# Oldish Rat Losing Weight



## Kamira (Jul 15, 2015)

These are my first girls, I don't know much about elderly rats other than what I can gather from watching youtube channels. My girls, Navi and Zhu-li, are definetely at, near, or over 2 years old. I've been incredibly lucky with them so far as health issues go- I only had literally 1 instance that I had to medicate and it was more of a hypochondriac moment than anything. Anyways, this morning I noticed the younger of the two, Zhuli, acting sluggish when I woke her up and her whole body kept twitching, sort of like she had the hiccups. She didn't come out of her little hide, so I told my dad to keep an eye on her while I was out that day and came back 10 hours later to much of the same thing.

No head tilt, no weird-sounding breathing- just sluggish (lethargy, but she ate the yogurt drops I gave her) I let them out to run around and after a while she was sort of back to normal, but she still just seemed kinda out of it, like people act when they have the cold at work.

She's always been thin, but when I held her I noticed she felt a little bony/stiff. I got a little worried so I weighed her- I can't keep enough of a schedule to weigh them regularly but my little rat record book said the last time I weighed her, on 8/22, she weighed 390 grams. Now she weighs 360 grams, which is around an 8% weight loss in 2 weeks- I'm very concerned. Is it normal? What could I feed her to put a little weight back on her? What should I look out for????

thanks for all help in advance!


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## CourteesRatties (Feb 23, 2016)

She is getting older you can try supplementing her with Chicken diced, veggies, and maybe supplementing some fish oil or vitamin b12. Shes getting up there if your really concerned I had a lizard last year that was sick and needed supplementing due to weight loss and my vet gave me oxbow critical care its good for all animals reptile and mammal you could call vets charge about 10-20 for it so not that bad.


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## Paul_Julian (Oct 31, 2011)

I think you should also visit vet, cause it might be strat of some illness. My older rats act sluggish and hiccuping when there's heart problem ( ussually Prillium helps almost the same day).
And for getting more weight, try convalescence support. http://www.royalcanin.co.uk/products/dog/canine-veterinary-diet/convalescence-support-dogscats/ Just mix it with water , and with baby cereal if not so tasty for rattie.


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## Kamira (Jul 15, 2015)

I have a new development- she's failing the cheerio test. She's trying to hold it up with two paws but is inevitebly changing it over to one or just using the ground to hold it. I *do* have the ability to take her to the vet, but the one that treats rats is over 3 hours away, the much better option is to just tell my dog and cat vet what she needs prescribed and if its an injection have it administered, but I cannot pay for diagnostics. I know no one here is a vet, but you are her best chance.

She does not have a head tilt and from what I am observing she is not having many balance issues- she's just slow and is slightly clubbing her paw.


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## Paul_Julian (Oct 31, 2011)

Kamira, here is topic with PT pics and videos ( and much info from Lilspaz) http://www.ratforum.com/showthread.php?329898-pituitary-tumor-losing-a-rat-HELP
I also wrote medicine dosage for PT. Best if you compare it with your rattie's behaviour and then you'll know what to tell to vet.


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## Kamira (Jul 15, 2015)

thank you very much, I was very much suspecting a pt tumor. This doesn't seem like an inner ear infection- I'll take her in to the vet tomorrow and get her some steroids. I'm also feeding her baby food to counteract the weight loss- wish me luck!


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## CourteesRatties (Feb 23, 2016)

Baby food is great stay toward veggies and chicken. High in protein and fat and you can try mashed potatoes for starches and carbs.


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## Kamira (Jul 15, 2015)

The flavor I'm feeding her is "vegetable chicken" so it seems I'm doing something right! The vet is having to ordered the most recommended steroid treatment for her, so I'm putting her on some prednisone we have had for a few years, along with baytril since it seems to be that steroids should be taken with antibiotics.


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## Paul_Julian (Oct 31, 2011)

Steroid and antibiotic isnt a treatment for PT, unless there's inflammation of pituitary gland area


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## CourteesRatties (Feb 23, 2016)

Steroid will help inflammation but the only treatment is removal. Tumors are there til removed.


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## lilspaz68 (Feb 24, 2007)

Steroid therapy can really help but it's short term as it shrinks the tumor from pressing on the brain but eventually the pituitary tumor grows too big and the symptoms return. With bromocriptine or cabergoline (galastop in UK) it's an actual treatment. Unfortunatrly it only works on prolactinoma which are the most common type of PT our rats get. Is this what your vet is looking into?


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## Kamira (Jul 15, 2015)

Yes, the vet has to order the bromo and/or caber, but for now we're stuck with Prednisone. Happily, shouldn't be too long.


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## Kamira (Jul 15, 2015)

Here's an update, for anyone interested;

I fed her as much baby food as she would eat, about 6mL every 3-4 hours. I didn't wake up to feed her, for she seemed fine so long as I left her a little bit of banana in her cage. After about a week of this she stopped, refused to eat unless I would squirt it into her mouth and then she would give me little warning bites, like "if you don't stop i'm going to bite harder" bites. During all of this she was on prednisone, she struggled to take it because she wouldn't eat it on the baby food anymore (I couldn't think of anything else soft enough for her to eat that she would also like) and I had to hold her to my chest, stick it in her mouth with a finger, and hold my hand underneath her head to catch whatever fell out to stick back in. She probably hates me, but it relieved the swelling loads and she is feeling much better.

Recently, I noticed I had never seen her drink from her water bottle (its sort of complicated- it has a nozzle that the rat has to push on with its nose to get water to come out of a tube) so I dug into the leaky water bottle cemetery and drug out the drippiest one I had, hooked it up with a bowl underneath it. To counteract dehydration (if she had any) I mixed up a little bit of diluted low-sodium chicken broth with two pinches of suger and a pinch of salt, which I would offer to her for every 10 minutes for about an hour before I went to sleep, to sustain her during the night (along with banana and a little bit of freshpet wet dog food, which she would eat if her cagemate didn't get to it first) it was around this time that I also discovered she was a bit into baby food again, only a different flavor. The trick to making her eat at all was making it soft enough for her to get a good bite out of it, for she would get frustrated if it was too hard to eat. So again, more baby food, hydrating before bed, and about twice a day I'd isolate her from her much fatter cagemate with a smorgasbord of food choices (banana, freshpet, bits of carrot, tomato, lettuce . . .) and would make sure she was drinking. I'd also weigh her daily so I could track her weight- one step forward, two steps back on that. She's been stuck around 315 grams for a few days now, down from 390 grams on 8/7.

Her tumor seems to not be giving her much grief either, apart from a little bit of trouble seeing (shes a red-eyed rat, the only thing that clued me in was the fact that she would occasionally walk off the edge of tables) and general loss of 'grip-power' in her front limbs. She can't really hold anything, but she will eat a cheerio by placing a paw on either side of it to keep it in place.

Any advice would be really appreciated, I'm not completely at a loss but I still think I'm stumbling in the dark with this.


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