Tilly update Saturday 1/29 :( photos added

[Petunia]

Took Tilly age 23 mos to the vet yesterday because she'd had what seemed like a cold

(History, had been congested, sneezing, but not a lot,starting on last Friday otherwise she looked fine- acting normally, eating well, until Monday when she was refusing food and darting about the cage- that's when I realized she was having trouble getting enough air in and was scared)

Vet said the infection is in her lungs and sent us home with Baytril and an Rx for doxy which I requested

Tilly weighs 485 grams
the dose of baytril I was told to give is .2 ccs- is this enough?

I don't have the doxy yet but I do have some TMZ/bactim, how much of that should she get, IF she should get it at all, until I can get the doxy?

and would prednisolone help at all? I do not have any dex

EDIT I do have albuterol/Ventolin, am looking up how to administer that. (is that a good idea? just looked it up and it sounds like it's only used for rats with lung damage from previous infections- this is her very first resp infection)




What totally has me confused is that she's not looked sick- only a tiny bit of porph on her nose, none on her eyes at all and her fur has been smooth not spikey til today

any help you can give me greatly appreciated

Edit for typos have only had four hrs sleep in the last 72 and can barely see straight let alone think straight

 

[SQ]

Please phone your vet.
If she is gasping this is very serious and she likely needs to see the vet again today.

.................................................................................................

Do you know the strength of the baytril?
What does it sound like when you hold each side of her chest up to your ear?

You need to get her started on the doxy asap.
Personally, I would try the albuterol/Ventolin - put her in a container, under a towel, etc and squirt it once or twice. Let her breath it in for a couple of minutes. It might help.

Is she turning bluish or pale?
Pred might help reduce inflamation.

If she has fluid in her lungs, she might need some lasix to help her until the meds have time to work
It takes a few days for antibiotics to start to make a difference.

Sometimes steam from running the shower will help temporarily, other times it will make beathing worse.

 

[Petunia]

I've got a call into the vet, waiting for return call

she's settled down a bit and is on her hammock with her head hanging over, breathing is still fast but not as bad as before

I use albuterol myself and it can increase your heart rate and make you feel worse at first, so I am not sure about that, from the rat guide it sounds like the albuterol used is a liquid ??
not inhaled

having trouble sorting thru this info.


Baytril says 22.7 mg

"give .2 ccs twice a day
Quantity 5"

does that mean she only gave me FIVE doses?????

doesn't she need at least several weeks at two doses per day???

oy


I could not hear any lung sounds yesterday, but I can hear them now, there's like a clicking ?? noise, but only if i hold her up to my ear,
which stresses her out so i only held her for a few seconds, may be why i idnd't hear anythign the first time I tried to listen


the only ohter rat I had w this got a shot of dex at the vets

(all the other resp rats I've had were fosters and i had to follow their protocol for giving meds)

 

[Petunia]

ok I've given her some prednisolone to help with the inflammation, praying that gives her some relief til the ABs kick in

I'm offering her soft foods, baby food and cereals mixed with soy milk etc every hour or so,
is that too often, or not often enough?

I know she needs to rest too so I am NOT waking her up to try to feed her (she seems to be taking in enough so that she's not dehydrated)

her baytril is liver flavored and mixes well with chicken baby food- she liked that

ok gotta go pick up the doxy will check back later

thanks!!

 

[jorats]

Pred will help. So will the albuterol. I give that to my rats that are in serious need of immediate relief.
I'd forget about the Bactrim but try to get the doxy asap.
I'm pretty sure that's a good dose. But it looks like you may not have enough. She should be on it for at least 4 weeks.

 

[Dazzle87]

The five usually means five ml.

 

[PitLuvs]

Can you get your hands on a nebulizer and some saline solution?

 

[SQ]

If the baytril and doxy help, you will want to keep her on them at least 6 weeks.
If you don't see am improvement within 2 to 3 days, you will want to try a different combo of antibiotics.

A cool mist humidifier in the room may help breathing if the air is too dry.
I too use a puffer when necessary for ratties ... my vet wrote a perscription for it, the drug store filled the perscription.
I like it better then a nebulizer as it doesn't scare the ratties.

