# URGENT: Bladder stones



## Bananana (Aug 1, 2011)

I took Charlie to the e-vet a couple nights ago because she was having trouble urinating and looked like she was in pain (she was sucking in her sides and contorting herself to the side). We feared that she might have bladder stones. The e-vet admitted to never having worked with rats before, but she did the best she could. She took x-rays and looked at Charlie's urine under a microscope. According to the vet, nothing showed up on the x-ray and the only thing the vet found in Charlie's urine were "unspecified crystals" (the vet didn't seem worried about them, even when I pressed her about it), a few bacteria and some red blood cells. She gave me some Clavamox and some pain killers (tramadol) and sent me home. The next morning, we tried to make an appointment with our regular vet so he could look at Charlie, but he's out of the office until Friday (he's really sick). Unfortunately, he's the only vet who knows anything about rats in this area. 

We thought it might be okay to wait until Friday since Charlie seemed to be doing better on the Clavamox and her usual baytril (we thought maybe it was just a bladder infection after all), but then tonight she started straining to pee again and frantically nipping at herself down there. She looks a little panicked and she even squeaked a bit while biting at herself. All of that points to bladder stones, and from what I've read, bladder stones require surgery if they are too large to pass. The surgery is very risky. 

I am completely at a loss for what to do. Because the e-vet doesn't know much about rats, she would be pretty useless at this point (especially if Charlie needs surgery), but she's my only option. Is there anything I can ask the e-vet to prescribe or do for Charlie? Is there anything that I can give Charlie to help her pass a stone if that's what is going on? This is absolutely the worst timing possible and I am totally freaking out. 

EDIT: If she can't pass any urine, would a bladder tap be a viable option until she can be treated? (I might be able to get her in to see a more capable vet tomorrow morning, but I need her to make it until morning.)

Will cranberries help? I've read that stones can be dissolved by decreasing the pH of their urine, and I know that cranberries do that.


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## TobyRat (May 24, 2011)

Keep her in an isolated cage with paper towels as bedding to make sure she is urinating. She could just have a UTI, they are often painful and could cause her to have that sort of reaction & present with those findings on a urinalysis. A few crystals are a normal finding in any urine sample, although not sure why she couldn’t ID them. The fact that a stone didn’t show up on the x-ray is a good sign but of course doesn’t rule it out completely. Whether a stone can be dissolved or not by diet and medications depends on the type of stone the animal has. Until you can get her into an exotic vet I would probably just focus on making sure she gets her antibiotics and that she is able to pass urine.


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## lilspaz68 (Feb 24, 2007)

It does sound more like a UTI, as rats rarely get bladder stones. Pain management and antibiotics should cure it quickly.


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## Bananana (Aug 1, 2011)

Update: We put Charlie in their medical cage by herself so we could watch to see if she was able to urinate or not. We got her some cranberry juice and mixed it with yogurt (also on the stone dissolution diet) so she'd eat it. We also administered her nightly dose of baytril and Clavamox. 

It took her a while, but she eventually peed a little, which was a huge relief. She had to strain, and she didn't get very much out either time, but she did it and that's the important part. She was still licking/nipping herself in that area, but no more squeaking and she didn't look panicked anymore. She continued to pee small amounts, fairly frequently. 

Then, about an hour later, she made a HUGE pee. And there were stones/crystals in it. One was big enough to see (like a large grain of sand) and the others I could feel when I rubbed them between my fingers (like really fine salt). So at least we're pretty sure we know what we're dealing with. It's highly unfortunate that she has stones, since I've heard they are pretty difficult to deal with and have a high recurrence rate, but we're prepared to deal with it. I've been researching what kind of diet Charlie needs to be on and we'll be sticking closely to that (if any of you know anything about stone dissolution diets, please chime in! I need all the info I can get). She'll also be getting cranberry juice/dried cranberries frequently to keep the pH of her urine down to prevent more stones/crystals from forming. We'll be feeding lower protein foods like oatmeal and rice with their Mazuri until the Mazuri is gone, then we'll order HT or Oxbow. 

I got up to check on Charlie a few times last night, and she seemed to be doing okay. She was still able to pee this morning. 

We were considering the e-vet mostly as a last-ditch option if it turned out that Charlie couldn't pee and needed an emergency bladder tap, so we decided not to take her in. It would have been close to $300 to have a totally rat-inexperienced vet look at her and go "I don't know what to tell you." That's what happened two nights ago. Thankfully I knew enough about rats to tell the vet what she needed to do for Charlie. **For future reference, just in case anyone finds this thread when they are going through a similar problem, here's the rundown on what the vet needs to do: check bladder for distention (if bladder is very distended and the rat is unable to pee, a bladder tap will be necessary until emergency surgery can be performed to remove the stones), get x-rays to look for obvious stones (you can put a piece of cloth over the rat to get them to hold still for the x-ray), do urinalysis, have the vet look at the urine under a microscope to check for bacteria, rbcs, wbcs and/or crystals, ask for clavamox and baytril to be prescribed and also get a prescription for some relatively kidney-safe pain meds like tramadol. Doses for all drugs can be found on RatGuide.com. 

We have an appointment with our regular vet on Friday (the first day he'll be back in his office) to see if Charlie needs an operation or not, so please send good thoughts that Charlie continues to be able to pass urine until then, and that she won't need an operation.


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## smesyna (Nov 22, 2010)

I don't have advice but I do wish Charlie luck.


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## Bananana (Aug 1, 2011)

*Re: URGENT: Bladder stones (Updated with info from vet visit)*

I went to the vet today and I thought I'd update everyone as to what he said, in case someone needs to use this thread as a reference later. 

He looked at Charlie's x-rays and looked at her pee under a microscope. There was bacteria in her pee and some proteinaceous casts, which our vet said can be indicative of kidney involvement. Chances are, Charlie had a small kidney stone, which then passed into her bladder (the night we went to the e-vet, which would also explain her contorting/twisting prior to passing it). The stone passing into her bladder gave her some relief until it later passed out of her body (two nights ago). There weren't crystals in her urine this time, so that's a good sign, though we'll continue to keep a close eye on her. 

Our vet put Charlie on a small dose of prednisone to help open up her kidney tubules and flush her out (just in case there are more crystals in there) and she'll finish her course of baytril/clavamox. He also said he'd call the e-vet and make sure they know to call him in the event that Charlie needs emergency surgery to remove a stone. 

In case I haven't mentioned it elsewhere, I love my vet. It is a special vet who will make himself available for surgery on his off time. 

Anyway, that pretty much brings us up to speed. We don't really know what caused her to develop kidney stones - it could be an infection or a food intolerance. One thing I mentioned is that my young group of rats (including Charlie) tend to chew off the plastic on their CN shelf pans and eat it (I made a thread on GM about it a month or so ago in relation to my concern over there being a white residue where they were peeing - I'm now pretty sure that the residue was an early sign of Charlie's issues). And when I say they eat it, I mean that they actually swallow it - I've watched it happen. We thought they stopped doing it after we provided them with a plethora of suitable alternatives and attached their liners more tightly, but it looks like there are some new chewed areas. We're going to be ordering Bass pans for the younger girls' cage ASAP, just in case the plastic ingestion had anything to do with this. And regardless, it probably isn't healthy for them to be eating plastic anyway.


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