Rowf the rats declining health

Question
QUESTION: Hello, and thanks for reading.

My dear Rowf, which I got when he was less then 5 weeks old, seems to be going downhill in his "old" age. Though he's only about a year and 6-7 months, it seems like he's aging all to quickly.

Though, with different symptoms arriving, it seems like it may be more.

At first I noticed he had an excessive build up of poryphin in his eyes.

The next, and most alarming thing I noticed was that he looked like he couldn't use his hands to hold his food. If I gave him solid food, he'd try to eat it off the ground. As this went on, he took to biting off a small peice, and sticking his arms out infront of him, I guess to try to hold the food on his chest [or more correctly, due to anatomy, his forearms.].
Noticing that his brother, Snitter was taking Rowf's food, I fed him alone.

I noticed, after that, a lot of weight loss. His spine is much more prominant as are his ribs, though it isn't as angular as I've seen in very sick rats.

The third thing is loss of balance. He fell off of his platform twice, landing, very fortunately on a bunched up shirt I'd put in there. I lowered the platform after the first fall.
He falls over while he tries to clean himself, and is lethargic, resulting in him being quite messy and smelly.
Funny enough, he grooms [his upper body, and behind his head] with his hands and seems to walk on them just fine.
He doesn't tilt his head, or anything of the matter, but it's like he can't keep his arms up, and he also looks like he can't stand up straight.
He stretches out and yawns, so he can straighten his spine, but wont stand for food like his brother.
He scaled the bars of the cage just two nights ago.

He also tends to nibble on my fingers, or anything I have when I'm holding him. Am I annoying him, or is he just hungry? I've caught him trying to eat paper towel once of twice.


I made plans to take him to the vet on Friday, but with the exotic vet not being in until Monday, being today, I was advised to keep him home until then.

When I went to the vet, he [the vet] weighed him and said Rowf has lost about an ounce of weight since his last visit, being about three months ago, albeit he was a chubby boy back then, so he doesn't look horrid now.

The vet also said his eyes looked irritated and a bit inflamed, so he prescribed us some eyedrops.

His teeth are fine, aswell.

When I touched on the issues with holding food, he said this may just be because of old age, but it's hard to tell with just a physical examination.

I suppose it is hard to tell, but I come to you, asking if you know what these symptoms add up to, if anything other than old age.

Again, thank you for reading.

ANSWER: Well, I will try to be positive about this ok?

First of all, there is a chance that your rat has an inner ear infection. The signs are all there, from loss of balance and coordination especially.  What occurs is, the pressure builds up in the rats vestibular cochlear nerve and throws the equilibrium off.  Steroids for inflammation will help.  A head tilted to one side is also a sign of ear infection.  Antibiotics MUST be used to kill infection.

HOWEVER....unfortunately, he also has one alarming sign that is NOT seen with otitis media (inner ear infection) and that is the loss of the use of his forelimbs to hold and grasp food.
This, unfortunately, is a sign of a pituitary adenoma on his pituitary gland. This also can be accompanied by loss of coordination etc.... since it also puts pressure on the 8th cranial nerve (vestibular cochlear nerve)  Weight loss is another sign of this.  The loss of the use of his back legs may also be noted.

Please refer to my website, sandyscrittercity.com and refer to my page on pituitary tumors and also the page on head tilt and ear infection.  Its vital you read both and get back to me

