# Weirdly blue/black toenail bed



## Veileddreamer (Sep 21, 2015)

Hi all. I'm back again with another issue with my sweet Penelope. She is an 18 months old rex rat who has been having weirdly sick phases, i.e. two days where I'll consider dipping into savings for an emergency vet late at night, and then by the time I get around to scheduling a normal appointment she's totally normal again. Her symptoms at these times have generally been lethargy and weird ratphone noises.

Tonight I come to you with a new problem: one of her toenails is doing something weird. To be totally honest this last week has been super busy for me and they have been woefully neglected compared to how much out time they usually get (i.e. only 15-30 min a day). So tonight during a normal length out time, we started with some much needed nail clipping. One of Penelope's toe nails (on back left foot) had a weirdly blackened toe nail bed. It also looks almost bluish in some lights. It is clearly painful because this is my kinda macho alpha girl and she was fear bruxing as I was looking at it, and had some serious fear diarrhea as soon as I moved to that foot to cut her nails. (I didn't cut the weird nail, fyi. Didn't know what the best plan for it was.)

Of course the Internet tells me it's cyanosis but that doesn't seem quite right. Her other extremities look normal, and her gums/tongue are nice and pink. Ratphoning reveals some slight funky noises in her lungs (from what I can tell) but nothing that a little doxy wouldn't fix. I danced pointe and honestly her toe nail reminds me of a dead toe nail bed -- I never had one but I saw a lot. However when I sort of pulled/pushed on it gently it still felt very much attached.

What's going on here? Pictures are blurry because clearly she wasn't a happy rat. For hue perspective, the blanket is a dark beige and her belly (visible under my thumb in one pic) is solid white. Sorry that I can't figure out how to make them not obnoxiously huge.


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## dashielle89 (Apr 24, 2012)

Looks like a minor injury. Keep an eye on it, if you think it's painful you can give her some liquid ibuprofen or whatever you have on hand. But as long as you don't see it getting any worse or other symptoms I'd say she should be fine. Injuring their nails/toes is easy, especially if her nails were long which I assume they were if she was in need of a nail clipping. Could have gotten caught on something, bent, or pinched and there's a little bruising or blood underneath it.


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## crow (Nov 18, 2015)

one time my rats were out on the floor, i was wearing sneakers, and i stepped on one of miso's toes on accident, her toe looked exactly like that. maybe it got pinched in the cage somewhere. my rat's entire nail fell off and regrew with no visible differences from her other toes, and she never had a problem with it


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## Veileddreamer (Sep 21, 2015)

The black area is clearing up / getting smaller, and still no other symptoms, so I'm going to second Crow's vote that it was a weird ratty mini-trauma. Thanks guys!


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