they both passed suddenly from the illness. The first one was on a course of medication and even still she could not fight the strain. My second one to pass was happy and energetic and playful one day, and literally at deaths door the next morning.
She loved to run around and carry paper and play with me and the others. She was showing signs of the respiratory illness, but nothing major. She was also on a course of medication. It was only until my third girl started showing the symtoms that I was able to recognise the correlation with exercise and their demise. I know that correlation does not equal causation, which is why I was hoping for some insight on this.
When my third girl would be active, I noticed that after waking from a sleep, she would be particularly loud with the respiratory noises. If she played for a long time, she would even have a fluid discharge from her nose that was just a hint of milky white. She would sneeze a wet sounding sneeze and the little droplets were visible on her whiskers and dribbling out of her nose. This I also noticed on her sister who just passed.
The sudden death of her sister made a bit more sense as she was particularly playful and active every single day. I am home most of the time so they have a lot of time to play with me and each other at their leisure.
If I restricted the amount of running/exercise playtime with my third girl, I noticed the fluid build up and wet sneezing would decrease/stop, and if she ran around more, it would get worse.
Thankfully the medication she is on now (Baytril/Doxycycline) has been working miracles for her, and the amount of her exercise does not impact her symptoms. It seems she is a bit stronger than her sisters as we were able to reduce her overall symptoms to the point where she started to improve in symptom expression and overall health, but unfortuntaely not for her two sisters before her. But when her symptoms first expressed and until a few weeks into her first course of medication, this exercise/fluid build up was occurring.
I cannot seem to find any literature or Vets who know of any particular connection between exercise and heightened respiratory illness, let alone at such a fast rate. If I think about asthma and conditions that humans can experience, I can see how exercise could lead to a fluid build up and a quick internal drowning in fluid/heart attack from the stress of constant heavy breathing. But I am not sure if that is something similar in rats.
Has anyone ever noticed this in their rats before? Or read about this connection anywhere?
I am curious to know for curiosity sake, but more importantly in the event that I experience it again. It would be nice to know if limiting some exercise is actually beneficial until medication begins to work, or if what I have experienced is just a coincidence. I am absolutely positive that the respiratory symptoms increased with increased exercise, as I began to journal it with my third girl, so I know they are connected in some way.
(2) Also, I cannot seem to find any information about reddenning of the skin around the eyes/snout in rats. This is something I have never experienced before, except for now. I am doing a pulse treatment for my third girl--so she has several days on the medication, then several days off, then repeat. When it is coming time for her to be back on the medication, I can see red around her eyes--not porphryn red--but almost as if she had allergies and her skin was turning a bit pink. And the longer it is before she is back taking the medication, the more it spreads. So it starts with one eye, then to the other, then a bit on her snout by her whiskers. I don't know beyond that, b/c she needs the medication before it could go any further, if it would happen to go further. After 1.5 to 2 days after being back on the medication, it is cleared up and no more pink/red skin. And this is the cycle through every pulse we go through.
It is also happening a bit on my older male who is just starting to show symptoms of respiratory illness. (I am from a place where the entire gene pool of rats is infected with respiratory illness and poor immune systems, so this is something that everyone here is aware of, and of which I was forewarned).
My current Vet thought maybe it was from scratching the skin there to make it irritated and pink, but she had never heard of this and that was her guess. I will see if I can find a before and after pic to show what this looks like.
They have a clean cage, it's cleaned multiple times per week, no wood chips or dusty bedding--a varied diet with the better brands of dried pellets...
Anyways, if anyone has experienced either of these two issues or read something somewhere about them, I would be very grateful to know. I'm new to online groups and posting, but I don't think my google searching skills are so poor that I just happened to miss all the literature out there about these two issues. But I can't rule that out--maybe I have somehow missed all the relevant articles/journals.
Any insight would greatly appreciated. I will post before and after pics when I find good ones.
Thank you everyone for your time,
Sincerely,
Mr. Biggiesworth's Family : ) <3
PS, I found a couple pics that aren't the greatest, but hopefully enough to show the pink skin. Now, just to figure out how to post them...
TOP 3 pics show just a tiny bit of the pink skin starting to show, this is when it first starts to show. The BOTTOM 3 show her when she is fine--no pink/redness.
I am wondering if anyone has any knowledge about, personal experience with, or any direction to point me in, regarding respiratory illness in rats--*specifically exercise & fluid build-up leading to quick deterioration in health* as well as *reddenning skin around the eyes/snout*.
I have never posted a question on a forem before, so pardon if I am in error in some way. I checked the search and history to see if I could find a thread (I think that's what they're called?) but I could not find anything about my specific questions there.
