Okay so here goes a very long post...
My rat Falcon will be two yrs. old on valentines day 2012. When I rescued her, she was five months old and a sneezy grunter (she seemed to grunt when running around) but other than that seemed fine. I took her to the vet, he clipped her nails and said she was fine. Over time the noises seemed to get worse and she has sounded all sorts of ways from congested to fast whistly breathing. This is my first time owning a rat, I now know these noises were not her talking to me as numerous friends tried to convince me of.
I took her to the vet thinking she had pneumonia 6 months ago and he told me she was overweight (she only weighed a little over a pound!) and to get her to lose weight because he thought the weight was causing breathing issues. I restricted her calories but she never got better. I started giving her echinacia and kale and the healthiest organic foods hoping to help her be healthy. Now we jump forward 6 months or so..
On Oct 12th I bring her and her sister to their vet because I find a tumor on her sister Maya. I brought Falcon to have her lungs listened to because I noticed she was sleeping a lot more, but my main objective was to have her checked for mammary tumors. He tells me we will operate on her sister a few days later and that he wants to put falcon under the same day for an x ray because in his words she sounds extremely awful. I say okay but later change my mind because I was scared she wouldn't wake up. Here's another thing I forgot to mention, She has always had what I call seizures. BUT my vet says they aren't seizures because she will look at you and is aware during them. It's like her body just starts slightly convulsing and it will last for multiple minutes. I believe this is what some rat owners call the hiccups, but i'm not sure. I will post a video if I can catch her doing it.
So I bring her back to the vet on October 17th telling him I won't do the X-ray because she is so sickly and the seizure thingys and that I need medicine. He fails to tell me she would only be under for a few minutes btw. The medications I receive are 200mg/5ml of Augmentin and I give her 1/2 ml 2x a day. Lasix at 12.5 mg I crush the tablet and give her 1/4 of it 2x a day and then a few days later only once a day. She also receives 1/15th of a pill of Enalapril, the pill is 2.5 mg so that equals .18 mg and she gets the enalapril once a day. So I keep her on this and notice how much weight she is losing and how she doesn't get better, but much worse.
On Novemebr 3rd we do the x ray and see that one side of her lungs (I don't remember which one) is completely full of fluid and the heart is enlarged some as well. He tells me she is struggling to breathe and that we should lay off the enalapril and just try to get the lung better. I ask if she has pneumonia and he says no, not yet. I think at this point she is dying, and i'm sobbing at the vets office. We add doxycycline to the mix. He has me getting one and a half cup of water and dissolving a 100 mg capsule in it, then giving her 1 and 1/2 cc's twice a day. So at this point she was on lasix, Augmentin, and doxy.
I take her back to the vet on 11/16 she had improved some and I was able to get her to eat more than just baby food some days, but she was chirping breathing some, and fur standing on end. Her vet takes away the Augmentin and exchanges it with baytril at .18cc's twice a day orally....then my nebulizer comes in a few days later and I start nebulizing her with .5 ml of the 0.083 Inhalation mixture of Albuterol. I don't put her in a container because she freaks out but my mom holds her in her jacket and we stick the tube by her face. So I did the nebulizer treatment 2 x a day. I asked my vet for saline solution but he gives me sterile water instead? Around this time I start dissolving the doxy pill in 10 ml's of sterile water, refrigerating the solution and giving her .2 ml's 2 x a day.
So yesterday which was 10 days with the combo of baytril and doxy I bring her to a different vet I find that treats exotics, she listens to her breathing and tells me that she sounds horrible, i bring all my medications with me and she says to choose one antibiotic to keep her on, double her lasix to 3mgs twice a day, take away the albuterol as it speeds up the heartbeat. She also calls in to a pharmacy that compounds and I begin giving her enalapril again at 1 mg/ml strawberry flavored mixture and i give her .2 ml's once a day. I also tell the vet that she has started losing a bit of her balance( she sleeps in my bed, since she has been so sick and I've caught her falling off me sometimes in the night) Falcon also now has started clubbing her fists for like a week, and not just her front paws but her back ones too. The vet doesn't think it's PT though b/c those are the only symptoms. The vet also tells me yesterday that she can't draw blood from her, and that I am going to have to take her to LSU (Louisiana state university) as there is a rat specialist at the vet school there and they can give her a cat scan so we can see what is going on with the lungs and heart. So that's her medical history..
okay so here are my questions. 1st. what should I do about the antibioitics? 2nd Has anyone ever had a catscan/mri done on their rat? are we talking like 2 grand here? and Lastly I want to nebulize her with something so i heard saline solution will be fine. The new vet told me to get sterile saline solution for contacts. But is this really safe? and do y'all think it will help? Any comments or suggestions or links or anything would be extremely wonderful. I'm at my wits end, this is my baby.. and I'm so upset that I can't help her.
