Pet Forum / Mammals / Rats / February 2005

Thanks Joanne & Meghan for your posts ........... This group is so great!
People are always there with their advice and good wishes!

Uly has been out with me alot of the morning on a towel on the sofa with me,
he has eaten lots! He ate 2 yoggie drops while I held them for him, and a
good lot of kitten food too. He had lots of licks of sugar water with a
vitamin supplement in it and now he is resting back in the cage with lots of
warm snug and some pieces of lettuce!

I sure hope it's not a neurological problem :-( A couple of my boys have
gone down that road, but mainly the culprit is myco. I would hate to think
there is a bug in the clan :-( I guess when you have lots of rats at
differant ages you will see more frequent losses? *sigh*
Pluto is my eldest boy at the moment and he amazes us with his energy - He
will be 2 in May, I know - mad that a ratty makes it that far with me! He
had an ear infection months ago now and has a wonky head but he is fab and
loves running around the flat!!

I am going to ask my vet about Zithromax - Is that available in the UK does
any-one know?

I used the Doxy/Baytil combo on my first rat back in 2001 and within a few
hours of him having that he died of a stroke. It's always bothered me that
it could have been the cause, but I think Patch would probably have had that
stroke anyway huh?!

In your honest opinion, have you ever seen ratties come back from not being
able to hold food? Uly is a big boy and perhaps that is why he is slower
walking because he feels poorly and can't shift himself as easily as the
others. He isn't as bad with the legs as Cookie was, he literally lost the
use of those limbs, and the hind legs were pads up to the ceiling - Uly
isn't doing that.

Hopefully we'll get him into the vets 2morro (they are always so booked up!)
I'll keep you all posted x

snip

Good lord, ain't that the truth!

Standardized pharmaceutical grade acidophilus is not available from health
food stores in America. If it can be had from a pharmacist, there is a
better chance that it is fresh, has been correctly stored up to the day it
is sold, meets a pharmaceutical standard instead of a food-supplement
standard which is no standard at all, so is actually alive. From health
food stores there is not much chance of this.

"Natural" Acidophilus capsules, powders, granuals, & extracts are not
pharmaceutical grade & in the United States no law requires that these
capsules be alive. The FDA does not require these products to meet any
standard of purity or effectiveness, nor are there any regulations
requiring a minimal standard of quality in the manufacturing process.  The
manufacturers heavily lobby congress to keep the FDA out of their
business, knowing as they do that the products as presently sold could no
longer be sold if they actually had to meet even a minimum standard of
quality.

These products are sold in health food stores as "dietary supplements" a
category that needs only be non-toxic & digestible. It is totally hit &
miss how much, if any, live bacteria is in these capsules by the time they
reach the store & are sold.

ConsumerLab tested 21 of these products. They found 8 brands contained
less than 1% of the amount of live bacteria promised on the package, & six
of those contained one-ten-thousandth of the amount claimed.  These
products are as good as inert & will have no effect whatsoever. Some
products may actually have had live bacteria at the time of manufacture,
but not necessarily by the time of sale. The products are safe, but not
necessarily effective.

So unless your vet specified a brand known usually to actually contain
billions of live bacteria, your vet has misled you horridly. In a
best-case scenario, your chances of randomly finding one of these products
that actually has the amount of bacteria promised is less than one chance
in three.

While the healthfood store brands are unreliable to worthless, Lactinex
from the pharmacy does meet a higher pharmaceutical criteria.
Unfortunately, a doubleblind placebo controled study by Tankanow et al [in
Annals of Pharmacotherapy, 1990] tested on humans the efficacy of Lactinex
in treating antibiotic-induced diarrhea & found it to be useless -- this
would apply to all similar products even if the acidophilus really is
alive. So even if you accidentally stumbled upon a product with active
Acidophilus, there is no reason to suppose it would be any more useful for
rats than for people for this specific use. This granulated Acidophilus
product was given 4 times daily for 10 days concurrent with amoxicillin, &
had no effect controlling diarrhea while antibiotics were being
administered. It can however restore intestinal flora after antibiotics
are stopped.

Vets usually provide acidophilus in a  refrigerated toothpaste tube of a
yogurt-like feed that rats find very tasty. Most vets would probably tell
you this product is not necessarily better than fresh live-culture yogurt,
which is more cost-effective. It does help with diarrhea caused by
antibiotics but will not really restore inestinal flora until after the
antibiotics are stopped. Unlike the hit-&-miss (usually miss) healthfood
store dietary supplements, actual yogurt with live Acidophilus has been
well-studied & found to be effective in restoring intestinal flora in rats
or people after antibiotics have been stopped.

If a rat will eat burnt toast, this might have some slight added value in
controlling diarrhea. If a rat doesn't like the burnt toast, a little
smear of honey will make it desireable.

-paghat the ratgirl

My doctor recommends stewed apple as it will gel in the stomach.  I
can't see that hurting a Rattie at all?  My Mum always used Cornflour
with a little milk..(YUK)  I hated it and I can't imagine a Rat liking
it either ... but it is harmless and worth a try perhaps?

Regards Kate