From:
anippy@yahoo.com
Date: 2001-04-19 11:33:00 UTC
Subject: Re: What's Chloramphenicol? Questions/Concerns
Dr. Williams said:
[snip]> The only indeication for CHPC in ferrets is the disease
proliferative colitis, a rare, sporadic disease of yound male
ferrets. Proliferative colitis is better diagnosed by biopsy than by
empiric trial with CHPC. Using CHPC for any other disease in this
species is fairly useless.[snip]
Dr. Williams (or anyone else),
I would just like you opinion on whether my vet and I are pursuing
the right train of treatment. My oldest male, Slinky (just turned 6
in March), has been having trouble with intermittent diarrhea. It's
light to dark tan and mucousy. He recently stopped eating and dropped
about 200 grams in weight. Our vet diagnosed him with colitis and put
him on Chloramphenicol 5 days ago. Slinky is still not eating, so we
are supplementing with Nutri-Cal and FerretVite every 4 hours. Are we
wasting our time with the drug? Is there something more effective he
could be on? He seems to be drinking enough (his skin isn't tenting),
but I'm worried about the lack of solid food intake too. Is there any
way to increase his appetite? I'm afraid he's associated food with
having a painful "tummy."
The next part of my concern is hard to explain. His style of
activeness has changed. He's gone from being a bouncy, playful kind
of guy to a spastic kind. He shoots out of my arms at warp speed and
seems to constantly be trying to "get away" from something. When he
eats the Nutri-Cal, it's like he's got to lick it up super fast and
bolt out of the room before some unseen phantom gets him. Could this
be caused by the drug (it wasn't happening before, that I recall)?