Mites or Pyoderma?

[lizmo1221]

So I have noticed that Libra, about 10 months old, was scratching a lot. I checked her and everyone else for buggies and I didn't see any. This was about a week ago. A few days ago I noticed a few scabs, two on her left side, about halfway down her body. I also thought I felt one on her belly, but turns out it was a nipple lol. I figured it was mites or lice and wanted to keep an eye on it to make sure it wasn't just a nip or scratch while I could get a vet appt.

Today most of her side and a lot of her back has small red bumps on it, some scabbed, some not. Its in a higher concentration where I saw them first. There are maybe 30-50 bumps total. Its hard to tell exactly. Pics are impossible as I can hardly see the bumps with two hands with all her squirming, let alone be able to take a pic.

So now I'm thinking it might be pyoderma (surface pyo to be exact). I read the rat guide on it and it sounds like it might be, but she is missing a few symptoms, like hair loss, and it isnt as serious as the pictures and description of surface pyo shows.

There is absolutely no lice on any of my rats, and I have a white and a mostly white one so I would have seen them if they were there. So it is definately mites or pyoderma. I want to have a pretty good idea which since my vet isnt that up on rat medicine outside of the basics, but takes suggestions very well and looks into/studies up on what I suggest it might be. There is a more experienced vet I can go to, but not until next week, as he is off.

I am thinking I would go to my vet to get meds for possible mites and if that doesnt work, go back for pyo treatment. Or should I go right for the pyo treatment right away?

I just wanted to get some opinions on my situation and if people think I am on the right path, etc.

So, any thoughts?

 

[lilspaz68]

Arrgh I wish I could see her!! Surface pyo can take on a lot of different looks. You do have several possibilities thought, allergies (rash), protein allergy (scabs but its not common, and I am sure YOU don't overdo the proteins), ringworm, mites but it wouldn't be starting on her back/sides it would start on her head, neck, chin (can you check her cheeks, shoulders and chin for typical mite scabs just in case?).


The hair loss isn't a first symptom its a later symptom.

If the little separate scabs start becoming one bigger one, then I would definitely say pyoderma.

I am borrowing pics of other rats with pyo

This is Ritchie, a friends boy in the UK, she used a different treatment but his scabs really were surface.
pre-treatment

healing nicely

Faith on the other hand was typical surface but I could barely touch her she was in so much pain. She had had pyo and mites for a very very long time, so he skin was a real mess. Just like with Selene (ratguide's figure 4) we used metacam and baytril and it worked really really well. You may need to trim those back claws so she doesn't scratch herself too much.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=13006&hilit=Faith

 

[lizmo1221]

She sort of looks like Ritchie, but way less surface area is covered and the skin isnt flaking off at all. They are just little red spots that are raised slightly. There are more of them today, but they haven't been "joining" at all. There is nothing on her face or neck out of the ordinary. In terms of allergies, I have been racking my brain trying to think of different things they have been eating, or different soaps, products, etc, and the only thing that is different is they had one raspberry each yesterday before I noticed it was worse (but this started way before then), and they had pieces of broccoli stump last week (as opposed to the broccoli crown, which they have no issue with).

I will try hard to get someone here tonight to take a look (hopefully Chelle can), since I have never seen any of this before, and hopefully having someone else here with more experience can give me a second opinion, or at least help me with taking pics.

 

[lilspaz68]

She sort of looks like Ritchie, but way less surface area is covered and the skin isnt flaking off at all. They are just little red spots that are raised slightly. There are more of them today, but they haven't been "joining" at all. There is nothing on her face or neck out of the ordinary. In terms of allergies, I have been racking my brain trying to think of different things they have been eating, or different soaps, products, etc, and the only thing that is different is they had one raspberry each yesterday before I noticed it was worse (but this started way before then), and they had pieces of broccoli stump last week (as opposed to the broccoli crown, which they have no issue with).

I will try hard to get someone here tonight to take a look (hopefully Chelle can), since I have never seen any of this before, and hopefully having someone else here with more experience can give me a second opinion, or at least help me with taking pics.

for your information, Ritchie had been treated with fungal topicals and baths for months and months before Beth/Ration posted his situation and I suggested she discuss Pyoderma with her vet. I'll contact her and see if she has pics of what he looked like at the very beginning for you :thumbup:

 

[lizmo1221]

As soon as my camera battery charges I am going to try to get a short video of the spots... doesn't require her to stay still as much. She now has bumps on her left side all the way between her front and back legs, on her back in the middle of her body, and is starting to get a few on her belly and right side. They are also getting bigger and some of them I can tell she scratched open/off, even tho I clipped her nails last night.

I also think she might be in pain. When I had her out on her own, she seemed to want to cuddle more than anything, which isn't like her. She also seemed to be breathing heavily and was bruxxing (could be because she was cuddly and happy, but im worried it might be from pain).

I have a vet appt on Monday morning, but all they will likely do is do a quick check and give revo to rule out mites, then I will have to go back if that doesn't work. That was the earliest I could get, my normal vet could have done this evening but wanted to do skin scrapings on all six rats I have and look at the findings before even treating one of them for mites, which I would not allow. If this is pyo, I want to be fairly sure so they can possibly give me meds for that as well so I can start treatment ASAP, before it gets as bad as Ritchie or Selene.

 

[lizmo1221]

So I had some Metacam left over from Virgo's degloving injury (which she gobbled right down, like a good little girl, lol). I gave her a low dose, enough to make her comfortable again.

Tried the video, which is useless. Need a macro lens or at the very least two people, as being that close to them makes it way too blurry to see.

Managed to get a half decent photo of a few of the scabs, wouldn't stay still long enough for any more, and they are really hard to isolate under her fur and focus on.

 

[lilspaz68]

They do look a lot like Ritchie's...

I got this back from Beth, no pics but a description of Ritchie in his early days

I don't have any earlier pics that would show anything helpful, but it started off (from what I can remember) as areas of scabs that I assumed were mites. They were your typical small-ish red scabs. Over time some went away but patches on his back got worse and spread. You couldn't see them all at first, but you could clearly feel them under his skin. Then when the scabs started coming off he lost his fur - with the scabs rather than it falling out on it's own.

Cleared up with clav, baytril and an antibac/anti-fungal shampoo.

For me I found the baytril killed the actual staph infection in the skin, and the metacam kept them comfortable and not ripping their skin off while scratching while it healed.

 

[lizmo1221]

So everyone has been dosed with revolution, just in case, but my vet and I are sure its surface pyoderma, so I was also sent home with metacam (1x daily) and cipro (2x daily). Libra loves her meds, and I am hoping to see improvement in the next week or so. Still no hair loss, and the bumps are for the most part tiny (some are big), but they are now present on about 50% of her body. I really hope this works.

I will update as necessary

 

[lilspaz68]

Oh good luck pretty girl :dance:

 

[Rachael]

Good luck.

Sometimes you can't always see mites on them, it is possible it's that and not pyo? Pyoderma isn't very common (unless it's different over there and I'm talking nonsense).

 

[smilez_n_hugs]

Why did your vet prescribe cipro?

Although ciprofloxacin may be used as a substitute when enrofloxacin is not available it should be noted that there are some pharmacologic differences. Notably that ciprofloxacin is less reliably absorbed than enrofloxacin.

From Rat Guide

I would have thought with something like pyro your vet would want to get on it right away with strong meds.