He sneezes all days since months ago. Try to find diagnosis

[Rayeon]

Hi everyone,
First post here because I want to find more informations to help my little rat Whisper, he is a 2 years old male and is the most adorable rat I ever had.
He started sneezing hundreds times a day like 7 months ago, with more or less liquid projections from his nose (usually a little bit reddish but also transparent), he doesn't look to be suffering but I do see that he lacks energy and its vitality is decreasing.
I went to the veterinary several times and he took antibiotics for some quite long time , as well as anti inflammatory but it doesn't made any changes during nor after the treatment.
So here I am trying to find more informations on what it could be and how I could help him.

Here are few informations to help :

- He got a bad breath at the same moment it started (from nose or mouth) like something is slowly rotting.
- He drinks A LOT since it began
- I uses hemp litter
- Its environment didn't changed (for allergies)
- The veterinary seemed to says that the lungs were alright
- Since 3 weeks he started to frequently shake rapidly its head, like dogs when they are wet (probably doesn't have any links to it)

Could it be a parasite or some kind of internal mycosis ? If it was tumoral it wouldn't last 7 months without drastic evolution ?

Thank you all for any kind of information or help


PS : look at how he likes to be cuddled :

[cyber ratty]

The drinking a lot suggests kidney disease (which is common in older bucks). I don't know whether the bad breath would fit with that too. He is getting old now, so the lethargy could be an aging issue and not related to his sneezing.

What antibiotics was he given, at what dose and for how long? Some vets underdose or give the wrong ones.

The reddish content of his sneezes will be porphyrin which all rats produce at a low level, so if it's not enough to cover the cage in 'blood-like' spatters then it probably isn't significant. Do any of his companions sneeze at all? He could have developed a sensitivity to something in his environment so maybe try changing one thing at a time.

The head shaking is more worrying, and could be an early sign of an ear infection - I would take him back to the vet for that to be checked, and ask them to test his urine at the same time.

[Rayeon]

Hi and thank you for your answer.

The antibiotics he took are named "Doxybactin 50mg" and the dose was 1/4 of the "pill" per day. First time we tried during 10 days , then one month later we re-tried during 20 days. Now it's been 3 weeks I stopped the treatment and I was expecting to see the situation going worse but no, it even looks like it goes slighly better in the number of sneezings.

For the porphyryn at the worst the inside of their houses was covered with it.

He also has a friend in the cage and they do started to sneeze at the same moment, but the other one stopped after maybe 1-2 weeks. However he also started to shake it's head at some moment and yes it does looks like they try to go inside with their feets. However, if he recieved some antibiotics, shouldn't it solve ear infections ?


For the kidneys, I can already tell the Urine is quite visually clear and do not contain blood. I'll take a visit to the vet however. But can those kidney related problems really be treated ?

Thank you !

[Little_Lovelies]

Hi Rayeon,

Welcome to the forum, what a little cutie he is!

You probably already know this but rats can be sensitive to all sorts of smells, air-fresheners, perfumes etc. etc. and as Cyber Ratty said, they can developed sensitivities to some of the existing things inside their cage too.

One of our boys became very sneazy a week or two after we adopted him. We tried everything, no perfumes, air fresheners, hand creams, changed their bedding too and no joy. One day I noticed that a piece of electrical equipment was making a very quiet but annoying high-pitched whine at intervals so I turned it off and that seemed to solve it?! The electrical item was rarely audible to us but might have been audible to them the whole time for all we know, and as high pitched noises can stress them out and sneezing can be a sign of stress we think this may have been the cause. It's a total guess, but we never turned it back on and the sneezing stayed at normal levels ever after so we think that could've been the cause. Could there be any high-pitched noises that might be stressing him out? Or anything else making him stressed for that matter?

Also while we're on the subject, does anyone here know of equipment that rats can hear that we can't and need to be aware of? I think maybe some humidifiers have a funny in-built function that might not be ideal but I forget the details now.

Good luck and let us know how he gets on.

[cyber ratty]

Also while we're on the subject, does anyone here know of equipment that rats can hear that we can't and need to be aware of? I think maybe some humidifiers have a funny in-built function that might not be ideal but I forget the details now.

I know that cat deterrents emit an ultra sonic noise, so worth checking whether any neighbours have installed one. Similarly but less common, I imagine the teenager deterrents that councils install in some places would also be a problem.

I think electrical cables always emit a buzz, which is why rats are attracted to them in free range, but probably not enough to stress them out.

[Rayeon]

Hi and thanks you for the replies.
We just come back from another veterinary and here are the things :

- She detected they have some kind of skin "mycosis" or parasite (didn't remember the name but it's a rodent thing) Since they began to both shakes their head at the same moment (He has a rat friend in it's cage ) she thinks it's not viral but this is it instead, so they got a treatment for it.

- For it's sneezings it looks like it would be a sinusitis and we are trying a different method of antibiotics, something with water evaporation that he has to breath once a day.

- For the fact that he drink a lot she rather think it could have been diabete but I the results of the test said no, so I dont know... his urines are clear and transparent I don't know what to say more.

Also about his bad breath smell, I thought it is maybe not a symptoms but instead the reasons he sneezes so much... maybe he can't support its own smell. But She inspected the mouth and there was no infection whatsoever.