Finally, the vet you saw?  Tell him to do you a favor and refund your money. This rat is NOT  old and not even near old enough to show signs of old age.  Old age in rats is usually past their second birthday and older. The vet is clueless which is why I despise when vets who know nothing about rat health care see rats and take money for it when they do absolutely NOTHING. Hold the eye drops.  Your rat is just showing excessive porphyrin discharge which, if the vet had a clue about rats, would know this is NOT irritation.  It is red tears, sometimes brown, mocking bloody discharge and it is produced by a gland behind the eyes called the harderian gland.  This gland produces porphyrin which is used to lubricate the rats nictating membrane (third eyelid, which, on humans, is that blob of skin in the corner of our eyes!)  Anyhow, when rats are stressed from illness, they produce more porphyrin that is secreted from both the eyes and even the nose. Sometimes the rat smears it all over his fur causing light fur to be stained a pinkish tinge or brownish pink.
Where are you located?  You need names of better vets to help your rat along.  I am going to hope that your rat will get treated for ear infection, and if he doesnt improve after a week or continues to get worse despite treatment, we will know its probably the pituitary tumor.  Again though please read my site so you can compare symptoms.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Though I agree with you, I'm sorry to say I left out a few points.

For one, the vet [which I'm now feeling kind of stupid saying] had mentioned Rowf's skin was a bit yellow.

And Rowf's eyes have been dull for a while. The vet had turned off the lights and examined Rowf's eyes, saying that he may have a scratch, or something irritating the eye itself, causing the slight swelling around it, so the drops are for that reason.

He's seemed to have porphyrin in his eyes pretty often since he was young, though.

If you still feel as though I should hold out on them, I take your side competely.

You're right, it seems like he has a pituitary tumour, but I'm still hoping he doesn't. That's pretty much all I can do.

He is showing weakness, and yet, he still isn't displaying all of the provided symptoms, which I suppose isn't all that abnormal.

I thought it may also help to add in previous health issues.

He had swelling in his face a while back, but no protrusion of the eye. I went to that same vet, and I was told to give him the prescribed antibiotics for ten days. That worked and the swelling went down.

And he had an abcess on his belly that I drained and has now been totally healed for a few weeks, but this is most likely an isolated incident that has nothing to do with his current state.

I live in Toronto, in the GTA.

These two babies are my first rats, and I went in knowing it wouldn't be all smooth sailing. I thought I researched so whole bunch, learning about the 'red tears', chance of tumours, abcesses, and hind leg paralysis, but I guess I didn't research enough.

How long can he be expected to live, if this is the case?

I wouldn't dream of putting him down, unless he's no longer happy.

ANSWER: Forgive me for being so abrasive when it comes to Vets. I just get tons of readers writing to me after bad advice from a Vet that they are seeing.  Not long ago, a girl wrote to me after putting her rat to sleep for a brain tumor, so the vet thought.  As she told me the symptoms I was feeling sick to my stomach.  I told her to PLEASE take her rats remains to a Vet I knew of for a necropsy as the rat had just been put down just a few hrs before she wrote me and had not buried the rat etc...   She did as I asked and much to my dismay I was right. The little young rat had nothing more than an ear infection yet this lousy Vet knew nothing about rat care and thought right off that the rat must have some tumor on the brain since she was walking in circles, had head tilt, would spin in a circle etc.... and the most sickening thing of all is that he should know better  since vestibular disease is common in dogs and cats as well as rats.  He just must have been itching to put an animal to sleep that day...I dont know, I have no excuse for his ignorance, but I know that a little rat had been put to death for no reason.
I see so much of this "quackery" it isnt funny, from Vets not knowing what porphyrin is and telling people their rat may be bleeding from the brain and the blood is coming out of their eyes and nose...the list goes on.  This is why I question every single person that writes me if they have seen a vet.  I do have many vets I respect and in fact, I sent alot of people to them when I find out that they are near the location of that clinic etc....but to be honest, 80% of the Vets that say that they treat exotics are NOT formally educated in exotics and only know the basics on each species.  A poll was done on Vets that are the so called "Exotic Vet" to see what they knew about these exotic pets that they see from time to time. These vets failed miserably. Lets just say that, 8 out of 10 vets did NOT know that amoxil is DEADLY to rabbits and should NEVER be used; 7 out of 10 of these vets did not know that birds had EARS! Yes, thats right, they did NOT KNOW THIS...and that is SCARY stuff. As for our rats, 9 out of 10 could not tell male from female until the males testicles were easily noticed and thought the only antibiotic they could safely take was baytril. They also did not know that mycoplasmosis was transferred from the mother rat at birth and all rats were born carrying this bacteria.  Ok nuff on this, it just irks me all over again to think that these vets have the nerve to treat an animal that they could literally KILL due to lack of proper education!

