Symptoms in Suddenly Ill Rat

Advertise with us
Fins us on Amazon
Shop with us on Ebay
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.
T

TorachiKatashi

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 15, 2011
Messages
181
Location
Newfoundland, Canada
My young boy, Meeko, is having some distressing symptoms that I'm trying to figure out. I won't be able to get into the vet until Monday, so I'm trying to think of anything I can do for him in the meantime.

His symptoms are as follows:

- Weight loss/lack of appetite
- Large amounts of myco from nose and one eye (other eye is totally clean)
- No respiratory symptoms
- Low energy/strength
- Uncoordinated (possibly due to lack of strength)

I adopted him about six weeks ago, so I don't know much about his medical history. My first thought was possibly PT, but he doesn't seem to have any of the other typical PT symptoms. He's 9.5 months old.
 
I don't have anything to take a video with unfortunately, but I'm going to take him out shortly for some private out-time without his cage-mate and I'll keep a close eye on him and see if there's any head tilting.

The good news is, he dug right into the Ensure I offered him, and his eye doesn't seem to be produced any more myco since I wiped it off about ten hours ago. Going to offer him some more Ensure and soak some of his food in water for him. From what I've seen watching him, he's moving slowly but deliberately (none of the wobbling or lack of coordination I would expect to see with PT.)

I feel like an idiot. The myco started about four days ago, but I didn't worry about it too much because the only thing the foster family DID tell me is that he's really sensitive and seems to have it a lot. (One of my past rats had chronic myco as well.)
 
If he doesn't have respiratory symptoms its unlikely to be myco and possibly a different infection. If he seems better than it may have been a sinus issue on that one side...how long did the excessive porph stay on the one eye/nose?
 
Well, unfortunately, he seems to be taking a turn for the worse.

I have him with me now, on my desk, and he's completely disoriented. He's trying to drink some Ensure but he's having a lot of trouble, instead sticking his hand in then licking it off his hand. Gave him a treat and he wasn't able to pick it up in his hands at all, is trying to eat it on the desk. And when he sits back on his bum, he's sticking both his hind legs straight out. I guess I spoke too soon about it not seeming like PT.

Is there anything that can be done? If there is medication that can help him, I'm all for it, but if he's only going to continue this way, I'd just as soon have him PTS on Monday and save him the suffering. A friend of mine had a rat pass away suddenly with PT and it was very nasty. The vet I'm going to is not necessarily a rat expert, so any medication/dosage reccomendations would be great.
 
I am no rat expert here - in fact I have my first sick rat now, but a lot of those symptoms sound just like my Finn viewtopic.php?f=20&t=34647#p468629 he did have some prophyfin, but I did not relate it to this since they have all had it at some time or another since I got them 14 months ago, but Finn did and still does occasionally sit like you are describing. The only thing he has not had is loss of use of his front hands, but I got him to the vet within 12 hours of noticing the symptoms. He is doing better, but I really thought he wasn't going to make it. I have no exact diagnosis yet, but I'm still hopefully he will continue to improve.

Good luck with you rattie - Healing vibes from us :heart:
 
Thanks, Dspch911, and I'm glad to hear your boy is doing better. I'll definitely read through your thread in the morning.

I made a make-shift cage out of my dog's kennel so I could isolate him. I hate to separate him from his brother, but I'll feel a lot better knowing exactly how much he's eating and drinking. He's still trying to drink the Ensure, and he's TRYING to eat, bless his heart. I haven't seen him drink any water yet, but I'm going to give him water with the eye dropper before bed.
 
Don't isolate him, it will stress him and could make him worse.

There are treatments now for PT that have helped supress the symptoms of PT for many months. I've had great luck with Bromocriptine and there's also Cabergoline that's supposed to be a bit more effective and has fewer side effects. It's highly unlikely a 9.5 month old rat has a pituitary tumour though.
 
