# Head Tilt



## bonnie (Jan 13, 2007)

my rat Icarus is around 6months old and about a month ago he developed a slight head tilt. I assumed it was a inner ear infection, because the other possiblities were not common in males let alone such young rats. 
i work at a pet hospital and i took him in and he was pescribed baytril. This did not help and it has escalated.
now when i hold him he spins his body around non-stop. 
it just gets worse day by day, hes still eating and being a love bug as usual but now that the spining is getting worse i don't know what to do.
the doctors said its probably neurological...
do you think i should just love him up and give him goodies til it seems his quality of life is getting too bad....?
has anyone had a problem like this?


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## hjkaga (Dec 27, 2006)

I am so sorry to hear about your little guy. That has to be hard. I would just love him and let him live until his quality of life isn't good anymore, then have him put to sleep.


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## JennieLove (Jan 2, 2007)

Does the pet hospital that you took him to specialize in rats? Its always best to take rats to people who know about rats, rather than people just perscribing him a drug for something they know nothing about. Baytril is only really used for infections and I doubt would work for a neurological problems at all anyways. Did they check his ears? He may have an deep ear infection.


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## JennieLove (Jan 2, 2007)

O btw...Welcome to the Rat Family! haha


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## bonnie (Jan 13, 2007)

thanks for the welcome! i used to be a memeber a couple years ago, its good to be back.
the hospital i work at doesn't specialize in small animals really, but to my experience no places in San Francisco are very good w/ rats. they didn't look in his ears w/ a scope. would his ears be red if it was an inner ear infection?
he doesn't itch them, or show any pain at all.


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## JennieLove (Jan 2, 2007)

Im not sure if his ear would be red or not...I never had to deal with a rat ear infection before. Rats are pretty good with not showing pain. Their pretty tuff lil guys. I'm sure there has to be one vet who knows about rats in San Fran. You may have to just call around. It could be anything. Are you able to straighten his neck all at...Im not talkign about with force or anything, but lightly see if you can even move it or if its just stiff. He could have hurt his neck or something. See ya never know, but its always good to get to the bottom of it to see whats best for him. I'll look around too for any good vets in your area. I only live about an hour away from ya  I'll also look up about ear infections in rat and what to look for.


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## JennieLove (Jan 2, 2007)

I looked up some hospitals but the one that kept poping up the most was this one: http://www.irvingstvet.com/index.htm You may want to check it out, but from what I have read it looks pretty good. 

Heres a website I found about head tilts: http://www.ratz.co.uk/ailments.html#Balance and Head Tilt Problems


Balance and Head Tilt Problems

There are three possible causes of head tilt and/or loss of balance in rats: -

Ear infection - unfortunately rats have no way of telling us they have a little bit of ear-ache until it gets to a stage of causing either balance or head tilt problems. By this stage the ear infection is quite advanced and rapid treatment is essential. The rat may appear to be rolling from lack of balance, but if it is an ear infection, getting the rat injected with steroid and on a course of antibiotics will improve the condition very rapidly. If the ear infection was quite advanced the rat may be left with a slight head tilt after treatment, but it is not unusual for them to make a complete recovery with no sign they ever had the ear infection.

Stroke - strokes will have the same symptoms as ear infection, but the treatment will not have the same effect as it would for an ear infection. As there is no way to differentiate the symptoms, a steroid injection plus antibiotics is the initial treatment. The steroid injection should help a bit and the rat may well stabilise enough to continue quality life, particularly with repeated steroid treatment. Quite often they will show signs of weakness of a limb or continued slight balance problems, but they may well live on for quite a while after the first stroke. It is unusual for a rat to have a second stroke and be able to maintain quality of life after.

Pituitary Tumour - again the symptoms are the same as for an ear infection, again treat as for an ear infection. The steroid will help stabilise the condition for a short period of time and repeated steroid treatment can help for a short time, but with a pituitary tumour there is one extra symptom to look out for in that the rat has an inability to hold food properly with their front paws - they will wedge the food against things to eat. This gets worse until the rat stops eating completely and the quality of life goes. Unfortunately by the time a pituitary tumour has displayed the symptoms, there is not much time left.


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