Before exhausting the search and history here, I have been all over google and other sites as well, in addition to asking a bunch of different Vets. I can't find any sites or even psych journals/experiments that mention this, and none of the Vets I spoke with had even heard of these two connections.
My rats have a particularily virulent strain of respiratory illness--three baby girls from the same breeder. The first two females passed quite quickly after the onset of the respiratory illness symptoms.
(1) I noticed a correlation between exercise and heavy fluid build up. The first two that passed were particularly active females, and they both passed suddenly from the illness. The first one was on a course of medication and even still she could not fight the strain. My second one to pass was happy and energetic and playful one day, and literally at deaths door the next morning.
She loved to run around and carry paper and play with me and the others. She was showing signs of the respiratory illness, but nothing major. She was also on a course of medication. It was only until my third girl started showing the symtoms that I was able to recognise the correlation with exercise and their demise. I know that correlation does not equal causation, which is why I was hoping for some insight on this.
When my third girl would be active, I noticed that after waking from a sleep, she would be particularly loud with the respiratory noises. If she played for a long time, she would even have a fluid discharge from her nose that was just a hint of milky white. She would sneeze a wet sounding sneeze and the little droplets were visible on her whiskers and dribbling out of her nose. This I also noticed on her sister who just passed.
The sudden death of her sister made a bit more sense as she was particularly playful and active every single day. I am home most of the time so they have a lot of time to play with me and each other at their leisure.
If I restricted the amount of running/exercise playtime with my third girl, I noticed the fluid build up and wet sneezing would decrease/stop, and if she ran around more, it would get worse.
Thankfully the medication she is on now (Baytril/Doxycycline) has been working miracles for her, and the amount of her exercise does not impact her symptoms. It seems she is a bit stronger than her sisters as we were able to reduce her overall symptoms to the point where she started to improve in symptom expression and overall health, but unfortuntaely not for her two sisters before her. But when her symptoms first expressed and until a few weeks into her first course of medication, this exercise/fluid build up was occurring.
I cannot seem to find any literature or Vets who know of any particular connection between exercise and heightened respiratory illness, let alone at such a fast rate. If I think about asthma and conditions that humans can experience, I can see how exercise could lead to a fluid build up and a quick internal drowning in fluid/heart attack from the stress of constant heavy breathing. But I am not sure if that is something similar in rats.
Has anyone ever noticed this in their rats before? Or read about this connection anywhere?
I am curious to know for curiosity sake, but more importantly in the event that I experience it again. It would be nice to know if limiting some exercise is actually beneficial until medication begins to work, or if what I have experienced is just a coincidence. I am absolutely positive that the respiratory symptoms increased with increased exercise, as I began to journal it with my third girl, so I know they are connected in some way.
(2) Also, I cannot seem to find any information about reddenning of the skin around the eyes/snout in rats. This is something I have never experienced before, except for now. I am doing a pulse treatment for my third girl--so she has several days on the medication, then several days off, then repeat. When it is coming time for her to be back on the medication, I can see red around her eyes--not porphryn red--but almost as if she had allergies and her skin was turning a bit pink. And the longer it is before she is back taking the medication, the more it spreads. So it starts with one eye, then to the other, then a bit on her snout by her whiskers. I don't know beyond that, b/c she needs the medication before it could go any further, if it would happen to go further. After 1.5 to 2 days after being back on the medication, it is cleared up and no more pink/red skin. And this is the cycle through every pulse we go through.
It is also happening a bit on my older male who is just starting to show symptoms of respiratory illness. (I am from a place where the entire gene pool of rats is infected with respiratory illness and poor immune systems, so this is something that everyone here is aware of, and of which I was forewarned).
My current Vet thought maybe it was from scratching the skin there to make it irritated and pink, but she had never heard of this and that was her guess. I will see if I can find a before and after pic to show what this looks like.
They have a clean cage, it's cleaned multiple times per week, no wood chips or dusty bedding--a varied diet with the better brands of dried pellets...
Anyways, if anyone has experienced either of these two issues or read something somewhere about them, I would be very grateful to know. I'm new to online groups and posting, but I don't think my google searching skills are so poor that I just happened to miss all the literature out there about these two issues. But I can't rule that out--maybe I have somehow missed all the relevant articles/journals.
Any insight would greatly appreciated. I will post before and after pics when I find good ones.
Thank you everyone for your time,
Sincerely,
Mr. Biggiesworth's Family : ) <3
PS, I found a couple pics that aren't the greatest, but hopefully enough to show the pink skin. Now, just to figure out how to post them...
TOP 3 pics show just a tiny bit of the pink skin starting to show, this is when it first starts to show. The BOTTOM 3 show her when she is fine--no pink/redness.
