Greg's Medicine

Hello readers,

Sorry for not posting in a while, we have had a lot on as a family recently. 

We would like to update you on Greg. I wrote in a previous post about Greg being on steroids to help with his breathing difficulties. 
We went back to the vets to give Greg his injection, and sadly he didn't respond to them. His breathing stayed the same and he became very raspy again. Both us and the vets were baffled, he seemed to be doing really well on them before. 
I mentioned about Greg's brother, Bolo. Before Bolo passed away, he struggled with his heart and his breathing difficulties were a symptom because of it.
We thought it would be worth trying some medicine to rule anything out. It was a possibility he could have developed something.


Greg went home and tried the Frusemide for about 5-7 days, we would have known very quickly if the medication was helping. Sadly, there was still no improvement.

When we went back to the vets, they suggested trying a stronger dose of steroid. This is more commonly used in cats, but they believed it would be worth trying with Greg. We agreed to go ahead and try it - we were running out of options.

Thankfully, Greg improved! In fact, he improved so much he was like a totally new rat. His breathing was silent, and he didn't seem to be struggling at all. When Greg went back to the vets for his check up, we were all in agreement to carry on giving him these steroids. Greg now has an injection weekly.  
Although, as of recent, Greg has been losing weight. We have been feeding Greg a soft food maintenance diet, along side his normal food, and his weight loss has slowed down since doing so. 
Unfortunately, as Greg gets older, it is likely that the weight loss is secondary to what is causing his breathing struggles. We are limited as to what else we could do that we aren't doing already.

Greg is still incredibly happy, and adores life. Him and Vince adore each other and we are so thankful for every day we have with the both of them. They're two old boys now!

We would also like to thank the incredible veterinary team, as this wouldn't have been possible without them.



You can keep up with Greg and Vince on our Instagram page.


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