My rat Falcon will be two yrs. old on valentines day 2012. When I rescued her, she was five months old and a sneezy grunter (she seemed to grunt when running around) but other than that seemed fine. I took her to the vet, he clipped her nails and said she was fine. Over time the noises seemed to get worse and she has sounded all sorts of ways from congested to fast whistly breathing. This is my first time owning a rat, I now know these noises were not her talking to me as numerous friends tried to convince me of.
I took her to the vet thinking she had pneumonia 6 months ago and he told me she was overweight (she only weighed a little over a pound!) and to get her to lose weight because he thought the weight was causing breathing issues. I restricted her calories but she never got better. I started giving her echinacia and kale and the healthiest organic foods hoping to help her be healthy. Now we jump forward 6 months or so..
On Oct 12th I bring her and her sister to their vet because I find a tumor on her sister Maya. I brought Falcon to have her lungs listened to because I noticed she was sleeping a lot more, but my main objective was to have her checked for mammary tumors. He tells me we will operate on her sister a few days later and that he wants to put falcon under the same day for an x ray because in his words she sounds extremely awful. I say okay but later change my mind because I was scared she wouldn't wake up. Here's another thing I forgot to mention, She has always had what I call seizures. BUT my vet says they aren't seizures because she will look at you and is aware during them. It's like her body just starts slightly convulsing and it will last for multiple minutes. I believe this is what some rat owners call the hiccups, but i'm not sure. I will post a video if I can catch her doing it.
So I bring her back to the vet on October 17th telling him I won't do the X-ray because she is so sickly and the seizure thingys and that I need medicine. He fails to tell me she would only be under for a few minutes btw. The medications I receive are 200mg/5ml of Augmentin and I give her 1/2 ml 2x a day. Lasix at 12.5 mg I crush the tablet and give her 1/4 of it 2x a day and then a few days later only once a day. She also receives 1/15th of a pill of Enalapril, the pill is 2.5 mg so that equals .18 mg and she gets the enalapril once a day. So I keep her on this and notice how much weight she is losing and how she doesn't get better, but much worse.
On Novemebr 3rd we do the x ray and see that one side of her lungs (I don't remember which one) is completely full of fluid and the heart is enlarged some as well. He tells me she is struggling to breathe and that we should lay off the enalapril and just try to get the lung better. I ask if she has pneumonia and he says no, not yet. I think at this point she is dying, and i'm sobbing at the vets office. We add doxycycline to the mix. He has me getting one and a half cup of water and dissolving a 100 mg capsule in it, then giving her 1 and 1/2 cc's twice a day. So at this point she was on lasix, Augmentin, and doxy.
I take her back to the vet on 11/16 she had improved some and I was able to get her to eat more than just baby food some days, but she was chirping breathing some, and fur standing on end. Her vet takes away the Augmentin and exchanges it with baytril at .18cc's twice a day orally....then my nebulizer comes in a few days later and I start nebulizing her with .5 ml of the 0.083 Inhalation mixture of Albuterol. I don't put her in a container because she freaks out but my mom holds her in her jacket and we stick the tube by her face. So I did the nebulizer treatment 2 x a day. I asked my vet for saline solution but he gives me sterile water instead? Around this time I start dissolving the doxy pill in 10 ml's of sterile water, refrigerating the solution and giving her .2 ml's 2 x a day.
So yesterday which was 10 days with the combo of baytril and doxy I bring her to a different vet I find that treats exotics, she listens to her breathing and tells me that she sounds horrible, i bring all my medications with me and she says to choose one antibiotic to keep her on, double her lasix to 3mgs twice a day, take away the albuterol as it speeds up the heartbeat. She also calls in to a pharmacy that compounds and I begin giving her enalapril again at 1 mg/ml strawberry flavored mixture and i give her .2 ml's once a day. I also tell the vet that she has started losing a bit of her balance( she sleeps in my bed, since she has been so sick and I've caught her falling off me sometimes in the night) Falcon also now has started clubbing her fists for like a week, and not just her front paws but her back ones too. The vet doesn't think it's PT though b/c those are the only symptoms. The vet also tells me yesterday that she can't draw blood from her, and that I am going to have to take her to LSU (Louisiana state university) as there is a rat specialist at the vet school there and they can give her a cat scan so we can see what is going on with the lungs and heart. So that's her medical history..
okay so here are my questions. 1st. what should I do about the antibioitics? 2nd Has anyone ever had a catscan/mri done on their rat? are we talking like 2 grand here? and Lastly I want to nebulize her with something so i heard saline solution will be fine. The new vet told me to get sterile saline solution for contacts. But is this really safe? and do y'all think it will help? Any comments or suggestions or links or anything would be extremely wonderful. I'm at my wits end, this is my baby.. and I'm so upset that I can't help her.