Back to your little man.....I also never suggest euthanasia until their quality of life is gone. So many people worry they wont know when its time, but they will....esp if they know their rats well.  Our rats are strong and stubborn, fighting till the end, determined to remain here on this earth with  their beloved owner for as long as they can. Sometimes they wont let go even when they should, even if they are too weak to lift their head and cannot eat or swallow. That is when we step in and help. Once that spark of life in their eye is gone, we will know its time....we can feel it in our hearts. We can feel it in the pit of our stomachs.


Your little man may really benefit from steroids. HOPEFULLY the vet will not be all freaked out about using them like so many are (again, back to ignorance again) yes, over time, steroids MAY weaken the immune system....but thats with LONG TERM use. When dealing with a rat that has a terminal illness, its ridiculous to even worry about something that wont even occur during their life time!!!!!!!        

Antibiotics should be used just with hopes that its ear infection and to get him to eat, try letting him lick baby food.  He may lose the ability to chew and swallow...which is usually the last symptoms before it gets really bad.

Its hard to say how long he can live with a pituitary adenoma, but I can say that once symptoms show, its not real long after that.  It could be a few weeks to a few months, depending on how big the tumor is and also if steroids work, this will help reduce inflammation and the rat may even show a bit of improvement for a while too.  Prednisone used orally is the best drug to use and baytril twice a day is the drug of choice for ear infections since the culprit is often caused by  the myco bacteria.

The yellow skin doesnt bother me, because to be honest, I bet he is seeing buck grease unless you tell me his skin was yellow from head to toe?    

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: It's kind of insane. I don't know why I didn't think of the buck grease. I guess I was kind caught up in thinking he knew his stuff.

His hands and feet are pink- his BACK is yellow. Which makes sense.

There goes $71.

That seems to be the closest vet to me though, and I thought they knew enough. But there's no way I'm wasting more money on them.

Between you and me, I took more than my share of the free candy in their jar. Justice served.


All jokes aside.. How much do steroid treatments cost, usually? When it comes to a living being, cost should be no factor whether you bought a rat for 6$ [which I did] or an exotic cat for $1000 [which I certainly did not], but it's nice to be informed if you're going to be shovelling out a bunch of coin.

You've really opened my eyes. The vets are nuts.

Answer
Is it buck grease you see on him?  Thats what I thought right off.  Rats skin is tough, almost leathery believe it or not, and in fact, when giving injections to rats, a skilled vet may not even consider this, and usually I pipe up and suggest this: When you draw the medication out of the medication bottle you have to poke through the rubber stopper with the needle right?  So, you should change the syringe needle after this. Why? Because it gets dull just by going through the rubber stopper and if you turn around and  use it on the rat, it will hurt him more because it will be dull and wont be able to penetrate their skin as easily as it could have with a fresh needle.  Ok so why bring that up? LOL  I dont know to be honest....just got me thinking of all the little things that Vets SHOULD know about treating rats, but dont! Simple things, but things that may be too petty to the Vet to care about when it can mean something important to the rat, even something like making an injection less painful for our rats.  Ohhhhhh yeah, thats right...I was blabbin on and on about their skin and the fact the vet suggested jaundice etc....which brought me to the subject on rat skin.

Steroid treatments you asked about? Well your in Canada the prices may vary some.prednisone can be given by mouth and it can come in liquid form. Dont let the vet fool you by saying it  doesnt, because it has to since it is a widely prescribed to humans from infants to the  elderly.   
 I looked it up real fast though and for tablets, a bottle of 100 is only $25 so that should   give you an  idea.

Also, do you want names of Vets?