My male rat with a suspected pituitory tumor.

Question
Can a male rat loose the use of his front paws due to an ear infection? Or is this usually due to a pituitory tumor? He still cleans himself with his paws, and walks relatively normally on them, however he is finding it difficult to hold and eat food with his paw. I automatically thought that it was a pituitory tumor, however I was wondering if an ear infection could cause this loss of balance and use of his paws. Please help me. I dont know what to do.

Answer

Sometimes an ill rat will become too weak to hold and grasp food so the good news is, its not always a pituitary tumor that can cause this, but illness itself can cause the rat to just simply feel lousy to the point they dont feel like holding their food.

I never jump to conclusions right off when rats show signs of both otitis media and pituitary tumors since they mimic each other.  However, if the Vet treats the rat properly for infection of the middle/inner ear using the proper antibiotics and steroids to help with the inflammation of the vestibular cochlear nerve and the rat doesn't improve but instead, becomes worse over time, this is a pretty good indication it is a pituitary tumor.

Other signs of pituitary tumors that may separate it from that of ear infection would be that the rats health declines rapidly with weight loss, severe loss of balance, inability to chew and eventually they become unable to swallow too. These are late in the disease signs, however, and usually by this time it is obvious the rat has a pituitary tumor.

The best thing to do is to get your little guy to a vet that is very qualified in treating pet rats and understands the proper way to diagnose and treat otitis media in pet rats and is also aware of how common it is for rats to develop a pituitary adenoma, although more common in females than in males, this doesn't make our male rats exempt from developing them, either.