Rats Swollen Foot

Question
My rat has a swollen foot, he won't spread his little toes out, he doesn't stand on it or put any weight on it, and he just kind of drags it if he has to move. It's obviously causing discomfort or pain.

It's swollen, but not discolored, we never heard him squeak in pain whatsoever, though we are not there all day, but it leads us to believe his foot is not broken. THEN when we learned that bumblefoot might explain this, we looked into it.

We found that many things matched up: he has a wire cage, it hasn't been cleaned often enough and he might have urine particles on it, he's a bit pudgy so his weight means more pressure put on it, etc.

So, we think it might be bumblefoot and kept looking. THAT is when we found your answer regarding a rat called Clyde: http://en.allexperts.com/q/Pet-Rats-3537/2010/2/rat-swollen-foot.htm

From that information we learn it must be acute pododermatitis. Okay so far.

We called the vet, and keep in mind we are very poor, they said it will be 50 bucks to bring him in. Okay, we will do that.

But the major problem is they refuse to tell us how much these anti biotics or anti inflammatory drugs will cost! They have no payment plan options (nice of them) so we have to have cash in hand, yet they won't tell us how much.

In fact just as you said in the other article, they immediately got witchy when we told them we think the rat has bumblefoot and said "oh, what, let me guess, you have been looking on the internet and think you know?"

So she's a difficult person and I don't know how to handle her; your other answer says it can be like pulling teeth, but I'm no dentist. What should I say to her to get her to understand this needs anti-biotics?

Now our rat has no open sores of any kind, just to be clear. He still drinks on his own and earlier stood up to eat a piece of cheese even though his foot was hurt (this was before we knew it was hurt) so I don't think it's very bad yet. It has to be within 3 or 4 days that this happened.

So, questions:

1) Which types of anti-biotics/anti-inflammatory drugs may be necessary for this, and how much will they cost?

2) How to deal with the stubborn and difficult vet who thinks we are bad people for using the internet instead of running to the vet and dumping out our wallets?

Answer
Find another vet.  This is a know it all obviously.  Chances are they will say its broken or sprained  (have you seen the photos of the rats on my website, sandyscrittercity.com?  If not, check it out.  Its best not to tell them about the internet.  It steps on their know it all toes. Tell them you had a rat that had the EXACT SAME THING and this is what worked etc...etc...  I have found myself nose to nose with vets until they finally realized that maybe perhaps since I have studied nothing and I mean NOTHING but rat health care and they only touched on the basics about them, not to mention I have kept them as pets for years and years, I end up having them actually call me now and ask me what I think or if I have seen that before.  

The medication needed is usually trimeth sulfa and to be honest, its a human drug and can be purchased at walmart with a script from the vet for it.   An injection of a steroid will be good too but NO METACAM.  I loathe metacam.  It is so nephrotoxic and so many rats have had fatal or near fatal reactions its best to use something else first. Steroids will NOT HURT short term because the rat has a very fast metabolic rate but a know it all vet will say it will compromise their immune system. Again, they are WRONG if that is what they say. Short term wont hurt a thing. The vet can jack up the price to whatever they want.  I have had vets charge me $15 for baytril and others TRY to charge me up to $50 till I tell them they would have my respect more if they didnt price gouge and profit on my sick rat when I am already scraping the bottom of the barrel to be here in the first place.  The entire bill may run you $100 but it SHOULDNT.  You should not pay more than $25 for one injection and 10 days worth of trimeth sulfa liquid.

Where are you located?  If you want to go private and tell me the name of the vet I can tell you right off if your wasting time going there.   I can possibly point you in the right direction too.