Rat shaking

Question
Hi! I have a male pink eyed rat named Mackie, I have had him for about a year and a half. For the past few months or so he has be shaking..not like normal shaking though its almost seizure like; it seems like he is shaking on the inside and it's very jerky. It usually lasts a few seconds or so, and he acts as though he doesn't even notice, but last night he was shaking harder and for a longer period of time. I don't know what to do when this happens I try to comfort him and pet his head, but again he acts like he doesn't even notice!
He doesn't have the pink coloring around his eyes, nor is his breathing very loud...he does have the occasional whistly breath but it's not frequent. I took him to the vet maybe 8 months ago and she gave him shot for mites and medicine to help prevent a respiratory infection. He has never been a very active rat, whenever we sit together he trys to stay as close me to as possible and be pet (he is such a cuddler) anyway..can you help me figure out what is wrong with him? I tried looking things up online but I did not see anyone else listing the same issue. Thank you!

Answer
Hi Erin

Guess what?  Your rat has Hiccups(or hiccoughs)
I know that may seem hard to believe something that has been really troubling you be something that simple,but its true.

If I can try to explain how it looks maybe you can see its the same way your rat does it:

They usually are sitting or standing and they just start to twitch and jerk and twitch and jerk..imagine when you hiccup. Notice his jerks/twitches happen every second or two, just like hiccups in humans. He may even be eating when it happens, or grooming, but they are not the least bit disturbed by it at all when it happens.  Is this anything like what your rat does?
Sometimes the entire episode will last a minute or two or even less. Sometimes they also make a little peeping sound when they do it too...sometimes no sound at all.
Anyhow, this is really truly all that it is as far as your description tells me.  
If you do a search on rat hiccups you will get some info but do not let it confuse you if it says they are silent or they mean this or that is wrong because that is not accurate. They are totally normal and nothing is wrong if your rat has hiccups.
I do want to also warn you and any other reader here to be very careful about the info you retain when found on the internet.  There are so many people that own rats and think that because they know a little bit about them that they are experts and since there are so many websites that offer free webpages etc...there are tons of rat related websites out there to check out. However, as many websites that there are, there are just as many that give inaccurate information. Sometimes these websites are written by 12 year old kids. Some will tell you that rats have rabies or rats have a dry bite or rats can catch colds and strep throat that turns into deadly pneumonia (which is a big world wide myth going that needs to STOP!) and so on...

Here are a few websites that are great to read and totally accurate.

http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=H

http://ratbehavior.org/rats.html

http://ratfanclub.org/helpinfo.html

My site, of course ::wink wink::
http://www.freewebs.com/crittercity/index.htm