What's pea size lump under skin at top of chest & small round scab below chin on throat

[PerfectRat]

What is the pea size lump underneath the skin at the top of her chest (where it meets her neck), and the small round scab below her chin on her throat? She's three years old. I put a bit of ointment on, but that made the other rats pick/tug at and eat it, so I took her out of the cage and took these pictures:

 

[lilspaz68]

The throat/chin looks like an abscess that has opened up (possibly from teeth issues or just an external abscess. The pea sized lump could be another abscess or could be an early mammary tumour. Try gently flushing the open chin abscess with isotonic saline but start slowly, if she starts swallowing while you are flushing it means the abscess goes right through into the mouth. Stop flushing if that happens.

 

[PerfectRat]

At her low back (where it's a soft area on each side of the spine, right by her hip bones, above her thighs), it's vibrating. For at least a week now, as that's when I noticed it. (She's had HLD for longer than that, though it worsened more recently.) Is it her pulse? Or nerve twinging?

 

[lilspaz68]

That sounds like spinal nerve regeneration. The tic or vibration will happen during this process. It will stop eventually in time as the paralysis progresses.

 

[PerfectRat]

She won't drink water, so I got her to by flavoring a bit with Mouse-&-Rat vitamins, but it seems to all just fall right out of her bladder immediately. Is she not retaining it and not being hydrated by it? She'll eat bok choy stalks (where she gets her water content from), carrot-apple-turkey-barley baby food (which has become what she lives on), and sometimes lentil soup etc.

 

[lilspaz68]

won't drink from water bottle, bowl or even a syringe? Can you get us a video of her? She sounds very sick or in a lot of pain.