rat health worries

[ratcreature]

The good news is that Rusty's feet seem to slowly heal, at least the bumblefoot sores look better with my now meticulous attention to keeping their bedding dry, soft and changed twice a day in all of their many sleeping spots and putting on antibiotic ointment twice a day as well, though Kieran's haven't really improved as much. Also the myco sounds seem to have stopped almost completely (occasionally I think I may still hear him make some quiet sounds but it's not the clear myco lung noises anymore), so the continued decongestant may have done some good after the oral antibiotic to make its improvement stick.

The bad news is that Rusty lost a noticeable amount of weight. He was 610g when the vet weighed him before the antibiotic, and though he doesn't really cooperate with sitting still on my scale, when he felt significantly lighter to me, I tried to weigh him and it's was definitely more mid-five hundred something now. So that's quite worrying. :(

There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with his appetite and he's been off the oral antibiotic for a while now, and didn't have digestive problems on it, so I'm not sure whether side effects from that could still account for this. Well, the scheduled follow up vet appointment is Tuesday, so I'll definitely have to mention this then.

Comments

[ratcreature]

Yeah, it's slow going with the sores, but from what I read they are notoriously difficult to heal once they developed, so I expect it to take a long time. At least they are definitely not getting more horrific (googling for it gave nightmarish photos).

It's quite a lot of weight, relative to his size, and in a short time, and that often is a bad sign, but I'll have to see what the vet will say. At least Rusty had a little weight to spare.

Why do pets always have to cause so much worry? (Well, not always, my first rat had no ailments and one day at a respectable age just dropped dead with his head next to the food bowl, but he was atypical with that!)

[madripoor_rose]

Keeping my fingers crossed for the poor little guy.

Sigh, I know. Every dog I've ever had had something wrong with it. Epilepsy, hip dysplasia, cataracts, tumors.... We love them and we worry.