[Teapig]

Okay, the story starts 4 months ago. Him and his brother had mites, and I tried treating them with ivermectin as per instructions on the web. I read as many different pages as I could possibly find about using ivermectin like this, but still, on the second dose, Oxnard's brother passed suddenly and unexpectedly (we still have no idea what happened to him, there was no sound from him or anything) and the same night, Oxnard's tear duct area on both eyes seemed to be inflamed afterwards, there was a bit of porphyrin, and his eyes were a bit bulged out.

At the time, I thought it was because he was going through high stress of losing his brother, and that somehow caused it. That was totally gone by the end of the next day if I remember correctly. But now, I'm not so sure that it was just stress that caused it.

I can't find much on what ivermectin can actually specifically DO to a rat if it affects them badly, but I know it causes problems in the general head area.

After that, I noticed he had one eye that appeared red when the light hit it a certain way. the pupil doesn't seem to contract as properly as the other one but it still does when I shine a light in it. I don't remember noticing this before the incident.

Just tonight I was petting his head and realized that on his forehead, above the eyes, the "red" eye area felt more pronounced than the other eye. Then once I was aware of that, and actually took a close look at his eyes, I noticed that the "red" eye actually appears bigger than the other. It is a slight difference, but it is there. There is also a bit of porphyrin. I noticed, too, that when he blinks sometimes he will only blink the "normal" eye and not the other.

Could ivermectin have caused this? was his eye damaged somehow by this? I really don't know how that would work... I managed to get a pretty good picture of his eyes while he was resting. This has just got me so full of dread, I love Oxnard so much, he was my first rat along with his brother, and I can't bear the idea of something like this happening to him... because of me giving him "medicine"...

I have a vet appointment for another rat next wednesday, I plan on asking the vet about this. I'll update this thread with info I receive.

 

[luvmy4rats]

If I gave my rat a medication and it killed him/her I would be devastated. How much ivermectin did you give your rats? When my rats have eye problems, I use human eye drops and it has cleared things up. However, if your rat is having a reaction to the ivermectin using eye drops may not be a good idea since the cause isn't bacterial.

I understand you have a vet appointment for another rat. It would be a good idea to have that rat and this rat seen at the same time.

 

[Teapig]

I said in my post that I thoroughly read about ivermectin before I gave it to my rats... I gave them less than the size of a grain of rice. For some reason, on their second dose, they reacted badly. This was 4 months ago. I don't know if it was a problem with the ivermectin or not.

I'm not going to take him to the vet, but I am going to bring my phone and show them the picture and ask about it, since the difference is extremely hard to notice in person, especially while he's moving around

 

[raindear]

From my understanding it can be really easy to overdose ivermectin when you use the one for horses because the ivermectin is not evenly distributed through the tube so you need to empty the tube and be careful to mix it thoroughly. It has recently come to my attention that you can get ivermectin in small animal dosages from Amazon. The product is called Beaphar Anti-Parasite Spot On. I think your other rat's death might be ivermectin related, but I would definitely take Oxnard to the vet. There could be something very wrong and only the vet can diagnose or treat it properly.

 

[Rat Daddy]

When I did my research, way back when there were more horror stories about ivermectin than you see now. I think most folks use revolution now. I recall death and nerve damage being the most common but I think organ damage was a possibility too. In any case, I doubt too many people did a necropsy to figure it out.

To some degree the problems were blamed on bad luck or overdose or both... as some animals are supposedly "allergic" to ivermectin. There were even cases where vets injected ivermectin that rats got sick or died, so we might assume it was the correct dosage.

Interestingly, there was a web page the compared all of the various parasite treatments and it included at what level they became toxic or caused death. Although ivermectin did have some range, revolution required a massive overdose of many times the dosage. And that's what sold me on it.

I can't say for sure that your problems are caused by the ivermectin. But it doesn't seem entirely unreasonable. Years ago we only had cedar chips, then there were some powders and sprays, then came ivermectin and now revolution... The problem is that each of these methods had some success and there are lots of old threads and posts on the internet both from long ago and by people that still use the older methods with some degree of success. So sometimes it's tempting to turn back time a little and go with something more available or perhaps cheaper... that worked.

But sadly, when using old methods, I've learned that the folks that actually used them aren't often available any more to give you the specifics. I had a very old doctor back in the 1970's that still prescribed sulfa drugs. He was likely one of the last doctors in the US that did. He knew the correct dosage and interactions and even kept the stuff in his own inventory because the local pharmacy didn't stock the pills. He had used them for over 60 years and knew precisely what he was doing. I took them, and they worked wonders. But I wouldn't want a modern doctor to prescribe them to me. They just don't know what they are doing with these drugs and are likely to do more harm than good.

Don't beat yourself up, you tried to do something good for your rats and I suppose that's what matters most. Hopefully your vet can help. There really is a reason revolution replaced ivermectin. Well and for the most part, the older methods should only be used by the folks with lots of experience in using them or under the supervision of someone with first hand experience.

Best luck.