Sudden confusion and strange behavior in old male rat.

Question
QUESTION: Hi Sandra,

You helped me out once before almost a year ago, so I thought I'd come back and ask for your advice once more.

This is concerning a 2 year, 4 month-old male rat named Mikey. He is the last of his litter to survive (the rest died before reaching 2 years from a lot of various health problems, so his gene pool is not fantastic). He is currently taking baytril for a consistent myco problem, but has been doing very well with it and has no outward signs of respiratory illness anymore.

Essentially, he has had a sudden onset of peculiar behaviors. He is out of the blue, very alert, nervous, cautious, and confused. I found him in this state last night (he was fine earlier that day). Usually he's very relaxed and lazy, but curious about the world and enjoys exploring. Last night during playtime he stood stark still on my lap for a long time, and only moved to go do the same thing in one of his hidey boxes. I thought maybe he had gotten spooked by some noise my roommate made earlier, so I let him go home, and he immediately went to hide in one of his boxes on the upper level of his cage.

When I woke this morning, I found he had never once gone down to the lower level all night. His dinner was still all in his dish down on that level (he has food hidden up on the top level, so he may have eaten that). I brought his water bottle up to him immediately, and he drank from that for a long time. He was still the same though - scared, confused...I brought his food dish up to him and he just stared at it. I had to hand him his food piece by piece until he finally "remembered" he could just get it out of the dish.

He is very panicky anywhere other than my lap or his box on the top floor of his cage now. And he genuinely seems confused about the entire world.

I was wondering if he maybe had a stroke, but he has no physical symptoms. His balance and coordination is fine, he walks fine. I pressed gently along his whole body to see if he had some other pain issue, but he was fine with all of that.

He is overweight, so there is potential I suppose it could be some heart issue. It's just so sudden...

My question is, is should I get him to a vet today, or wait and see how he does and maybe get him in tomorrow if the symptoms persist? I only hesitate because he is so nervous right now, and the vet is a very long car ride away and is a "scary place" in my rat's mind, naturally. I don't want to distress him further if I can help it.

And do you have any idea what could have happened? I asked my roommate and she could think of nothing serious that would have startled him while I was out last night. I'm at a loss of what to do, and very nervous.

Thank you very much,

Katie

ANSWER:
Its distress, possibly respiratory.  I know you said he is doing well on baytril, but the panicky part points to the fact he has probably hyperventilated, possibly has rapid heart rate which may scare him and cause panic.

When he breathes, do his sides sink it?  Are his feet blue or purple?  Note the veins in his ears......are they red and prominent? His testicles and the genital area, is it normal or blue to purple?

Heart disease can come on suddenly and cause panic but if he has any lung problems, this could be it as well.

I would call the vet soon as you can. See how the vet feels about benadryl to get him to be a bit relaxed for the car trip?

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

QUESTION: Thank you very much for your reply, Sandra.

His breathing is normal, and his extremities were of normal temperature and coloration both last night and today. I emailed my vet, who is good about getting back via email ASAP, and am waiting for a reply now.

I'll see if I can get him an appointment tomorrow with my vet. He's not in sheer panic, as much as just nervous and cautious about the world.

Do you have any idea if something like this can be treated? Or what I can do overnight for him? Right now I'm just making sure he gets his water and food, and doesn't have anything near him that could spook him.

Answer

This is off the wall, and some vets may freak at this, but we have used liquid valium for rats with panic attacks and also taken tablets, divided them according to proper dose, crushed them and put the powder in baby food.  This makes a nice calm rat, but not a "stoned out of his mind" rat, if you know what I mean. Their body burns through medications like this so fast due to their fast metabolic rate.

You can also move his cage to a quiet area, put a sheet over most of it and turn the TV on low to drown out any sounds, esp sudden sounds.

Its good his breathing is normal and there is no sign of cyanosis. Something is bothering him, obviously, and I do think it could be treated.  If its something related to his heart, say, an arrhythmia, which can spook a rat because they dont know why their heart is racing, the vet can give enalapril, which is a cardiac drug and also used for high blood pressure. It slows the heart rate down but it is a safe drug, and even if the rat doesnt have heart disease, it wont hurt him, just make him a bit sleepy, which doesnt hurt a nervous rat.

Your vet may even agree to a bit of benadryl tonight (childrens elixir) dosed according to his weight.  If its his lungs, and just say he may not be breathing as easy as he should, there are drugs that can open his airway such as albuterol, although this can race the heart, so of course this would be used only after the vet checks him and sees if this is what he needs or not.

Also, as long as he isnt in a total panic, hopefully a sheet over the cage and some constant background noise is all he needs till the vet sees him.   The reason the background noise is a good idea is because it seems if a room is totally quiet and all of a sudden there is a noise, this can send a nervous rat running for cover, so constant noise/white noise is best to absorb any sudden sounds like a sneeze or a bang!! from something dropping or a door slam etc....