Inner Ear Infection or Tumour? (Oliver)

[lilspaz68]

Here we go again with the guessing games. :cheeky:

The patient this time is old Oliver who is at least 25 months old. He's been relatively healthy since he arrived, although he was malnourished but time took care of that. Now he's much older, not as spry and recently I thought he injured his eye, it got porphy, squinty and it looked sunken in... I watched him carefully and put eye ointment on just in case. The eye was not fixing itself, and the other night when I pulled him out I saw he had a small head tilt and was dizzy and unbalanced. So I started treating him for inner ear infection, but its still not really doing much. Tonight once I had him pancaked in my lap I felt over his face gently but found a hard mass under his jaw and under his throat...so I thought tumour...BUT his ear is very liquidy when you rub it, and he shakes his head a lot like you would with inner ear infection. I put some injectable baytril into his ear (boy he thought I was trying to kill him, and shrieked!), but once it was in I gently rolled and rubbed the base of his ear to work it down the canal and he started bruxxing.

Sweet old man. What is up with you? :sad-p:

You can see the lump here

Sweet cuddler

Licking when I hit the right spot LOL

 

[crumbilina]

I don't think a lump that far down effect his balance... Could it? Or maybe I'm not seeing it right on my little phone screen...

Is it attached?

Poor sweetie... Lovin' the ear rubs

 

[jorats]

Poor little guy... it's always something with our rats.
I didn't know putting injectible baytril in the ear was effective. Good to know!

 

[lilspaz68]

Poor little guy... it's always something with our rats.
I didn't know putting injectible baytril in the ear was effective. Good to know!

It's diluted...I wonder if that is baytril otic?

he's a bit better this morning after the metacam..he must have been one miserable boy.

 

[Dazzle87]

Aww poor boy, yeah he didn't look too good. Glad the metacam is helping.

My guess is ear infection with the shaking and that lump, since it could be the drainage since sometimes infections take odd routes. Hopefully it is "just" an infection (obviously saying just since it is just the better option in this case) and will clear up soon!

Baytril otic is 5mg/ml baytril, with silver sulfadiazin which is an anti-fungal. Thinking about it, unless there is a suspected fungal infection, it sounds like a better option to just dilute straight baytril.

 

[Godmother]

Poor sweetie, I hope that he feels better soon. Does sound like an ear infection.

As for the lump, where are rats' lymph nodes? I don't know much about rat anatomy.

 

[lilspaz68]

He's feeling a bit better tonight and was upstairs on top of his hammock for the first time in days, but his ear looks worse...blood and something in there. I gently used a q-tip to see if it was liquid. Poor Oliver.

 

[M0onkist]

Poor boy... it's a tough road to haul - but he was very sweet when he wasn't screaming in protest!

 

[Ratticus]

I'd wager to say an ear infection that has built up enough liquid/pus inside that it's causing some pressure on the vestibular nerve, and perhaps trying to form an abcess to come out. If he's responding to Metacam, then it's reducing inflammation. Are you giving him baytril orally too? Have you tried moist heat against the lump to see if it'll come to a head? My gut hunch says 'infection'; really go at him with the meds and keep him warm and fed. Fingers crossed for you; it's awful worrying about our babies.

 

[lilspaz68]

His tilt is a lot less, his eye looks a bit better, the swelling is still there, and there's still blood showing up in his ear canal. I am not really smelling infection but I know that means nothing, but he is much happier, less weak and wobbly and more content again.

 

[Godmother]

So glad that he is more comfortable. :heart: Nothing like a long weekend of TLC to help a ratty along.

 

[crumbilina]

How is he doing today?

 

[Ratticus]

Ear infections can be so persistent. If it was a tumour, you wouldn't have seen improvement like that, I don't believe. Just keep treating that infection aggressively like you have been and we hope to see continued improvement in the lil' fella soon. Sounds like he's got the will to get strong again. It's always SO hard to see them ill or upset in any way. Keep us posted. Glad to hear he's improving! :joy:

 

[lilspaz68]

He's not improving, a day later he looked rougher than the day before. Something is sooo wrong inside his head right now. I cannot post the pics as I am work and PB is a forbidden site.

 

[Godmother]

 

[lilspaz68]

Last night

 

[fenshae]

You said you felt a lump on his face, right? Did it feel hard/protuberant or more like a general swelling?

I ask because this is eerily similar to what's going on with Stock right now. He's got a kind of swollen/puffy face that looks quite a bit like your boy's.

poor dude. hope he gets to feeling better...

 

[lilspaz68]

You said you felt a lump on his face, right? Did it feel hard/protuberant or more like a general swelling?

I ask because this is eerily similar to what's going on with Stock right now. He's got a kind of swollen/puffy face that looks quite a bit like your boy's.

poor dude. hope he gets to feeling better...

Its hard and under his jaw, there's no swelling above on the cheek until you reach the base of the ear, and then its hard and swollen, and there's blood, infection and head shaking. The eye was the first thing I noticed and treated, with no results, then there was the headtilt, so I added in baytril and then injectable baytril down his ear, and it just keeps getting worse. He's shaky now.

 

[jorats]

Oh shoot. That sounds like my sister's Aidan. He had an abscess growing inside deep in his ear, going through his brain. I sure hope that's not what it is.

 

[Ratticus]

Do you think he could sustain a surgery to get it all cleaned out? Any luck getting this lump to open up and drain on its own? I recall my vet saying that, sometimes, pus and infection can get so thick that it's hard for antibiotics to fully penetrate it. What about using Chloramphenicol? It crosses the blood/brain barrier that other drugs don't always do.

Fingers crossed for your boy...