I have to, unfortunately. His cage-mate will eat all of his softened food/drink all the Ensure. Panda can be a bit of a bully. I hate to, but otherwise I'm not gonna know if he ate or drank anything overnight. I have to leave the house for a meeting tomorrow (Mom will be home to check in on him,) but once I get home I'll see if I can switch him back and take him out to my desk to eat/drink during the day.
 
TorachiKatashi said:
I have to, unfortunately. His cage-mate will eat all of his softened food/drink all the Ensure. Panda can be a bit of a bully. I hate to, but otherwise I'm not gonna know if he ate or drank anything overnight. I have to leave the house for a meeting tomorrow (Mom will be home to check in on him,) but once I get home I'll see if I can switch him back and take him out to my desk to eat/drink during the day.
Click to expand...

You can just give enough so that if Panda eats his fill, there will be some left over. It won't make a big difference whether you know how much or if he ate sadly. He sounds like he's very ill (infection, not PT), the stress of splitting him could push him over the brink.
 
Alright, I moved Panda over to the temp-cage with Meeko. Their regular cage has a ramp and a shelf which I'd just rather not have to worry about, and otherwise the temp-cage is the same size. But they're together, at least.
 
You could separate them at the times Meeko eats most often to feed him, and let them stay together the rest of the times. I hope your vet can diagnose & prescribe and Meeko will be ok!
 
That is what I did too for a few days - Kept Finn in the "hospital" cage with no shelves or ramps because he was just too unsteady, but kept a friend in there with him except when I put food in. However, Finn wasn't eating/drinking anyway. Yesterday he started eating and he took an a couple pieces of apple which was good enough for me since it contain fluid too. He is still wobbly, but getting around enough to be back in his regular cage. The vet did continually tell us to try and not stress him. Hopefully you can get some meds started soon. Someone on here told me if Finn had an ear infection (which now it appears he didn't) hard food would hurt him to eat. I did read you are feed him soft food, but maybe try baby food, yogurt, anything for now. :heart:
 
Just got back to the vet. This is my first time seeing this vet, but I adore her already. This is the first vet I've had who actually knew more about rat health than I did. She used to own rats, and she actually did seem like she cared a lot about poor Meeko and wasn't just reading about rats out of a book to rush him along like some of the vets I've seen with rats over the years. She thanked me for bringing him in - I guess over the years she's seen a lot of small animals who were brought in to see her way later than they should have been.

She did a whole bunch of stuff, checked his temperature, his teeth, his heart rate, his eyes, etc. Nothing wrong there. He was super tilting his head while he was there, which also made her suspect an inner ear infection. He also may have a minor URI starting, but most likely that's a result of him being sick and not the cause.

We gave him some subcutaneous fluids to try to get him hydrated (my hope is that it might perk him up enough to start drinking on his own, but if not, I'll go back to watering him with the eye dropper,) and started him on antibiotics. I opted out of doing x-rays because honestly, at this point, I don't think he'd survive being sedated, which she agreed with. Unfortunately, she goes on holidays for two weeks starting Wednesday, but she's going to call me before she leaves to get an update, and I've got an appointment for her first day back for a re-evaluation (and for a toenail that needs to be removed.)

I'm hopeful at this point that the antibiotics will help. She agreed that he's not showing a whole lot of the signs of PT and it's unlikely but possible in a rat this young.

She also checked on Panda for me since I brought him along, and thankfully he's in perfect health if a little chubby.

I'm going to clean the cage now and then put them back in their regular cage instead of the sick cage.

Question: He has Ensure all over his chest, and I'm worried about his skin getting sore. Do you think a small sponge bath to clean him up would stress him out way too much? Not a whole bath, just with a facecloth and some kitten shampoo.
 
Unfortunately, Meeko took a turn for the worse this evening and was PTS.

When I checked on him, he had chewed entirely through his bottom lip and was covered in blood. As I said, his teeth were fine when they checked him, so at this point, all we can figure is that there really was something neurological going on, or that he was simply so stressed that he was mutilating himself, but regardless, the vet agreed with me that he didn't seem like he was really going to pull through and it would be kinder to let him go.

RIP, Meeko. <3

picture014kb.jpg
 

Latest posts

Back
Top