more rat worries

All day yesterday my rat Krümel, the one with the broken foot, made horrible noises, because he somehow couldn't breathe right. It was some kind of gasping/choking noise, though he did get enough air to not suffocate at least even though he gasped through his mouth. He had incidents like that before the whole foot debacle (I think I mentioned those here too) and I had brought him to the vet for that back then, who couldn't find anything in his lungs and the antibiotics didn't do much, but those episodes never lasted this long, and then mostly stopped, so I could never show one to the vet.

Yesterday his trouble was constant which was hard to listen for (also he didn't even eat, I suppose because he couldn't manage that and still breathe), and unfortunately I missed the morning emergency hour my vet has on Sundays. Obviously I then decided to bring him to the vet this morning, however, when I woke up a while ago, the noises had just stopped. At first I had thought he died because I couldn't hear gasping from the cage anymore, but thankfully he hasn't. And don't get me wrong, I'm glad that he doesn't make this horrible noise right now, and can maybe eat and drink and recover, but if I bring him to the vet right now, the symptom isn't there just like before. I thought that at least this time I could show them, rather than futilely trying to describe it. I always feel like the weird pet owners version of Munchhausen-by-proxy when I describe horrible symptoms that suddenly have disappeared as soon as I bring my rat to the vet.

Of course he still needs a vet, but I needed to bring him anyway this week to have his foot checked at the four weeks mark. So now I'm not sure whether I still should rush to the vet right away this morning, even though the problem doesn't show right now, or whether I should let him be for now, and see whether he'll eat something at least now that there seems to be a respite on the breathing front. I mean, I know he still made that horrible sound around five (my sleep wasn't very restful, because I kept listening for him), but nothing currently (though obviously it could start again any moment).

rat update

So I brought Krümel to the vet this morning after all, and while the gasping was only slight on the way there, Krümel then obliged me with an attack of very labored breathing and gasping right in front of the vet, so he could at least see that Krümel was in severe respiratory distress. Anyway, the vet then listened to his lungs, but didn't hear the distinct crackling sounds of bad myco, which fit with the previous time.

He then asked whether I'd pay for x-rays to see whether it might be the heart, which I agreed to and they managed to get a nice picture of Krümel's internal organs. His heart however looked okay, and the vet didn't see anything obviously wrong in the lungs either, but Krümel's stomach and bowels were extremely distended (I looked at the picture and the stomach was scarily huge), so the likely cause of the respiratory distress is that the lungs just can't expand properly. The vet was quite surprised by this because rats aren't prone to gas like rabbits and he didn't think it could be from the food (especially since I'm careful not to feed them stuff like cabbages or pulses and such). He said it could be a bowel obstruction due to a small tumor, because Krümel is over two years now, which is an age when rats are quite prone to them, but he didn't see anything conclusive on the x-ray.

Anyway, he gave me two kinds of drops that help with gas, and an antibiotic (I'm not entirely sure why I got that too, I guess to be on the safe side if it was an infection after all, or maybe because they gave antibiotics last time and Krümel got better). So now I have three medicines that need to be given three times, twice and once a day respectively, and because right now Krümel doesn't eat I can't mix them into stuff but have to force feed them. Which is bad, because no matter how awful he feels Krümel is the opposite of cooperative when it comes to taking drugs. I asked the vet to give the first dose, and even he had trouble to get the medicine into him.

I hope that because Krümel had trouble like this before and it got better once, and he seems at least a little better today than yesterday, that it might turn around again. The vet however didn't seem very optimistic, and told me that Krümel might die in the next few days, if his bowel problems don't clear up fast. If he makes it through the next days,I'm supposed to bring him again at the end of the week.

The one bright spot is that the vet declared his broken foot healed enough that he could go back in the regular cage and be together with the other two again, so at least Krümel won't be alone in isolation, and miserable in a tiny cage.