treating head tilt?

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twitch

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 16, 2008
Messages
1,485
Location
Dartmouth, NS
ok, someone tell me where i went wrong? Eyes had a head tilt. i started her on antibiotics and pred. she was on amoxil for 8 days then we switched to the convenia shot. she's had 2 shots, the med has been in her system now for 21 days. we weaned her off the pred completely 4 days ago. everything was fine. she had a very minorr tilt, only noticable when she got excited in fact. then today i go to give them breakfast and her head is twisted right around sideways! worse then it ever was when we were treating her. she was no worse last night when i said good night to them at 11nich. now its 7:15am and her head is set on worse then even serraphim's!

did i not dose long enough? did she just luck out and it has recurred? is this not a ear infection? she has a recheck this afternoon anyway and of course i will be asking the vet, but she's not that experienced with rats and relies heavily on me and reading up on research so any advice you can give or suggestions on different meds to try would be greatly appreciated.
 
How old is Eyes?

Amoxicillin is probably not strong enough for this and I wouldn't try the Convenia shot in this case. You need a more penetrating drug to help cure her, stick with tried and true....she may need a month to 6 weeks on meds as well, inner ear infections are nasty and hard to treat.
 
Like lilspaz mentioned, I'd go with Baytril. Apo-Sulfatrim is used in humans for ear/sinus/skin but I just don't know how good it is in rats. We use it for skin/abscess conditions but for ears, I'd stick with Baytril or I'd try chlorpalm.
 
even with the tilt she doesn't seem wobbly and she isn't favoring a side. she isn't circling any either. i'm not sure if that is good or bad, the tilt is so tilted that i would think she would be having issues with balance and such. do they normally hit so hard after seeming to be gone for a few days if the treatment was not effective? even when she was being treated the tilt was never this bad. it just seems to have hit so sudden that it has me concerned. like i said before, after stopping the meds you could barely tell there was a tilt at all. the only time you noticed was when she got excited and even then it was still only slight. her head now is completely sideways. the degree to the tilt alone has me amazed she has no balance issues.

other then treating for the tilt (and the meds of course being about the same you would use for PT right?) and it going away rather then staying as it would for PT is there any other diagnostics? i smelled her ears, i've read of people doing that to check for infection and they don't smell abnormal, she just smells like a rat. is there a swab or test that can be done to know if this is just a bunged up job at treating ear infection vs PT?
 
It doesn't sound like PT at all...from all those lack of symptoms. I think you have a virulent inner ear infection on your hands and she needs hardcore meds. Clavamox and baytril is also another good combo.
 
It could be the steroid was making her tilt better, perhaps reducing inflammation? The infection could be gone and still be left with a tilt. I had a rat at 6 months developed a severe head tilt. We treated him, never tried steroids though at the time but he was completely healthy but still with a severe head tilt. He lived like that till he was 29 months old.
 
yeah i have two perma tilts. steriods weren't used in time for them for the tilt to be corrected. i think i read it needs to be used with the first 48 hours of detection of the tilt for the tilt to be cured. but she was on pred from the beginning. i could understand if she kept some damage from it (like when she got excited she would roll or her head would tilt some) but it shouldn't have gotten worse if the infection was gone should it? unless the inflamation isn't down all the way? or the inflamation got worse? but if the inflamation got worse then doesn't that mean the infection is still there? how do you know that they are cured if the tilt doesn't go away? with serraphim and chancey the vet said they were healthy just damaged from their infections. but now that i think about it more i'm not sure how they were able to tell. serraphim's ear was swabbed but their ears are so tiny how would they get anything on there at all anyway?

sorry for bombarding with so many questions. i'm not feeling well myself today and i think i'm probably missing or forgetting something very simple here. thanks so much for humoring me and helping out.
 
We adopted two girls a year and a half ago. Phoebe was due to be euthanized by the shelter as they said she had a brain tumor (because of her head tilt). I knew it was probably an ear infection and got her to our vet.

Of course, it was too late to fix her head tilt...as she'd had it for too long. But we did get Phoebe on Baytril and CEFA right away. Phoebe never had a smell to her ear...her infection was down deeper. her sister Ginger looked fine, but had a stinky ear. Both girls were put on antibiotics.

Our vet has indicated that inner ear infections can be very difficult to clear up. And sometimes you need to also use Otomax ear drops as well. He also prescribes antibiotics for a minimum of 6 weeks.

Phoebe and Ginger have had problems with those ears the entire time we've had them. Phoebe is also on Metacam, which is a safe anti-inflammatory. The downside to steroids is, they can reduce the body's immune system and leave room for infection to actually set in worse. So you have to be very careful with steroids.

We finally had to leave both our girls on long term antibiotics as both would get worse off of them. Phoebe (deeper in the ear and has the head tilt) remains less tilty and well on Metacam and Baytril. Ginger's ear stays in good shape and doesn't not get stinky again, on long term Cefa and daily Otomax drops.

Perhaps you might be able to speak with your vet about trying Metacam long term, as a safe alternative to prolonged steroid use (though the two can't be used together!), as well as baytril and cefa too.

Cefa is a kick butt antibiotic and is a miracle drug on infection. (though sadly doesn't not address URI, if that's present too).

Hope that helps.
 
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