Not lung tumors at least

Question
QUESTION: Hello,
Been writing you about my boy Burt.
Was diagnosed with lung tumors, given 2 weeks to live.
It's been a month now, and he's still fighting.
I started treating him for heart disease, and Lasix due to LOTS of fluid in his chest [I sent you the x-ray, which you sent to your vet friend in GA]. He was also on Prednisone, which you said was bad.

Can I ask you another question?
I finally took him to the certified vet "near" me. He said absolutely not tumors, and he did not think heart disease. He agreed that I should get him off the steroids, so he instructed me on how to taper him off. We stopped the heart meds.

Currently he is on Clavamox, .1 cc twice a day.
The Dr. suggested I take him off Lasix, but when I tried it took about 6 hours and he was coughing and struggling to breath the next day so I restarted it.

Now Burt is coughing a lot, he wants to eat but has trouble. Still labored breathing.

The vet suspected, like you, a bad chest infection.

Is Clavamox enough for this? How long to work?
I'm so scared to stop the Lasix.
I swear, he has looked like he was about to die 5 or 6 times in the last month, so I'm hoping I'm not torturing him by keeping him around.

The vet offered to refer me to Oklahoma State University to the zoo specialist where they could take a culture of his throat/chest. Honestly, I don't have $400 and 2 days to take off of work to do this :(

ANSWER: Dont stop the lasix, If he has pneumonia, the lasix will help.

Clavamox SUCKS if this is myco related pneumonia.  Your vet should know this and if he doesnt, he should not be treating Vets.

No need to go to another vet for a culture...this is money hungry garbage that frankly, I am tired of seeing!!!!!  Switching to baytril twice a day for 30 days  with gentocin once a day for 7 days should really help.

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Burt   QUESTION: I had to make the toughest decision ever. I had no where to turn. This was the 3rd vet I'd been to- it was the exotic certified one that you found for me an hour away in Edmond, Oklahoma. Dr. Coldiron at Stoneridge Animal.
If he didn't know what to do... no one did that I could find.

My boy Burt had lost so much weight, he wasn't really having "good days" anymore and the medicine WAS NOT HELPING. I tried to call and tell them that but the Dr. didn't return my call. I could tell Burt wanted to eat but couldn't. We were force feeding Nutrical and forcing Pedialite down him but he was becoming more and more dehydrated and his breathing was so bad. His quality of life was not good.
He had been sick for almost 2 months and I spent about $800 and several hours off of work to try to help him.
I loved him so much.
But I took him in to the previous vet and I made the decision to say goodbye. He looked so bad. I know he could have been saved if someone had known how to treat him. I wish I was a doctor... I wish I could have done more but I tried everything in my power. I will feel guilty always, and I miss him so much.
I almost don't want anymore rats because I love them so much but if they can't be properly treated in this state, then I will go through the same thing again and again.
I'm so angry.

I had them do an autopsy. The vet admitted she doesn't see a lot of rats but she said his left lung had several hard lumps in it and one of the lungs seemed undersized. She called it cancer again, but I still doubt it was tumors. She said his heart seemed a little large and the left ventricle seemed bigger. I don't even think the autopsy was revealed much.
Could tell you more but no use- nothing's bringing back my baby.
Thank you for all your help- you were the ONLY ONE who even knew what you were talking about with him, and you never even saw him with your eyes.

ANSWER: I am so sad. I cried when I read this.  I get a little attached to many of the cases I follow...even though I never met him, I wanted so much to help him.  I feel he probably had heart disease along with infection and would have benefited from aggressive antibiotics, such as gentocin, nublized baytril along with lasix for the fluids and kept on oxygen for a few days. During this time, enalapril could have been started for his heart and once he became stronger, a blood work up to see where he stood with heart disease (studying heart enzymes etc...) and go from there.
However.....this is NOT free....and you had already spent close to a thousand dollars as it was...
Long story short, I am just glad Burt is not suffering any longer,. You did the right thing by letting him go.  I have gotten to the point now that I know when they will or will NOT recover and as soon as they even start to gasp, they are let go. I know the way it goes: you have them in oxygen, on meds, this goes on for weeks as you wait for improvement, and you only see just a little at a time, which is enough for us...we see even the slightest sign of improvement and we think they will recover etc....but they dont. They regress and we spend more money and make them go through more of this and more of that until we finally come to the conclusion that our vets are idiots and are not helping our rats...this is usually a thousand dollars LATER!

The part I DONT like is that I DO know what I am talking about.....and that makes me upset that if I KNOW, why dont THE VETS KNOW?????   Dont they care enough to learn this stuff????  Cant they see that people DO  want to help their pet rats and do spend money on their care too.

On the other hand, its so worth what I do when I hear about a happy ending and hear how I saved a rats life. But still....I should not have been the one to save the rats life, the Vet should have....but instead, I saved the rat from the vet and thats no lie.

Burt was so cute. I would like to put his photo on my critter city site if thats ok.

