Izzy is bouncing back tonight. I had thought head tilt from PTs didn’t go away, I didn’t know that could even be possible. Her head tilt has reversed itself, is almost disappeared. Last night, her right cheek was facing the ceiling, her right eye almost rolled up in her head, and she kept falling over. Today, she slept a lot, so I mostly left her alone. I went back up to their room earlier tonight and couldn’t find her — turns out she had traversed half the room (this involves two ramps) and was taking a nap in a small igloo under a table. Later, I found her on the second level of the large cage, where she hasn’t been able to go for over a week. She also spent a while in their shelf cubbyhole, lazing around. I gave them dinner around 8:30 and she attacked her food. She’s also eating some dry rolled oats, another thing she hasn’t been able to manage for a week. She groomed herself without falling over. She’s not really using her hands, but the difference between last night and tonight is substantial.
I’m trying not to get too overly thrilled about this (that’s hard!). I know it could just be a last hurrah, and could go away as quickly as the head tilt came on in the first place. I know it’ll probably even hurt worse tomorrow or the next day — whenever she relapses, because the Dostinex is not a cure. It’s just that I’ve never heard of head-tilt reversal in PT rats, so I’m so suprised that I actually walked around upstairs for a few minutes with my mouth open, not really seeing where I was going, just wondering if it was all real.
Gah, hope is a terrible and wonderful thing. As for that, she’s had a good day, so that is just how I’ll have to look at this so I don’t go nuts.
ETA: Linda says that some of her PT rats have bounced back with steroids, and we had just upped Izzy’s Pred to twice a day recently, so that answers my question about is this even possible. It’s an hour after I first posted this and the tilt is back somewhat, but Izzy is still doing okay.
UPDATE 10.15.10: Still here, still doing well, tilt is not bad at all. :)
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