What are the symptoms of a brain tumor?-Please Help!

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bruxxy

bruxxy

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 17, 2007
Messages
668
Location
Toronto
I noticed my girl Liaka has not been herself. She is about a year old and is a resent rescue of mine. I was away for 3 days and when I came back I noticed that she didn't come out to see me, which she usually does.
I picked her up and she seemed limp but I thought that it because I had just woke her up. I put her back in her cage to see how she was with walking and it looked like she was dragging herself a little bit. She was also still limp when I picked her up again, and when I gave her a treat and it looked like she was having trouble holding it in both hands.

I'm really worried because I'm in debt right now so I don't have alot of money for expensive treatment. I know she is prone to tumors because she has 2 that have came up since I rescued her and that was only about 2 months ago. I have also seem rats who have had nerological issues and she seem to have the same type of problems that the others rats did. Could it be a brain tumor even though I don't see any lumps around her head? Does anyone one what might be the cause of this?
 
The signs she is showing are:

loss of coordination
sleeping alot
weakness/limpness
possibly some confusion
porphyrin in both eyes and around her nose
left paw seems to be useless so she is unable to eat properly
she also doesn't seem to be able to sence height-I had her on my lap and she almost fell off.

I have been feeding her a good quality baby food and have been giving her some sugar water. Is there anything else I could do for her? It seems to me that she probably has a brain tumor so I don't think she has much longer :cry:
 
It does sound like a pituitary tumour. :(

You can ask your vet for Dex or pred if you want to give her more time or you can let nature take it's course. PTs can progress fast or slow. I've had rats that passed at home real fast from a PT while others lingered on too long and needed help passing on.
 
This has all happend within the course of a few days so I have a feeling she doesn't have much time left if she has progressed this fast. I think I'm just going to let her go naturally. There is not point in prolonging something that is fatal.

my poor girl :cry:

I guess the best thing I can do now is to keep her fed and hydrated and comfortable. I just hope she isn't suffering :cry:
 
I am sorry you are going through this. We just lost Boots two days ago due to a PT. With predisone she happily lived a extra month and half.

Ann
 
Poor sweetie sure sounds like she must have PT. If you could get your hands on some Prednisone (Pediapred, the pediatric version for human kids, is affordable and lasts a long time) it would probably help her a lot.

One kind of PT is not helped by medication and the rat dies soon. The other kinds respond to the pred or Dex and your ratty can have a decent quality of life for quite a few months.

If you treated with Pediapred and it didn't help, the meds have a reasonably long shelf life. You would almost certainly need it for somebody else before it expired.
 
There's no way for you to know how exactly her symptoms are progressing. You've been gone for 3 days, which means she had 3 days to slowly get to this point. In a rat's world, 3 days is quite some time. You don't know if she'll pass in 3 days or 3 weeks.

I would also bet that it's incredibly painful for them. Imagine something in your head causing all of these symptoms, all the pressure built up. It would be like the worst migraine ever. Dex or Prednisone helps alleviate the swelling of the pituitary gland, which in turn keeps them comfortable. Yes, it may have the added benefit of prolonging her quality of life for a short time, but more importantly it will guarantee that she is not suffering.
 
I agree with Java, I can only imagine how painful and probably frustrating for her it is to not have control over your body and the pressure from the tumor. I get a headache thinking about it.

I would definitely try pre or dex before I decided to let her go. You never know you may end up with a few more months of a happy rat before her time is up.
 
Shelagh said that she would give me some dex tonight so I'm going to go that route for the time being so at least she isn't in pain. I was sitting with her for a while and trying to comfort her and she seemed to be stretching quite a bit especially when I was stroking her I can only assume that shes doing that from pain. I'm going to see how she is this weekend and I'll keep everyone updated. If she doesn't imporve I will just have her PTS cuz I don't want her to suffer any more than she probably has :cry:

Thanks again for all the support with this. I'm still in a state of shock that this has happend so fast and especially since she seemed so healthy a few days ago :cry:
 
I'm so sorry you and your girl are going thru this. I hope the pred can help her, it can make an amazing difference for some. Hearts & hopes are with you. Kisses to your baby.
 
Bruxxy, I'm glad that you are going to try the Dex. You may be lucky and have your sweet girl with you for a while yet. It sure is a shock when they get so sick in such a short time... it leaves you so unprepared to deal with the potential loss.

Thinking of you and Liaka.
 
I went to see bruxxy tonight to see how Liaka was doing and we decided it was probably best for me to take both girls and keep injecting Liaka with the dex, and use baytril for her ab.

So both girls are here now and I will continue updating. Bruxxy was really sad but knew that I would take very good care of her kids and that since she is only a 7 minute brisk walk away she can come see them anytime. :)
 
I had a rat develop almost the same symptoms. I thought is was a stroke because of the one sided weakness. Her only medication was aspirin and because of her weakness and balance problems I would hold her in one hand and hold her food in the other. She got better after a few weeks and went on to live several happy months with only a slight head tilt and a bit of weakness on one side. You may remember me mentioning little crooked Martha to you Shelagh!

I hope little Liaka recovers too!
 
All the best to you and the little girl Shelagh.

I have tried to have rats with neurological symptoms pts once the meds stopped helping. I imagine the pressure of a tumor growing inside the skull would be incredibly painful.

Hope that she responds to the meds.
 
So far so good. I hope that bruxxy doesn't mind but I am very much the type who believes in New Names for a New Life, so the blue girl (PT) is now Amelia, and the nervous pearl merle velveteen is Lottie.

Amelia has eaten a ton of baby cereal that bruxxy assured me she really liked :mrgreen:

She seems much more responsive this morning, more alert and much happier. She was hunched outside of the cube her cagemate was in last night, now they are snuggled together inside. :)

I'll know more tonight when a full 24 hours has passed since she got the dex. :D
 

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