# Rat Sucking Sides In.. and drooling? Possibly choking.



## tok (Jul 16, 2012)

It came really .. suddenly. She was out on my lap playing around when she suddenly stopped moving. I looked down at her and she was sucking her sides in. It wasnt as bad as some pictures that Ive just seen, but it's enough for me to be worried.

I don't really understand where it's come from. 

There is one possibility that she somehow hurt her back? That's what my girlfriend says. Izzy bar chews and as a preventative measure we have lined the top of her cage with denim and cardboard.. it's worked for the most part, but sometimes she chews through the cloth and gets into that small space. She did that today.

Then, just as I was typing this, I realized she was drooling. Could she be choking? She's not pulling her head or ears back too terribly much.

I was just feeding her some Oxbow. 

As of now she was placed back into her cage.. incase she is choking, so she can get it figured out herself.. or so I've read. I'm really worried.


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## tok (Jul 16, 2012)

Now she's shaking, leaking porphyrin from her eyes and nose.. and doing this weird chattering. 

Starting to look for vets around here. The one we take the dogs to apparently doesn't take rats. >.<


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## tok (Jul 16, 2012)

As we were looking for vets/gathering funds for a vet, she seems to have gotten a little bit better. The leaking stopped, she's only sucking in her sides veeerrry slightly, and she stopped drooling and is also only chattering a little bit.

I still have no idea what happened. But shes looking better, starting to get more active, and now I'm not.. as worried.
Still considering taking her to the vet, but as she's improved, I'm not sure if she needs to go RIGHT NOW. All the vets are closed around us, and I only have 45$ to my name. My mom was kind enough to offer 75$ to add to that, so we should have enough for treatment should the need arise.


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## tok (Jul 16, 2012)

Made an appointment for her tomorrow at 8 am, is there anything we can do overnight to make sure she stays comfy?

She seems to be sucking in her sides again. :/


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## LightningWolf (Jun 8, 2012)

It could be anything from she got a piece of food stuck in her lungs (I doubt it would last this long) to she is having seizers. Drooling? Rats typically don't drool unless its a seizer, stroke, or stuff like rabies (I highly doubt she has rabies). I would definally take her to a vet. This sounds like a very serious issue.

Oh another issue could be Pitutory tumors. your Pitutory gland affects your brain and everything from walking to behavior. my rat Charles (RIP) had it, at first he had trouble walking, then he got a "respitory illness", he eventually could barely walk, or even lay, without rolling off my lap. His breathing was odd, and he often made chattering noise. Eventually he died peacefully on me, the tumor made his brain stop sending signals to his heart. There are hundreds of symptoms for pitutory tumors, and its often very hard to diganoise sometimes. As it can cause what happened to Charles, a rat to become aggressive (or even an aggressive rat to become nice) to even in theory this, and almost every part of the body deals with signals from the brain and pitutory gland.

If it Is pitutory tumor there is nothing you can do, the vet will either tell you to make sure she is comfortable or to be put to sleep. Rats with it can live from only a few hours to months, Charles lived 4 days before he died from it. Some rats are born with it and live years before dying (related or non related diseases). This is not to worry you but with these symptoms I wouldn't out rule this.


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## tok (Jul 16, 2012)

Thanks for your reply. Will be bringing up these things with the vet tomorrow.

As of now she seems to be pretty normal, though she's sniffling and sneezing a lot more than usual.


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## CapnKennedy (Sep 30, 2012)

I hope your girl doesn't have that tumor..I wish you the best of luck tomorrow!


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## tok (Jul 16, 2012)

So this was our first visit to a vet with a rat..

and I have to say I dont think the guy knew what he was doing. 

But.. maybe I just dont know how things work. He said Izzy was totally fine, that she probably had a tummy ache which was why she was drooling and.. doing everything else. He handled her with a towel, which I found really odd, but I dont know if thats just the norm. They didnt have a small scale, so he kind of had to guess with the bigger scale..

I don't know. He seemed really rushed, didn't answer our questions very well(nor did he answer why she was sneezing all the time, or really addressed it).. and it just was really weird. 

Thankfully the visit was only 29$, but still. 

At the moment Izzy is acting mostly normal, she was chattering a bit while in the car but that might just be because she didn't like the ride/was stressed in the car. Should we go see another vet? I'm just really confused.


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## lilspaz68 (Feb 24, 2007)

He really sounds a bit clueless. 

lets get some history on your girl first?

How old?
Ever been sick before?

Owwie stretches are sucked in sides, twisting, legs stretched out behind them...its due to pain, usually abdominal but not always.

Drooling can be choking, seizures, teeth issues, etc

But now shaking and excessive porphryin? is she rearing up and batting at the air? Is she falling over? Is she just standing there trembling and facing forward with a blank stare?


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## tok (Jul 16, 2012)

We arn't totally sure how old Izzy is, she could be a anything from a little over a year to nearly 2. We've had her for about three months, adopted her from some people we know who got her from someone else who got her from someone else - she's been passed around a lot. I don't understand why, she's a total sweetheart but.. yeah. I dont know where she originally came from, we have no clue. Very likely she's a petstore rat.

Ever since we got her she's been sneezing.. When all this started we decided to take the leap and remove the carefresh from her cage and try to litter train her. We wernt ready for it, didn't have the fleece liners made, but if it is the bedding that causes her sneezing we didn't want it possibly aggravating whatever was happening to her now. It's just really the sneezing that's been bothering her up until now. 

Aaaand the litter training is either going well, or she still hasn't pooped since we cleaned the cage. We used some of the old bedding to put into the pan so it's kind of hard to determine if she's pooped in it yet.. mixed it up with some of the paper pellets.

When she was sucking her sides in there was no twisting or movement. She was still and staring out. As far as your second question, again.. there really wasn't any movement. She was just being still and shaking, staring out in front of her. Her shaking was very light, nothing really violent, but enough that we could see her shake.

Right now she seems as fine as she could be. A little lethargic, but I just took her out of the cage and she was sleeping, haha. Now she's grooming herself on my lap. And scratching her ear. And trying to get into my mouth. And peeing on me. Totally normal. But she's still sneezing.


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