Godmother's Julia - doing better

[SQ]

Julia has had head tilt for several months.
She was treated with diff meds for an inner ear infection.
Recently Julia was taken off her meds. Although left with a perment head tilt, she was thought to be all better.

I am babysitting and during the last couple of days, Julia's permanent head tilt has gotten so bad that when she runs around her head is twisted sideways so far that it is almost touching the ground. She looks like she is on the verge of starting uncontrollable rolling.

Just back from the vets where Julia received a dex injection (I have 2 loaded syringes to continue treatment over the next two days),
Julia is also back on baytril and the vet is trying her on metronidazole as the other antibiotics previously tried (incl. clorpalm) may not have nailed this infection.

Hopefully the meds will do the trick and Julia will soon be back to her old self.

 

[ryelle]

*fingers crossed* this treatment works for her. Sending my love to Julia

 

[Godmother]

Poor sweetie. She had been doing well, despite the tilt, and she had been on several combos of meds over several months. I hope that this new set of meds will at least stop her from getting worse. :heart:

 

[Dahlas]

I hope Julia does well...

 

[mamarat]

Healing vibes for Julia.

 

[jorats]

Keeping my fingers crossed this works!

 

[SQ]

Julia's head tilt is very bad but does seem to be a bit better this evening.

 

[SQ]

I am back from another vet visit.
Julia no longer has swollen glands thanks to the antibiotic change in Jan.
The anti-inflammatory was stopped a couple of weeks ago and Julia's head tilt has gradually worsened again. It had decreased to the point of appearing to just be permanent damage but now she is back to having the front section of her body twisted sideways.

So now I am to change her back on baytril + clavamox .... 2 dex shots and then put her back on pred. or metacam

Any suggestions on meds to try?

Not sure what is wrong with this sweet girl ....
Julia is very smart, very active (hyper at times), and very loving.
Julia has had some falls by squirming out of arms while being carried - you wouldn't believe how impossible it is to hang onto her.
She has also jumped out of laps to land on the floor - something other rats are not foolhardy enough to do.
Something is "off" about this sweet girl and I think she has a neurological problem.

Perhaps godmother can list the meds she has been on since she stared being treated for her head tilt last fall ...
I know she has been on:
clavamox + baytril
metronidazole + baytril
chloramphenicol

pred, metacam and she has had dex injections

Anyone with any ideas or suggestions?

 

[jorats]

Is she being treated for her neurotic behaviour or for her head tilt.
Did she always show neurotic behaviour or is this something new? Was she ever given ivermectin or revolution, that can affect a rat neurologically as well. I'm just throwing ideas around...
But... I do have a couple of rats that will do what Julia does, the flying out of your hands, the squirming and not looking where they are jumping. I just figured they were simply very scared rats.

 

[SQ]

She isn't afraid when she does it ... she is hyper and wants to go go go ...
Julia has displayed this behaviour since she came to my place to be introed but it has worsened imo, not sure if she was like this since godmother first rescued her or not.
She constantly escapes from the free range area (every few min), explores the apartment, and finds me if I'm not in the play area.
I've given up trying to contain her in there.

I have treated her with revolution and may need to treat her again as treating everyone after the baby bug arrived.
She has been almost continually treated for inner ear infection re head tilt since sometime in the fall (autumn) .... other then that I don't think she has been treated for neuro
Edit: I don't like the way Julia moves her back legs when walking ... the vet said he thinks she is walking like that because of the head tilt.

I think godmother said Julia can not take pred because it makes her very very hyper so Julia had been taking metacam as an anti-inflamatory for the possible ear infection.

The dex shots were a huge help re head tilt in Jan. so I am hoping they help again.
I gave her metacam for her head tilt last night so her first dex shot will be tomorrow evening.

I don't know what to do anymore ... :sad3:

 

[Alicemcmallis]

Not sure if this is relevant, but my parents have a rabbit with an inner ear infection and she has to be on antibiotics for the rest of her life for it. She would be put on ABs, improve, then 4 weeks later stop the ABs and decline again.

They did some detailed skull rads and discovered that the infection is trapped between the tiny bones of her ear, where the antibiotics can't penetrate. So basically what they're doing by giving her the ABs forever is keeping the infection contained to that area, where it's small enough to not affect her quality of life.

I wonder if something similar could be happening with this little girl?

Also, I treated a rat with massive head tilt with chloramphenicol + gentacin (injected) + dex with great success. It all depends what bacteria is causing the infection though.

 

[SQ]

Thanks.
I am passing the info on to my vet.

 

[Godmother]

Alicemcmallis, that is really helpful. I couldn't figure out why the infection wouldn't go away. Julia has never had gentocin before, and I am game to try that.

As for her personality, she has always been hyper. I don't know how she survived in the awful little hamster cage that I rescued her from. She was spending her days curled up in the tiny wheel on one end of the cage; no room to do anything else.

When I got her home she always went bananas in any cage she was in, knocking things over and tugging all blankets out of place within five minutes. She always tipped water dishes & food dishes unless they were attached to the side of the cage; she made it her mission to ransack the cage immediately!

I wasn't sure whether she was just so glad to have room to move, whether she didn't think any cage could ever be big enough after her hamster-cage prison, or whether she was always just very different. Who knows: maybe a little pocket of infection keeps her always a bit off kilter.

I really hope that there will be an end to her head tilt. If it means meds for life, so be it. She did well on Chlorpalm.

 

[SQ]

Julia's head tilt has improved. Her upper body is no longer twisted sideways.
Julia has completed a series of 5 dex injections and has been on an antibiotic combo of gentamicin (injected) + oral clavamox for 7 days.
She has another 7 days to go on the antibiotics.

Edit: Hoping Julia continues to improve as her head is still tilted quite far and her balance is still being adversely affected.

 

[Alicemcmallis]

Great news!!

 

[mamarat]

Fingers crossed the meds work for her.

 

[jorats]

That's great news. The tilt is a bummer but rats can live quite well with them.

 

[SQ]

That is so true.
Julia did habe a permanent head tilt prior to the relapse and I am hoping that te head tilt decreases to that point again.