Severe Myco/ respiratory distress

Question
"Hi Robin, Please help me, my rat Bluebell seems to be seriously unwell! Bluebell is one year and 7 months old and throughout her life so far she has always had what I call the snuffles but it has never been this bad before. In the last few weeks she has had these bad attacks on and off for a couple of days at a time but yesterday night I noticed that she was having an extra bad attack.She has never been this bad! Bluebell appears to be wheezing and having some difficulty breathing. her breathing seems very fast too. She is making some noise and I can especially hear it when I listen to her chest but the outward noise does not happen all the time. She also appears to be lurching forwards when she breathes. She is sneezing occasionally but these sound more like little coughs and she does not have portherin around her nose or eyes. Her general health has also got bad especially today. Her coat looks dull and starky and her eyes are half closed. She has dropped her weight down
to 264 grams and she is just so poorly. The strange thing is that she is still attempting to climb in the cage and still wants to be cuddled by me. I do think that when she gets excited or has to exert herself she does breathe much worse and gets very sleepy. I am giving her some baby food such as fruit puree and milky yoghurt with extra vitamins tonight to give her some energy. I am taking her to the vet tomorrow morning first thing.I am quite sure she has got chronic Myco or some related breathing problem and I have found lots of different medicines on the internet but I wanted to ask you which medicines you feel will help my Bluebell the most because there are so many out there. The problem is my vets do not always seem to know how to treat a rat and this really worries me! Can you advise me on anything that I can do to help Bluebell because I am so scared I am losing her and I hate to see her like this.

Many thanks and best wishes, Rachel Greenaway"


Answer
 It sounds like chronic mycoplasma infection is the problem.  Unfortunately, if she has had this all her life without treatment it has probably caused scarring in her lungs, making it quite difficult if not impossible to treat.  Your vet will likely put her on Baytril, the most commonly prescribed antibiotic, and if she doesn't show any sign of improvement in several days you will probably want to switch to a different one or combination of two.  If the scarring is too bad or it is something else (heart disease and tumors on the lungs or pressing on the lungs can mimic respiratory infections) the antibiotics won't have any effect and it may be too late.

 I would recommend you consult the Rat Guide (http://www.ratguide.com) which has great information on rat health problems and has a nifty medication guide.  If your vet is unfamiliar with treating rats, you may want to suggest that he or she checks out that website for proper dosages and warnings.  I hope your rat gets better soon, good luck!