sudden lethargy

Question
QUESTION: Last night, I noticed my rat,Luna,to be acting different than normal. She's still eating and drinking a little. She's usually all over the place in the cage,and when she's out of the cage.  Now she's just sitting there, and not moving much. I went up to the cage today, and she was on her side in the hammock with her back feet sticking out. She didn't even try to come to the cage door...just looked at me. As i'm writing this she's sitting in my lap doing nothing but sitting. Do you know what could cause this?

ANSWER: Hi Rachelle

Lethargy is never always a real good thing to have going on with rats and can be an indicator of a vast majority of ailments impossible to narrow down without an examination.
It can be anything from simply not drinking enough water and being a bit dehydrated, or she could have something going on internally such as an infection that is just starting to show physical signs.

I can help try to narrow it down for you best I can from over the computer:

You said she is eating and drinking a little. Is she taking her favorite treats?

Is she urinating normally?
How are her stools? Loose or hard and dry or normal?

Any sneezing or sounds of congestion?

Any porphyrin discharge from her nose or eyes?

You said you had her on your lap and she was just sitting there, is this unusual for her to do?  Did you have to physically reach in the cage and bring her out to you or did she come out on her own?

Has she been sick recently? Is yes, what was the treatment?

How old is she?  

Does she live alone?

What type of bedding/litter do you use and what type of housing does she live in (cage or tank)

What does her everyday diet consist of?

Check the color of her feet.ARe they nice and pink or blue or purple tinged?

Is she breathing faster than normal?

Can you look in her mouth and see if her teeth look aligned?

Are they nice and yellow to yellowish-orange?

I hate to ask a trillion things but in order to at least have a general idea of what is going in I need to know a bit about her first.

How is she now since several hours have gone by since you first wrote to me?

Hang in there and write back soon as you can!

Sandra

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

QUESTION: Thankyou, Sandra. I'll try to answer them as best as I can.

She is eating and drinking BARELY. I have seen her drink a lot, but today she wouldn't take any food from me. I tried to give her a piece of tortilla but she just took it and sat there with it in her mouth.

I unfortunately haven't seen any of her stools, and it's difficult to tell who's is who's because I have 3 other rats. I'll try to see if I can find some that looks odd. She seems to be urinating normally, peed on me this morning. (whoopsie!)

She isn't sneezing, however, I did put my ear up to her chest to see if I could hear anything unusual. What I heard (and felt!) sounded like her heart beating really hard and fast. That did worry me a lot, I haven't heard it before. I'm a hypochondriac for my rats, and check their breathing every day.

She had a little bit of porphyrin around her eyes, but it may have been because she just woke up.

When she was just sitting in my lap, it isn't normal AT ALL. I usually have to struggle to keep her on or near me. She likes to leap onto the floor and explore the dog. If she's not running all over the place, she'll be on top of my head, or running all over my legs. She did try to get on my shoulder, but was just so weak, she couldn't get up there. I had to reach in and take her out of the cage, which was my first warning, because she's always the first one at the door.

She hasn't ever been sick since i've had her.

She turned a year old last month,

She has 3 other ratties living with her who are also perfectly healthy.

Her bedding is eco-fresh usually, but sometimes I put some fleece on the bottom of the cage. (they're messy and push all the eco fresh out of the cage)I alternate every couple days.

Her diet is the suebee diet with harlan teklan lab blocks. I  also give them fresh veggies. Oh, and once a week they get a boiled egg.

I looked at her feet earlier today, and they seemed normal. They always look kinda sorta bluish because she has black fuzz on her feet.

She's breathing faster than normal, and occasionally a lot slower than normal. When she is breathing slower, she'll kind of breath with a twitch( her head moves twitch-like when she breaths)

anddd her teeth look normal

in the few hours, she's been about the same. She's gotten a bit worse :(

thankyou for helping me so fast! I really appreciate it.

by the way, please understand that I would normally take her to the vet, but my dog Sammy just had to get surgery on his stomach which was VERY expensive and my vet fund is pretty much drained. I can't afford to get her the care she needs, which is why I contacted you. Thankyou so much for any help you can give me

Rachelle  

Answer
Hi Rachelle


First thing is to get her hydrated. If you can get her to drink you may notice her perk up some. Offer her mashed watermelon, put the watermelon juice in a syringe. Also, strained baby food is part liquid so if she licks it from your fingers this is also a good source of both liquid and food. Sick rats dont really eat much. Chewing exerts them too much and if for some reason she is having any respiratory or heart issues, she may prefer to lick rather than chew. You can also try to offer her childrens pedialyte too.  The fruit flavor is a hit with rats, usually that is. Some rats are just too picky for anything!!

Unless you tell me you happen to have antibiotics laying around the house or liquid enalapril, there is nothing else I can do for her without medical intervention.

Sometimes the only sign during acute illness like this is severe lethargy and blood work is often warranted in these cases to check for systemic infection.

Also, and I dont want to scare you but I do need to be honest, severe lethargy is also linked to neurological disorders if not cardiovascular disorders too.  When its neurological, it could involve a possible clot or abscess in the brain. I have seen this more than I would like to admit in rats, including my own, that just all of a sudden become totally listless but do not show any signs of typical respiratory problems and this is the only sign they have(severe lethargy)  Necropsy usually showed lesions of various origins on the brain which causes the rat to just shut down.

Tell me what you have laying around the house. Anything, even medication for the dog at this point could help if your rat has a systemic infection.

I wish I had more answers for you and hopefully this can be resolved simply by rehydrating her and getting her to eat again....but deep down inside I think it may be a bit more serious than that.

Let me know what you have around the house....no matter if you think it wont be able to be used on the rat or not, you would be surprised the medications rats CAN have safely.