Acute illness in pet rat

Question
QUESTION: Dear Samdra:

I just had to have one of my pet rats euthanized and I'm still not sure what happened to him. I have seven other rats and am hoping that whatever happened to him isn't contagious. He was 19 months old. I adopted him and his brother from another person when they were a year old. The former owner said they'd not had any medical problems. He was healthy, good weight, lovely coat, great appetite, never any myco noise. On occasion, he'd have a rare sneeze.  Then two weekends ago I discovered him sneezing profusely and his nose sounded very blocked. I started him on baytril/doxycycline and nebulizing. Two days later his right eye looked filled with blood (his eyes were normally black) but this one had gone bright red and had started to bulge. I took him to the vet to find out what might be going on. They took an x-ray and said his lungs were clear and his heart looked fine. I asked about a possible brain tumor and was told at that time that they didn't see anything. She suggested his eye problem was likely due to some kind of trauma, perhaps having hit it against something in his cage while struggling to gain his breath. I was told to keep on with the antibiotics and nebulizing. I asked for some BNP antibiotic ointment for the eye.

Over the next few days, although he began to breathe more through his nose again, the eye became much worse despite antibiotics. It bulged more and went hard and it became apparent that he was in a lot of pain. Even two doses of prednisone over a 12 hour period didn't relieve anything. He began to bite at my fingers as if in frustration.

I took him back to the vet two days ago, thinking perhaps he needed corticosteroid drops or to have the eye surgically removed. They refused to do it, telling me that there was nothing more they could do for him and that the eye was likely 'secondary' to something else going on; he was visibly in pain and still doing some struggling to breathe. They told me that he would not survive the surgery and the only humane thing to do was to put him down. I tried to argue about the surgery, explaining that I was willing to try it - if he didn't survive it, so be it, but euthanasia definately ensured he wouldn't survive anything. They insisted that to put him through this surgery would be inhumane and that the only right thing to do was to have him put to sleep.

Given the extreme pain he was in and that none of the medicines had worked to this point, I finally gave in. On top of grieving, I'm still shocked at how quickly this came up in a seemingly healthy rat. I do have some myco in some of my other rats, but I'm managing it with medicines and none of the others are having any real difficulty breathing; just some noise that comes and goes.

What could have caused this and do you have any idea what it might have been? Oh, when I asked about the x-ray again, they told me that 'they couldn't see the head portion because that is where they'd held him to keep him steady while the x-ray was being taken'. I felt angry at this because here I'd thought they HAD been able to see the head the week before and had told me that nothing had been detected. Now I'm wondering if he'd had a brain tumor that had put pressure on that eye; something that had grown large enough to affect him.

Thanks for whatever response you can provide.

ANSWER: The photo in the corner is my rat, Santana.  He had his eye removed when he was 19 months old and is of course, here today and perfectly fine.  Nothing inhumane about him having just one eye.  He is bold, friendly, silly, big and beautiful male that loves to kiss me and loves to play and build nests like a girlie girl.  What your rats eye  was just like Santanas eye.  In fact I have photos of it on my website, Critter City.  your rat had a nasty infection behind the eye that caused bleeding and eventually it hardened once it lost its blood supply.
It was not a brain tumor or you would have noticed neurological signs such as loss of the use of their limbs, unable to walk, clumsy, dizzy, spinning, circling or even head tilt would all be seen.

You were right to want to do surgery, but sadly, you have some not so good vets that I strongly advise you to ditch and find someone else.  They are obviously not exotic vets or if they claim to see exotics, they are just regular general practice that sees exotics but in no way do they have the special education under their lab coats to know about rats and small mammals or your rat would be alive today recovering from e nucleation surgery (removing the eye)
I can find you some names of exotic vets or a general vet that sees exotics, BUT with a strong interest in exotics enough that they have attended workshops and seminars on their own time in order to keep up to date on current treatments etc... No obligation of course, but I can at least give you names of vets that are not going to just insist on euthanasia because they are clueless as to how to treat the animal.  


Go to my website to see the picture of Santana.  Go to this page and scroll down all the way to see my own three pet rats and you will see my sweet boy. I forgot to attach the photo here and not it wont allow me to do it.  


http://www.freewebs.com/crittercity/aboutmeandmyratstoo.htm

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

QUESTION: Thank you, Sandra. The intense feeling that he would have been okay, had he had the surgery will not leave me. I kept having (and still do) the terrible gut hunch that they were wrong because he still had great appetite and everything else was good; just the eye and his pain. I feel sick by this because there's nothing I can do now. This makes my grief worse; he had so much to live for and he loved life so much. Please send me info on exotic vets; I am in Eastern Ontario. Thank you so much. I pray my rat can forgive me for going along with her; she left me feeling like I was so inhumane to want to try anything else.

Answer
I am sorry.....I did not mean to make you feel bad. I was just so mad at the vet for not helping you.   
So now I am going to ease your guilt by telling you this.  Its a scenerio, mind you.....
Lets just say you did let them operate.  Chances are, the infection had gotten so out of hand that the infection would spread after they removed the eye and he would or could have ended up with sepsis, which is when the bacteria enters the blood stream. Its a very dangerous thing for humans and as you can imagine, it is almost always fatal in rats.  The eye is so "right there" next to the brain that it would not take much for the infection to go right to the brain and well you can just imagine the horror.   I wont say that this for sure would have happened, but its a high possibility that it would because of the severity of infection and the fact that the vets were more than likely not properly prepared to handle a situation like this is high, this makes the chances that there would be some sort of serious complication occur even more likely  and if that was the case, you would feel responsible because they warned against the surgery in the first place. Not sure if this made sense or not. They knew that they did not know how to remove this rats eye safely so instead they made it look like it was impossible to do on a rat.  This means they did not have the means to take care of the active infection such as providing the rat with an IV while he was under anesthesia. They probably did not have a small enough needle or even the knowledge on how to insert a tiny needle into a tiny vein. They also probably would not have had the proper instruments to work in such a small area to remove the eye and also keep him from bleeding to death by clamping down on big blood vessels that can bleed out etc...   which is why a vet that is not properly set up to care for exotics should NOT see them at all. They create more harm than good. So what I am saying is, they probably would have caused alot of problems for the rat during surgery and he would not have made it anyhow.   Also, if you wanted to go get another opinion that would mean waiting at least a few more days to get him in and chances the ifnection would go deeper into his system were very real since this can spread like wild fire.  Basically, you did the right thing by putting him down. He was in pain and you knew that he was. It is painful condition that he had, so you did the humane thing by putting him down because those clowns would not have helped him had you begged them to operate anyhow.   You had no other choice and you did the best thing for him, so please do not feel guilty.


I hope this made sense.  I am talking in circles and usually I am much more articulate with words.
I wanted to get this out to you NOW before looking for vets so let me know you read this and that your OK and I will write back with names of vets for you.  

its ok.  Its not your fault and your boy is no longer in pain and he understands you had to help him right at that moment.


also you say Eastern Ontario, I am not sure where that is.....ottawa? Can you tell me where your near?  Also, can you make the follow up private and tell me where you took your boy so I can check their credentials and see if they are exotic certified or what they say their services offer if that includes exotics too...I have a feeling that are full of BS!

If your near Ottawa, I know of someone right now that is awesome with rats.....hopefully you are!