Swollen cheek and respiratory infection symptoms

Question
QUESTION: Hello,
    I came home from college today and found that my rat at home seems to have a respiratory infection.  He is sneezy and has porphyrin discharge from his nose.  I'm not sure if this could actually be something else though, as the first thing I noticed was that the left side of his face, exactly where his whiskers are, is remarkably more swollen than the other side.  I tried to look in his mouth, and it appears that there is some black substance around his teeth and gums under the swollen side, but I couldn't get a good look.  
    I adopted this rat about 5 months ago from a Petco.  They couldn't sell him because he had a strange skin condition that their vet could not diagnose, so I took him to care for him.  All of his skin is covered by tiny little flaky red scabs.  Petco claimed that he was essentially allergic to himself.  I am taking him to a vet in the morning, but I'd appreciate any advice or insight you could provide to me as the vets in the area are not experienced with rats.

ANSWER: Sounds like he has an abscess either in his mouth under the gums or under the cheek.  He should be given antibiotics right away, orally, do not allow the vet to inject baytril or it can cause a serious ulcer as rats have little body fat to protect it from such a caustic burning medication as baytril is.  Also, the scabs sound like he is allergic to something, probably protein in his diet.  Dont listen to petco. They rarely even use a vet that knows about rats and its no wonder the vet did not know why the rat had scabs.  If rats are itching and have scabs from itching and its not from mites or rat lice, its usually from their diet.  Check out my website about this and compare photos. Tell me if this is what your rats skin looks like.


Also, where are you located? I have a database that can locate exotic vets, both board certified and those that are regular vets but have a strong interest and alot of experience with exotics. You may need to drive out 30 minutes or so at times, some people drive an hour, but its worth it. Otherwise, you wont get your moneys worth in the first place if the vet cant properly diagnose the rat and you keep having to go back and buy different meds etc...

Here is the URL to my site.  Please see about the red scabs etc...let me know what you think.

Also I would not let any vet that lacks experience sedate my rat to examine his mouth etc...unless he can promise you he is super experienced in doing this.  I am pretty positive there is infection due to an abscess going on and if he needs his tooth removed this means a qualified vet must do it too.  Again, let me know your location and I will get back to you within the hour.  It is 8 am EST and I am in the US.

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

QUESTION: Thank you for all your help so far.  My rat, Bruiser, did in fact have an abscess in his mouth, right next to his tooth.  The vet squeezed out a ridiculous amount of pus from poor bruisers cheek and gave us some antibiotics to give him twice daily.  It doesn't appear that the swelling has gone down at all, and I am more than a little nervous to try to drain the abscess by myself.  The vet also took a scraping of the discharge, which he described as an oily discharge from Bruisers pores, and confirmed that it was not mites or lice.  He gave us an anti-fungal shampoo to use on him once a week, but in addition I am also going to try lowering his protein intake. Thank you so much for your help, it was very reassuring.  

Answer
The antibiotics should do the trick but if it swells more, it would feel better if the vet drained it again.  It may drain itself.
However, please watch for any broken skin on the outside. In other words, watch for the abscess to break through from in the mouth to outside of the mouth on the cheek.  What meds is he takinng?

The spots on the skin, are they orangish, almost like a staining on the skin?  I wish I had words to describe it, but I am thinking its buck grease. This is like an oily patch of orange, like grease, that looks like maybe an age spot or birth mark, and they are all over in areas. You can almost scrape it off. This is from over active sebaceous glands and also hormones that create an abnormal amount of oil that collects on the skin and traps dirt and every day grease etc...and its known as buck grease.  Does this sound about what your boy has?