phlip

Ratsters:

I recently reported that Tuyen had picked up a cough. That wasn't the whole
story.

Last month, both girls caught the usual respiratory thing. Coughing,
wheezing, gasping, laziness, and sleeping all the time.

Yes, dear, I have to take $12 worth of rats to a specialist vet, for an
emergency visit with an extra fee for a walk-in, for treatments that might
not work, for a total of $120.

They gave them each a big shot of water with electrolytes, under their skin
so it could puff them up and soak in over time. They gave us the two
standard antibiotics. I can't recall their names. (And why the >F---< can't
clinics for humans just _hand_ you the friggin' drugs, instead of expecting
you to drive across town and stand in line at the pharmacy while you are
_sick_?!!)

I told the vet that the online community had recommended putting echinacea
tea in their water. She just scoffed, like as if I said I was going to light
candles, shake rattles, and chant at them.

We gave the girls the antibiotics, each morning and evening, and I filled
their water dispenser with echinacea. They got better.

Then I filled the dispenser with water & vitamins, and after a few days
Tuyen had a major relapse. Gasping, coughing after waking up, out-of-breath,
etc.

We switched right back to echinacea tea, and she got better.

Don'cha just love how rational and impartial science is? Especially when
it's controlled by the big pharma companies...

--
Phlip
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ZeekLand <-- NOT a blog!!!

joanne

Poor ratties... I hope they get much better soon.
I don't do the echinacea. I tried for almost a year a while ago and it
didn't make a different with my crew. Also, I really don't like putting
anything in their water except for fresh filtered water.
It sure costs a lot at the vets doesn't it... I know if I were to tally
up all my expenses it would be in the thousands.

--
Joanne
Owned by 20 rats.
Webshots: http://community.webshots.com/user/joanneb70

-------------------------------------------------------
~Ignorance is not innocence but sin. *Robert Browning*

phlip

I should have made that clearer - they are fit as a fiddle today. We gave
one a french fry, and the other picked a fight over it. So we gave the other
one too, and they are now bouncing around full of carbos.

--
Phlip
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ZeekLand <-- NOT a blog!!!

tracey

I know there are quite a few rat owners who swear by echinacea. And I know
how it helped when I had tonsillitis and didn't want to take yet another
course of anti-biotics.

Vets certainly know how to charge, if I totted up how much I'd spent on my
rats at the vets over the years it would be mindblowing! Just a quick few
minutes consultation fee is over £18, then when you've added all your
medicine costs onto that it doesn't come cheap.

Tracey

joanne

Oh, well that's great!!

--
Joanne
Owned by 20 rats.
Webshots: http://community.webshots.com/user/joanneb70

-------------------------------------------------------
~Ignorance is not innocence but sin. *Robert Browning*

kate

Can you give me more info on Echinacea tea please? the quantity etc as
I wouldn't mind trying my guys on it.

Regards Kate

phlip

Get a box of E. tea from your grocery store. Brew it, turn off the heat, and
leave it on the stove too long while you do something else. Then wash your
water bottle, fill with warm tea, and serve. Ours is as dark as cinnamon.

And note that the big Pharma companies can swing the marginal test results
any way they like. Echinacea is not approved by the FDA because -
regardless whether it works - you can't patent it and charge the HMOs a
million bucks for it. But Aspartame is perfectly legal, and used in most
children's vitamins. It also causes a fierce physical addiction, brain
cancer, and seizures in lab rats.

Torturing rats with chemicals is the moral equivalent of using a baby pigeon
as a football. It's also never valid science, but one step in the right
direction would be to revere and respect the lives lost by actually obeying
the results that these experiments return.

--
Phlip
http://www.greencheese.us/ZeekLand <-- NOT a blog!!!

kate

I couldn't have put that better Philip. I am totally against
experimentation on animals of any sort, and in this day and age when we
are suppose to be so "advanced" we should be looking more towards
computers for this kind of thing. I support Grid.org who are helping to
find cures for illnesses by using our computers when they are idle. I
am tryng to do my bit. I also go out of my way to choose products that
specifically say "not tested on animals". This is just my thoughts and
no doubt a few will crawl out of the woodwork to shoot me down...LOL

Regards Kate.