Rats with lung damage - to neb or not to neb?

[minnow]

Long story short, on Thursday I'm picking up a pair of girls at CCRR from the Jungle Exotics rescue. Due to the conditions they were being kept in pre-rescue, it's extremely likely that they have severe irreversable lung damage. So, what's the best course of action with this? Treat aggressively with nebulizer treatments for their first 2 weeks here then back off to daily Baytril for maintenance? Wait and see if there's trouble before treating for anything?

If they were humans with COPD, they'd most likely be on daily inhaled meds both for comfort and to reduce the chances of pneumonia developing. Would this be a prudent course of action for rats, though?

Any information that I can pass on to my vet from people with experience with lung damaged rats would be helpful. She's great at researching, but there's only so much in the veterinary literature about how to treat rats, and all I could find myself was relating to pneumonia.

 

[ratsr4life]

in my opinion i would treat it like a chronic condition. We know there is scar tissue, we know damage has been done. I would give them immune boosters, bronchial dialators, and possibly NSAID's.

If they have an acute condition i would treat aggressivly with steroids and ABS for any 2nd infections.

 

[jorats]

I've been nebulizing rats for over 4 years. It has been my experience that nebulizing rats with advance lung disease is actually harmful to them if nebulized in a container. I haven't tried nebulizing them while in the cage and "hoping" the stuff reaches them. To me that seemed like a waste of med and money.
When a rat has advanced lung disease, they have limited lung capacity. They have shortness of breath, air is not reaching the lungs therefore, the meds would not reach the lungs. The particles of medication might very well be exhaled before it even reaches the bronchial tubes.
If he were mine, I'd have them on Baytril for life, coupled with a month of Zithromax. I would also have them on dexamethasone or prednisone, metacam might not be a bad idea, most asthma sufferers claim there is much pain when having an attack and struggling for breath.
If you decided to nebulize, putting a rat in a container might very well do him in. In the container, the air feels thin and limited. It can also overheat which is detrimental to a sick rat. It can also progress heart disease and be fatal.
There is one member here who had a rat do a complete recovery with nebulizing... I believe she was using gentocin. But keep in mind they did not know the extent of the lung disease.
Nebulizing is wonderful if caught at the beginning or as a preventive measure for myco.

 

[minnow]

So, if I'm interpreting this correctly, it might be better to try nebulizing if they're not actively symptomatic, to try to keep myco from taking over?

From my experience with my own asthma, the particle size of nebulized meds is small enough that you only need to be fairly close to the neb to get the medication. Expanding on that, one could probably use a pretty well ventilated container or even a small cage to nebulize in. Also, I've found that the side effects aren't nearly as bad with inhaled medication as they are with oral medication, so if you could reduce the stress enough a nebulized bronchodilator would be easier on the heart than an oral one. This is all coming from human medicine, though.

 

[jorats]

So, if I'm interpreting this correctly, it might be better to try nebulizing if they're not actively symptomatic, to try to keep myco from taking over?

Yes, that was my take on nebulizing.

Rats breathe very fast when they are in respiratory distress and I'm not sure if the meds would reach them. In humans, yes, but mostly because you can talk yourself into deep breathing.

It's in the container that I would never put a rat having an attack in. I've tried it before and it's really hard on them.

My setup:

 

[lilspaz68]

Wait and see what type of shape these poor rats are in first. They may have amazing immune systems and no real chronic respiratory damage. Some rats have truly surprised me that they were so healthy from the terrible situations they came from.

I would do the baytril and zithro if they do have damage like Jo said, with the addition of steroids in the beginning to get lung inflammation down.

 

[SQ]

I would be very cautious about nebulising as jorats said.

If rats have an underlying heart problem, even one that may not yet be symptomatic, nebulising can speed up the progression of the disease, bringing on symptoms and shortening their lives. That happened to my Caleb. :sad3: