My little girl is walking strangely

[froxen]

This has not been a good week! My little girl, Snowflake, is walking very strangely. She'll stretch out completely flat -- but stay stretched and drag the back half of her body. I don't even know how to describe it, I've never seen anything like it. She manages to get around, but she almost looks deformed. Her legs and posture just don't look right. She was completely fine last night during playtime, so I'm very worried. Has anyone seen anything like this? I don't know whether this is an emergency or not, but it just started so suddenly! I've had rats with injured legs/feet, and this is nothing like that. She doesn't seem in pain..

 

[lilspaz68]

does he twist and/or suck in her gut?

 

[froxen]

Yes, thats exactly it. She'll walk normally, then its almost like her stomach shrinks and she turns on her side a bit.

 

[jorats]

She's got pain in her stomach... any changes in food?
If it doesn't clear up, I'd get her in to see the vet.

 

[froxen]

No change in diet at all... I free feed all my rats HT. I know she likes to chew a lot, and sometimes the plastic beds/toys in her cage are destroyed overnight. If she ingested some, would it cause bad stomach pain?

She has been stretching like this for about an hour now.. I'll take her into the vet later today if it doesn't stop.

 

[Moon]

Rats are pretty good at chewing but not ingesting inedible materials.... It sounds like a very sudden onset of pain, and really needs a vet visit. Poor her, and poor you

 

[lilspaz68]

have you seen her urinate? Is there blood, cloudiness or a funky smell from it? UTI's can also make them owwie stretch.

 

[froxen]

I haven't seen her urinate, but I don't think anything is out of the ordinary -- their cage smells normal, her poops are normal, and she's even eating right now. I also checked the cage and her for blood.. nothing. :?

 

[Moon]

You might need to move her to a smaller cage with paper towels as bedding just for a few hours to be really sure.

 

[SQ]

definate vet visit now.
She is in a lot of pain.

 

[Debbie]

How old is she?

I recently had a girl do the same thing. It was most likely uterine in nature. In Noelle's case, we started her on Baytril right away (and metacam for pain) with plans to have her spayed within a few days. Noelle ended up having heart issues so we held off on the spay. After about 3 days on the baytril, the stretching completely stopped (it got progressively less during that time...then just stopped). So we believed it was a uterine infection.

I would definitely get her to the vet too. If it is uterine, it could get much worse fast, and she could even begin bleeding.

 

[froxen]

It got better, then worse again. She is constantly stretching now. Looks like a visit to the ER vet -- my animal hospital closes in an hour, and there are no openings for poor Snowflake. The receptionist said she could make an appointment for me tomorrow, but I really don't want to wait that long if she is going to be in pain all night. At least they have an on-call ER vet, even if it is DOUBLE the price. Ugh.

Edit: She is about five months old.

 

[ryelle]

sometimes paying double is worth it. I hope they can help you both, and relieve her pain hoping its nothing serious *hugs*

 

[Debbie]

Oh no, poor baby!

That seems awful young to be having uterine trouble (though I guess not impossible. I just had my little Pearl spayed at around 5 months....and her uterus was an absolute mess. We didn't even know it, because she acted fine. She went in for a routine spay. It's a good thing, because she would have been in real trouble very soon). So you just never know.

Best wishes to your little one. Is she the beautiful nekkid girl in your avatar?

 

[froxen]

Haha, the handsome rat in my avatar is Rocky, one of my big boys when he was a baby! Here is a picture of Snowflake doing her owwie stretch:

She is such a cutie, I hate to see her in pain. Leaving for the vet now!

 

[mamarat]

Poor sweetie.

 

[froxen]

Back from the vet. Unfortunately, he didn't help that much. I explained to him what I had read on these forums about the 'owwie stretch' and he checked a few of his books, but he couldn't find a problem with her after giving her a physical examination. He did give us five day's worth of metacam, so I hope that helps her a bit. He said that if it doesn't improve, I should bring her back in for x-rays/blood tests. So all of this cost $200 -- thankfully my boyfriend helps me with the rat bills!

I just gave her her first dose, so we'll see how she is tomorrow! Poor girl.. she is such a sweetheart, and it was her first time out of the house. She was terrified!

 

[Cigar]

Bah.. I'm sorry the vet wasn't more help to you. I hope the metacam eases her pain. I've never ever seen a rat stretch like that, I had to do a double take at the pictures.

 

[Moon]

That's the problem with emergency vets... they are often only a bandaid until you can get to an exotics vet.

The metacam should help until you can get your usual vet to look at her.

 

[froxen]

The sad thing is, he IS an exotics emergency vet. I've taken my other rats to him before and he was great, and he even managed to detect some weird internal parasite in one of my boys that was causing diarrhea. That is part of the reason I'm really upset that he wasn't able to find anything with Snowflake. There is another vet who works at the same animal hospital who was great with my boys last year, so I might bring Snowflake to see her after the metacam is done and nothing has improved.