 

[Petunia]

Oh I can relax a little bit now, she's breathing a lot better, still fast, but not sucking her sides in any more and her wild eyed look is gone for the most part.

She does get very anxious if I try to hold her and she gets ice cold feet and about 2inches of her tail get cold too, but it's not all the time.

she is acting a lot like a boy I fostered who had CHF, so I have a call in to the vet to request enalapril, or benazapril, to see if that helps any

on the down side- Clair is sounding congested now!

I'm going to take a shower now and bring her in the room to steam her


and I'll start her on the doxy and baytril too

I should have realized somethign was up when I saw Tilly sleeping on top of Clair- Clair likes to be on top, but Tilly's been pushing her off- she probably can't breathe with that 500 gram girl on top of her!

(not sure of Clair's wt, actually I need to check that too- she feels lighter, she's almost all tumor now )

 

[Petunia]

Some photos of my girl Tilly


saw her open-mouthed breathing last night-

eating food off my fingers

 

[Petunia]

:gaah: :gaah: :gaah:


I don't know what is wrong with my sweet girl!!!

she's not congested that I can see, no sneezing, no obvious lung sounds but I have NOT done the rattie telephone recently because it stresses her out too much

however, where she hadn't looked sick before this, even though she was having a lot of trouble breathing,
NOW she looks sick- she's all fluffed up like a big snowball

I've been tracking her wt here and there this week-
previous wt back in Sept when she had her surgery was 485

at the vets on Wed she was 435 (ignore previous posts, I was wrong about her wt)

then Friday her wt was 470
and earlier today it was 472

(thinking maybe she's got fluid build up but she's also eating better, so I guess it would be hard to go by any of this, I don't know)

I had a feeling there was something else going on besides the resp stuff and I still have that feeling

BUT I don't know what, so I don't know what to do for my girl!!!

:gaah: :gaah: :gaah:

I don't want to lose my baby, what else can I do??

for her med history-
she started Baytil on Wed
Added doxy on Friday (so she's had 3 doses of Doxy and 7 doses of baytri)

she got prednisolone on Thursday because she was breathing so hard, that helped

last night she got some albuterol (puffer) to help her breathe when she was breathing thru her mouth, that seemed to help some too


now her breathing seems to have stabilized, still very fast and looks shallow? but she's got all spikey fur and looks bad

she is able to eat on her own now and will get out of the hammock to eat, but it still takes a lot out of her and she has to take a breath and sits very still, breathing hard

she mostly is sitting around, breathing hard

this sux sux sux! she's not yet 2
please make it to your birthday, girl!

 

[Godmother]

I hope that the antibiotics start to work soon. It is a good sign that she is eating, even though it is an effort for her.

 

[mamarat]

Tilly is so beautiful. Hope the meds work soon for her.

 

[Petunia]

thanks guys

is it normal for their bodies to get cold like that when they are sick?

she's warmer now but not as warm as Clair.

 

[jorats]

Yes it's normal but important to warm them up.

I had a rat who I was sure had a bad URI, it ended up being a PT. We saw this with a postmortem. His lungs were clear but the PT made him feel congested and made him gasp.
It can be so many things... another one of my rats, I thought it was pneumonia but with a postmortem we saw it was a tumour on the thymus which was squishing the lungs.

 

[Petunia]

Yes it's normal but important to warm them up.

I had a rat who I was sure had a bad URI, it ended up being a PT. We saw this with a postmortem. His lungs were clear but the PT made him feel congested and made him gasp.
It can be so many things... another one of my rats, I thought it was pneumonia but with a postmortem we saw it was a tumour on the thymus which was squishing the lungs.

oh wow!!

I just posted another thread to ask about what else I might be able to do for her

I did notice her doing something weird yesterday I think it was, she was sort of like digging at the fleece liner, not like she was trying to pull it up, but more like she was just scratching at it, like you'd see a cat scratching in cat litter? hard to describe but it looked so strange and it crossed my mind that she might have some neuro problem

she's also standing weird, with her feet far apart in the back- does that mean anything?

and she doesnt' tolerate being held at all, seems to cause her pain

oh damn I hate not being to do much to help her!!

any suggestions you may deeply appreciated!!