Young rat suddenly losing weight

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Ttt

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My 9 month old boy Mio suddenly has lost weight. He's only 417 grams. I'm not sure how much he lost since I haven't weighed him since October. He's always been on the smaller side but he definitely feels smaller now and I don't think I've ever had a 9 month old weighing this little.

Last week on Wednesday he was given a dose of Revolution. He's also been on eye drops for the past weeks because he has had redness/porphyrin around his left eye that hasn't cleared up. First he was on a salve which contained chloramphenicol and now he's on drops containing chloramphenicol and dexamethasone which doesn't seem to help either.

I've also noticed this past week that he will sometimes sit still and brux and do this little movement where he pushes his head back a little. This is something I actually first noticed one of my other boys doing right after they were given revolution last week and then a day or to later I noticed Mio did it as well. I feel like he's doing it more often today as well. I just noticed my other boy doing it again as well, after not seeing it for the past days. He hasn't lost weight though.

Mio is very active, he eats and drinks and I can't see anything wrong with his teeth, smell anything around his mouth or feel any lumps around his face or body.

What could be going on with him? Could the revolution be causing stomach cramps?

In this video he does the head thing very quickly in the beginning https://streamable.com/0idaf

Here's another video https://streamable.com/0kl8q
 
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Fatty treats are not the answer. A rat losing weight is a symptom and just piling bad food into it won't help. You can supplement diet but not just fees treats.

Ok back to your boy. The video doesn't show much. I'm concerned about the chloramphenicol use more than the eye. The eye is mucky but if there's no respiratory symptoms or eye infection I wouldn't use these drops. Chloramphenicol is a very strong antibiotic that should never be used for trivial infections.

Ok onto your videos. It wasn't obvious what you are seeing so I'll ask some questions. In first and 2nd video. Is he bruxxing or are his whiskers twitching? Are you noticing him pushing back with his forelegs? In the very end of the 2nd video I saw his ears twitch, is that something you are seeing as well? Can you keep taking videos?
Is he grooming over his head properly? Sitting up and rubbing evenly over both sides of his head? Can you check to see if any eyelashes or whiskers are curling into the eye irritating it? (If so cut carefully with scissors).
 
Thank you lilspaz68. He's at the vet's now because he had slowed down a lot since last night and wasn't active at all anymore and also wasn't up to eating as much. Still interested in eating but not finishing his foods and eating very slowly. The vet said he was definitely dehydrated so he will receive fluids and then we'll get an x-ray done as well.

Can the salve or drops be the cause of his current condition? He has been trying to groom it off everytime I've given him a drop.

In the videos he is bruxxing. In video 2 at 1-2 seconds the head thing is most apparent. He kind of pulls his head in or crunches a little. I'm not completely sure if this is just normal behaviour because I've seen two of my other boys do it as well now. Just haven't ever noticed it before in any of my rats until last week. When Mio does it it just seems more like it's done out of discomfort.

He's not really pushing back with his forelegs though in the first video he did it a bit but it's not something I've seen him do otherwise.

I haven't noticed him twitching his ears more than usual but that is something I might not have noticed since I didn't know it could be a symptom.

His grooming is fine.

I'll check his lashes when I get him home. Hopefully the vet has found out something. From seeing him she didn't have any ideas about what was going on. He didn't react with discomfort when palpated in his abdomen. His breathing was a bit odd but there wasn't any sounds that pointed to respiratory infection. He had a bit of a low temperature as well.
 
We just picked him up from the vet's. His x-ray showed nothing around his abdomen, bowels or bladder. She could see that he was swallowing air and from the way his lungs looked she thought he had an infection so he's now on Baytril for the infection and Metacam for any pain. I've never had a rat with respiratory infection who didn't have any sounds coming from his respiratory system. Have you ever experienced this? On Wednesday he had a little bit of respiratory sounds that disappeared minutes later and there's been nothing either before or after that.

He's lethargic and breathes fast. Eats little. Moves around very little.
 
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I'll try in the morning I just put him in his single cage for the night.

He has actually perked up quite a bit just now. Suddenly a bit over an hour ago he just woke up and started exploring and he's been eating and drinking a very good amount. I'm hoping he'll continue improving from this point on.
 
I've tried listening to his chest with a stethoscope and comparing it to how the others' chests sound. I can't really tell a difference. Possibly a little bit but I really can't be sure.

He's pretty much acting his normal self today. He's very energetic and he eats and drinks normally.

I'm really surprised he could go from as sick as he was yesterday where he was sleeping the day away and ate and drank very little, to almost looking like he was never sick today. I definitely wasn't expecting that. He got really sick really fast and got remarkably better really fast as well. Today the only evidence of illness I see remaining is his breathing still looking deeper and faster than normally and he's still looking skinny.

I'm still confused about not hearing any sounds from him if there's an infection in his lungs. Have you heard of this before?

He's on 0.3 ml of Baytril once daily and he's 437 grams. I feel his dose is a little small but on the other hand it has worked this far. What do you think?
 
It's 25 mg/ml

He was dehydrated and received fluids when he was at the vet's. Can it take a long time to get back to normal? Even though he received fluids and drinks normally now?
 
Thank you. Turns out my vet had gotten the label wrong. I was supposed to give him 0.3 ml twice daily, not once :-(

Can an infection in the lungs cause pain?

What about the fact that there are no sounds coming from him, that really confuses me, have you encountered it before?
 
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Well if you have an infection you often don't feel well. The sounds might be a constriction rather than crackling or gurgling noises from lungs or popping noises from nose.
 

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