My Poorly Pixie!! Will she recover?

Question
Hello,
I have four beautifull ratties in my care and am a fairly experienced rat owner, but am out of my mind with worry over one of my babies, and dearly hope you can clear somethings up for me.
The little lady in question is Pixie, a 21.5 month old, dumbo female. She has been having respiratory problems on and off for the last 6 months (at least) for which she has been under the care of the local vet (vet pretty good, in the past managed to get my rescue rat to over 3 years old dispite respiratory probsfrom an early age).
For the past 3 months she has been on constant Baytril, and whilst this stopped her from getting any worse and any acute relapses, she still has very rattley breathing/ wheezing some days. But the vet feels this is the best he can achieve, and there is little else he can do, he gives my Pixie a dieuretic (sp?)(water tablet) when needed to keep the fluid off her lungs.
She is currently off her Baytril for a month and then is to go on another long course, although I have noted no worsening of symptoms in this time (well breaching wise anyway), she is on week 3 of the off time.
The past few days/week she has been sleeping more and is noticably slower moving around the levels of their cage. Her fur has been fluffed up for time to time, like it does on the rare occasions when she has had a disagreement with her sister. But yesterday morning when I woke up she was just lying on a shelf in the cage and wouldn't get up, her fur was fluffed and the eyes red with discharge. I put her in the invalid cage by the fire, gave her a drink and some fav treats. After a few hours she has pick up a little, and is now eating lots as normal, and drinking, even had a bit of a wash BUT she keeps rolling over when she walks and is very uncoordinated and slow. Her back legs seem the worse, one slighly more so than the other, but she seems generally badly coordinated, and has lost all bladder control.
Me and my husband love this rat dearly, and her three cage sisters miss her terribly.
Does this sound like a stroke to you or her other infection overwhelming her body?
Is there any hope of her achieving a quality of life after this? I keep clinging to the hope that she is not suffering as she is still loving her food and fuss, but I worry I am conning myself as her fur is fluffed up.
I hate the thought of stressing her by taking her to the vets, when I think they will say the only option is to have her put to sleep, and I don't know weather I am ready to make that decision today. But really don't want her to suffer.
Is it the only fair option, or may she recover? Equally I don't want to put her though a treatment if there is little/no hope of real recovery?
Finally at university in the physiology course, we were told that the lethal injection for humans that is, was actually very painfull but contained a drug to paralyse the patient to stop it showing. Please tell me this is not the same for pets, and its just one of those horrible rumours? This is something that is giving me nightmares.
Thank you so much for your time, and reading this VERY long question, but I just want to do what is best for my Pixie, and all the advice you have given has fitted well with my experiences of rats and medicine, so would truely value your opinion.

Kindest Regards and many thanks

Holly

NB She weights 550 grams at last weigh in, and her sisters all appear in good health.

Answer
Hi Holly

I am real sorry about your little lady's failing health. Mycoplasmosis is an evil that I despise. I wish there was something that could be done but it is a real bugger of an organism that doesn't respond to many drugs and I am afraid our once wonder drug, baytril, is slowly but surely becoming immune to the organism too.

I am like you, I want to exhaust all options first before making the big decision or sometimes I would pray they become angels on their own, during a peaceful sleep, but most of the time is spent racing a rat to the vets to be put down if I think they are suffering.

When our rats cant breathe, they tend to become anxious, often seeking the higher levels of the cage or getting on top of their hidey houses etc... or they tend to hang their head over a ledge or threshold of the cage. They are trying to compensate for lack of oxygen and they tend to panic, sometimes running frantically in the cage or tugging at the cage door trying to escape.  
What can be done to help this from occurring is putting the rat on low dose of valium twice a day. It works miracles when the rat is suffering respiratory distress.
Also a sick rat wont eat or drink or show interest in much of anything. If she is still eating and damned and determined to survive, I wouldn't take that away from her, not yet. The excessive porphyrin around her eyes indicates she is stressed as does the poor coat (fluffy coat, actually) so she needs to calm down some.
If your vet is willing to go one more step further with this I would ask for the following:
Along with the baytril, I would give Cefa drops twice a day for secondary infection This will also act as a back up to the baytril although it wont help for myco, it will help with secondary infection the baytril may miss.
Albuterol twice a day, low dose, increasing if the lowest dose is not effective.
Liquid valium, for her weight, she should get .1 cc twice a day. It will NOT stone her or cause heavy sedation, just a nice calm rat and it helps with their anxiety which in turn causes them to hyperventilate.
Has the vet done a good exam on her heart, by chance? Sometimes heart disease goes hand in hand with lung disease although from what you describe I don't see any real indication her heart is involved.
How is the color of her extremities? Blue or purple is no good, of course, and means she is really lacking oxygen which is a crisis and that is when she should be put on oxygen.
Does your vet offer overnight care? What I mean is this: If she could be put in an oxygenated enclosure and have the medications nebulized and have fluids put in her sub-cue for at least a few days while the new meds have a chance to work (during this time I would also give her a few days worth of gentocin injections but some vets fear kidney problems due to the harshness of gentocin, but when the benefits outweigh the risks, what is there to lose?) If she could just stay in an environment like that for a few days it would really benefit her body. She wouldn't have to fight as much trying to get better if she had oxygen and extra fluids.
Do you trust your vet is my next question. How many drugs and different things have been tried on her or did she simply get one or two types of medications and the vet said that there is nothing else to be done for her after this?

About euthanasia...if done humanely, the drugs used in the vets office do not act like the lethal injection used for humans (I have heard the same thing, btw, and how inhumane it is to do to humans)
The way we do it (and I don't mean to include myself because this is the part of it where I skip out and hide, even with my own rats)the rat is put under anesthesia just as if she were going to have surgery. once in a heavy plane of anesthesia, the cardiac injection is used to stop the heart, and it is instant. However, the animal MUST be totally OUT under anesthesia, not just sedation, but basically this animal is comatose before the cardiac stick is done and in fact its illegal in most states to do it any other way. Some vets do it other ways and the rat dies slowly while their owner comforts and holds them and this is where I would raise an eyebrow about what they are really feeling, like you said before, that perhaps they are rendered helpless and forced to endure the pain of the lethal injection which is why the vets I work with only use the heart stick while the rat is under anesthesia. Not a pleasant topic, I know, but something we all must face and its vital rat owners are aware of stuff like this.
Some say they don't want their rat to be put in the little clear box they use when they put the rat under anesthesia because the rat may panic for a few seconds but its worth it for those few seconds than to know or rather NOT know if your rat is really feeling the lethal injection that is running through their veins.
Now I am sick to my stomach thinking any vet would allow this, but hopefully they don't, and this is why I wouldn't let just any vet euthanize my rat unless it is done MY WAY!
I may have skipped some of the things you asked so if I did please let me know.
You asked if she may have had a stroke or if she is so weak due to infection and to be honest, its a tough call to make but it could be either or both. Sepsis can also act that way so if she has built an immunity from the baytril, its possible it is infection. Watch for any fluid from her mouth or nose (not porphyrin) it would be clear fluid which is lung fluid and this is a bad sign.

I hope I have helped, but I dont feel I have much to offer at this point other than a few other things to try medically but I cant even promise that it will work just because I have seen rats in the past make a complete about face in very grave situations by using the methods I have described above.

hang in there

Sandra