Finally, the name of the Vet I gave you....I take it this vet never got to see Burt?

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


Burt   QUESTION: Sandra, I'd be honored if you used his picture. I couldn't help myself- I attached another of him!

I'm sorry I dumped on you like that, but you make as good a psychologist for rat owners as you do an expert on rat health!

Poor Burt got to where he was gasping pretty much anytime after he walked. Even if the proper treatment were to be given at that time, it was probably too late. I felt like I failed at first, but I'm beginning to accept that I made the correct choice for the situation and I *thank you so much* for your kind words.

The last vet we saw was the exotic certified. He put Burt on the Clavamox.

Here's a summary:
Vet#1 [not certified]: Burt was squeaking when he breathed. Was put on Baytril pills.

Vet #2 [not certified but experienced]: 5 days later, took him to a new vet. Burt was put on liquid/flavored Baytril and liquid/flavored Doxy. 2 week treatment. Still had audible breathing, started coughing and labored breathing. Began nebulizing. Given nebulization liquid solution from this vet that contained Gentocin and mucomist. Was never able to be told how much was in the solution, but treated him in my homemade nebulizer 2 times a day 15 minutes each time for a week. This is when the x-rays were done and the vet told me he had lung tumors and put him on Prednisone. He was given 2 weeks to live. About this time Burt started his trend of being so labored in his breathing that I thought he would pass away, but then he'd "miraculously" rebound back to seemingly good health for 2 or 3 days, then crash back down to severe respiratory problems again. We started him on Pimbobendan and Lasix- mainly at my insistence and refusal to quit treating him after his 2 week death sentence for lung tumors.

Vet #3 [certified vet you gave me the name of]:  A month and a half after Burt presented symptoms and was not improving after various treatments I got him to the certified vet. The certified vet saw the x-rays previously taken and did not believe Burt had lung tumors. He also didn't believe Burt had heart disease [I did] so he told me to quit the heart med, to taper the steroids [your advice too], and to try to quit the Lasix. He was started with the Clavamox for a possible secondary infection. After missing just one dose of Lasix, Burt began coughing again. I put him back on Lasix against the doctor's advise but didn't start the heart meds again. Burt never really bounced back after this, so it was about 5 days later when...

back to vet #2 [I was more comfortable with the staff]: I had Burt euthanized and an autopsy performed. Said his left lung looked smaller and had hard little bumps in it, and his heart looked enlarged with emphasis on the left ventricle.


I probably let him live too long with suffering, but he would show improvement and give me hope... then would come crashing down again.
He was a very, very good boy up until the very end. I stayed with him till he was pronounced gone and his ashes are on my mantle now back in his home.

His surviving brother Dom is doing well but sometimes I catch him hanging his head down when he lays [he usually moves after a minute] and I think, oh boy! But Dom has presented no other symptoms. He was treated with Baytril for an eye infection for about a week. He was also on tri-meth for Bumblefoot about a month ago... your advise... you saved him! Because vet #2 didn't think it was bumble foot without the tell-tale lesions, but I sent you a picture and you nailed it. He made a full recovery on the tri-meth.

Answer
Thank you for the second photo.  He was adorable.  I LOVE black rats to begin with, but dumbo black rat? To die for! My boy Bo was a black berk dumbo....he lived to be 4 years and 3 weeks old!!

As for Burt....I have done the same thing as you with my own rats....they are sick, gasp, have panic attacks, and the next minute, they brux, boggle and groom themselves and me too! I CANT put them down when they are like that. It also gave me hope.....but as time  went on and I learned so much more about rat health and the way things work with these guys, I stopped having the false hope and end their misery. Its more about my own heart ache to be honest...and that is selfish on my part.  When I know that my rats have lung scarring and its irreversible, I let them go despite the fact they may groom and brux and boggle.  Most of the time though they stop eating and spend most of their time laying very still to reserve oxygen. Thats when I let them go....necropsy shows either collapsed lungs, scarring, blistering etc...and I always feel better about letting them go.  I know in time you will find peace with your decisions you will make with your other rats now and in the  future as you too will learn the ABCs of brutal lung disease, UNFORTUNATELY, that is....but when we want to own rats, we need to face the facts that they do harbor myco, and we CAN stop it from getting worse by either finding the right vet OR having a vet that is willing to admit they dont know it all and will take outside  information from someone that has much more experience with rat health problems, which would be someone like me, for example.  I know all too well that when a rat starts with the sneezing and wheezing they MUST be put on baytril for 4 to 6 weeks, no ifs ands or buts. Anything less is just asking for trouble and will create a life time of chronic lung disease.

Anyhow, I think I already put Burts photo up on my site, he was just too cute NOT to put up...but I think I will share his story too, on the myco page.....so people can read it first hand.  The lesions on his lungs were truly scarring the vet saw, which is typical of what mycoplasmosis pulmonis can do to our babies.  It is just NOT FAIR.