Rat Having Seizures!? Please help me out :(

[somethings_wicked]

Hello there. I recently joined and I'm looking for some advice on what could possibly be going on with my rat, Piggie.

He's about a a year and a half old male dumbo rat. Everything seemed fine until exactly a week ago today. Suddenly I heard a lot of heavy movement coming from his cage so I immediately rushed over to it to see what the commotion was. He's the only rat I own, so hearing a lot of noise coming from him is odd seeing as he has no other cage mates. I was shocked when I looked into his cage and noticed that he was shaking violently with his two front paws close to his mouth. His paws were slightly curved and I couldn't get a good look at his eyes to see if they were open or not, but he continued to shake for about half a minute or so. Then he roughly started jumping around the cage all frantic and stuff. I noticed he would then stand up on his back two feet up against the wall of the cages about 3 times at the corners of the cages. Then suddenly he stopped acting this way, went and laid down in the back right corner of his cage and had a normal, but still expression.

I kept an eye on him this past week to see if it had reoccured or if it was just a mere tiny freak out or something odd. I was happy when I hadn't seen it happen again, but then two days ago it started up again.
Once in the afternoon, then again at about 5:00 AM

Then yesterday he did it again in the afternoon, around 3:00 AM this morning and again about 30 minutes ago.

I know I should really be taking him to a vet and I do plan to.
But does anyone have any insight on what exactly could be causing this? I mean.. Another odd thing is, he LOVES food, hence the name Piggie, but lately he doesn't seem to run over to me as often looking for special treats and such.

*EDIT*
Another one of his freak outs just happened about 5 minutes ago.
I noticed his tougne was sticking out right after it happened, like he kept licking his lips.

I'm really confused on what is going on with him and yeah
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

[Poppyseed]

Sounds like he could be having strokes or seizures which means he needs a vet asap. They might put him on a steroid to reduce inflamation in that case.

[somethings_wicked]

Yeah, I agree. I actually just got off the phone with the vet and scheduled Piggie an appointment for 12:45 today. 

[OldsGal]

I had a rat who was having seizures as well.  They can RX meds for it for you.  However, I am gonna say this not to be mean but just to get you prepared for it.  If the meds don't work and those seizures start to come so frequently that they interfer with him eating and doing other quality of life things that he enjoys then you might want to consider humanely having him put to sleep to ease his suffering.  Good luck and here is to hoping the meds work.

Staci

[Kendra]

If it had only happened once, I would say choking, but the multiple times sounds more like seizures.  For our Seraphim, who was prone to seizures, lowering the amount of sugar in her diet helped a bit.  Good luck.