2 yr. old male rat losing his sight

Question
Hi Sandra.  We have had our male rat Steve McQueen for over 2yrs.  I have often gotten on this site and sought your advice by reading others questions and concerns.  My daughter is fifteen and has bipolar disorder and fibromyalgia and he has been the best medicine for her.  He is the love of the entire families lives.  Recently he has been not as active and I have read that male rats get lazier as they get older.  Then we noticed he was falling over a lot so after reading what you had said about blindness we checked with a pen light and sure enough he seems to be completely blind in one eye and partially in the other.  My question is what can we do to help him.  He's hardly eating or drinking and is starting to develop redness in his nose.  We have to basically shove his food in his face and then he takes some.  He was a chubby boy so it's just sad to see him thin and not as active. He also seems to be breathing heavier, it could just be that it's more noticeable now that he's thinner.  It's breaking our hearts to see him deteriorate so quickly and want to do whatever we can to make him comfortable and help him.  Thank you for all the support you've given without knowing it and for helping in this matter.

Answer
Hi Christeen

I have a rat like this. He is not even two yet, but he had some sort of virus back in the winter that claimed his vision. We were never able to pin point the exact organism, but he did mock inner ear infection. He would fall over, walk in circles, even raise his head straight up, nose pointed to the ceiling, and just stand there. It was very odd. He spent close to 2 weeks at the clinic while he regained his strength, but his sight never returned.  The good news is, rats do not really depend on their vision to navigate around. If they were human, they would be legally blind. Red or pink eyed rats are even worse than dark eyed rats but dark eyed rats are also nearly blind. Their whiskers are the key to their locomotion as well as their keen sense of hearing.
For starters, I would take him to the vet and have him looked at. He could have an inner ear infection that is knocking him off balance. The loss of vision could be totally unrelated though but it could be just like what my boy, Smudge, went through. Aggressive antibiotics and steroids are the key to recovery in cases like this. As for rapid breathing and being just simply "blah" sometimes rats will dehydrate very fast when they refuse to eat and drink. Get some baby food, any kind will do, carrots or sweet potatoes, even applesauce or whatever they have, and let him lick it from your fingers. Watermelon juice, koolaid, childrens pedialyte, anything WET that will perk his interest that tastes good, put it in a dropper and let him suck it at the side of his mouth. He needs fluids so he doesnt really dehydrate and in fact the vet may decided to give him fluids under the skin too which really perks up a sickly rat.
Next, his living situation: If he is in a cage with various levels, please remove them and keep him on one story, even if the space is a bit small, while he is ailing he may not care if he isnt wanting to move around much. Keep everything on one level and low so he can reach it. Try not to move his stuff around much though so if he indeed has lost his vision, he wont have to bump into things to find his way.
SMudge used to live in a huge ferret nation with his cagemates and is now in a single story cage and sleeps in a ferret ball that is attached so it doesnt move. He even finds his litter pan (he is litter trained) and uses it like a champ. He has two water bottles and if I move one, he knows it and gets confused. His food bowls are always in the same location. He also eats baby food too because he became really picky but he does eat rodent blocks and a bit of my rodent mix, picking out mostly the puffed rice or rice chex but he is doing good so that should be comforting for you.  Your rat is NOT old, not yet...he is just getting to his senior years so lets hope for a speedy recovery. Do you have a vet that is good with rats? If not, let me know and I can give you some names or better yet, refer to my website and this page:
http://www.freewebs.com/crittercity/therightvetforyourrat.htm
Go to the link for the AEMV and look for your state to find a vet in your area if you need one.
Please keep me posted and I hope this helps some. GOod luck!