# Rat degloving and miserable



## dpiston (Mar 2, 2012)

My rat "Frick" got out of her cage last night and wandered around for 12 hours. When i retrieved her, she had somehow stripped **** near half her tail and it looked pretty gruesome. I ran her to the vet, but there is simply no way i can try to afford the 350 dollars they demanded to do anything for her. 

So, I brought her back home and cleaned it and wrapped it in gauze. She is basically crying consistently and it makes me pretty sad. 
She's also been thrashing. I'm trying to do everything I can and I feel bad for being too broke to help her.

First off, I want to know about the process of degloving and how long it takes without a vet. What will I need to do along the way to make sure shes in as little pain as possible?

Also curious to know about anything I can safely give her as a pain reliever and possibly to sedate her. I'll need to be cleaning and changing bandages and theres no way I can do it with her conscious. (big girl-nearly 2 lbs)

any and all suggestions highly appreciated


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## lilspaz68 (Feb 24, 2007)

dpiston said:


> My rat "Frick" got out of her cage last night and wandered around for 12 hours. When i retrieved her, she had somehow stripped **** near half her tail and it looked pretty gruesome. I ran her to the vet, but there is simply no way i can try to afford the 350 dollars they demanded to do anything for her.
> 
> So, I brought her back home and cleaned it and wrapped it in gauze. She is basically crying consistently and it makes me pretty sad.
> She's also been thrashing. I'm trying to do everything I can and I feel bad for being too broke to help her.
> ...


The vet did not give you antibiotics and metacam for the pain? You may not have been able to afford the surgery but you cannot afford the pain meds?

A degloving of that extent is excruciating (imagine if your skin had been peeled off). RUN and pick up infant liquid ibuprofen and if she truly is 2 lbs (900 plus grams) she's going to need the high dosage of .68 ccs every 4 hours or so. Keep her on fleece or something similar, and keep it immaculately clean and pray a lot. Ibuprofen is nowhere near safe enough for long term use so let's hope the pain diminishes quickly.

This is what you are looking at. 

Pain...a LOT of it. Very likely once the pain passes it will get infected, and she will have to be pts before it goes too far. A small degloving only an inch or so, can often resolve at home with pain meds and kept on clean clean environment until it seals up, then the tail will dry out and eventually the rat chews through the cartiledge and amputates it themselves...half the tail means you are dealing with bones and vertebrae.


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## 1a1a (May 6, 2011)

Eap. Perhaps start saving (and getting quotes from different vets) now just in case it goes downhill. Hopefully infant ibuprofen takes the edge off and she heals up without complications.


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