Figure 1: Urinary tract infection in a 3-year-old male rat (Shrek).
Case history and photo

History

Shrek is a neutered male, almost 3 years old and suffers from hind leg paralysis.

Clinical Signs

Due to the hind end paralysis Shrek was not able to clean effectively, and we noticed that he had waxy smegma plug formed in his penis. We tried to clean most of the plug out.

It seemed like following removal of the plug Shrek was constantly dribbling urine, and always wet. Because of this we were required to clean him up a few times a day including giving him some baths in a shallow pan with warm water.

About a week later on a Friday night, after cleaning Shrek, in the shallow pan, I noticed that he was bleeding from his urethra. The vet was contacted at this time.

Diagnosis

Urinary tract infection.

Treatment

The vet told us to give Shrek “Escoprim Sirup”, this is a children’s medicine that contains sulfamethoxazol and trimethoprim, a powerful combination against bladder infections. We had to give 0.4mL twice a day. We also gave him Baytril for a few days, but then we realized that this was not necessary at all.

In addition we put him on Metacam (a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agent) to help Shrek avoid possible pain. He looked horrible. He had lost a lot of blood on Friday, and his ears, hands, and tail had gotten to be a deathly white color not pinkish as usual. He just lay in his Foofferdome, eyes half closed and refused to take the sulfa/trim mixture. We finally managed to get a syringe (minus the needle) into his mouth and he got the full dose.

On Saturday and Sunday Shrek took his meds more willingly and perked up a bit. Although we were still seeing some blood in the urine we could see it was getting less. He still did not leave his foofferdome to pee, and he peed very frequently; approximately every 10-15 minutes. I made sure he had access to lots of water, honey-sweetened tea, and juicy types of fruits.

On Monday, he seemed to feel a lot better, but his urine had turned a greenish color and smelled really foul. What really worried me, too, was that the urine appeared to have some greenish, sand-like, solid particles in it.

We continued the meds and Shrek continued to improve. The green urine turned to dark brown again and then – on Sunday, it was yellow. It still smelled strongly, but different now. It did not smell so foul but rather medicine-like.
Shrek no longer had to pee all the time and he left his foofferdome regularly to pee outside, which I took to be a sign of his improving condition.

Outcome

After almost 10 days, it seems Shrek has beaten the nasty infection.
Shrek will remain on the sulfa/trim mix for another week just to make sure that he has no lingering infection left, and then we will see how he fares without the antibiotics.

Photo

Case history and photo courtesy of mousini.com — Archived page from 2012-01-28 (via the Wayback Machine)