From:
Karen Purcell, DVM
Date: 2001-05-07 10:46:00 UTC
Subject: Re: Need help with Snowflake
Kristine,
You wrote:
>SNIP>
> Snowflake-Young gal that is not quite 3 years old.
> Over the past month she has been steadily dropping wieght.
> She had her anual distemper shots about that long ago and
> wieghted in at 1 lb 8 ozs. She now wieghts 14 ozs.
>
> It started up when I was gone for a couple days. I had someone
> here watching the fur kids here for me. She does not like
> change and never has. Apparently this was enough to get her
> worked up. She refused to eat on her own till I got home. She
> had lost a couple ozs then. Once I was back she was eating
> duck soup on her own. Right now it's a mix of a/d, chicken baby
> food, dyne, pet tinic and little pau d' arco. She is eating 3-4 large
> bowls a day. Approx 90 cc's each bowl.
> SNIP>
This is certainly plenty of food intake to maintain/gain weight in
a healthy ferret.
> Doing blood work was awful. Hardly got any blood from her. My
> Vet is usually a pro at this and just barely got enough do lab
> work with. Well..as things work out the darn machine broke half
> way through the test. All that did come out was totally
> normal...but we got no wbc and several other important things
> from it before it conked out. We looked at some of the blood
> under the microscope and could see there looked to be a high
> number of wbc's. No lymphcytes.
>
That could certainly indicate an infection. Any chance of getting
a urinalysis?
> Her coat is beautiful. Full, thick, and soft. Giving the impression
> if you only look at her that she is the picture of health, that is until
> you pick her up and realize that is all she is. Up till the last week
> her poop looked pretty good..formed and only slightly softer than
> should be. Now they are getting weirder. Still formed, but kinda
> jello like in consistancy. (did fecal-nothing there either)
>
Soft food = soft stools, no mystery here.
> For the last 12 days she has been on clavamox, in case of
> infection. And also on pred (.25 mg twice daily)..in case of the
> dreaded lymphoma..which we are kinda wondering if it is.
>
> Saturday morning we woke to her having a yellowish crust on
> her eyes. I put terramyacin on her eyes after cleaning them. I've
> continued putting it on her eyes twice a day. Now just one eye
> has some gunk in the corners in it that needs to cleaned just
> once daily.
>
> Today her nose looks gunky too. It's greenish/yellowish inside.
> It's not dripping out..but way in there where I can see it and get
> out a bit if I use a warm wash clothe.
>
Definitely sounds like a respiratory infection on top of whatever
else is going one. Were xrays taken?
> She's still eating. hates the pred and will sometimes gag and
> vomit it back up.
>
> We are going back in this afternoon to see the vet. Hopefully we
> can actually get blood work done right this time too.
>
> What are we missing? Any ideas? Anything else we should do
> when there? I thought even distemper? But we've had no new
> shelters here in the last month. And her symptoms don't quite
> seem right there, do they? I know she is up to date on her shots
> and has been in the last year.
>
Could be a delayed vaccine reaction, but I would expect diarrhea
with that. Infection is definitely a possibility here.
> biopsy would seem right if we think lymphoma..but first the blood
> work done right. But with what looks like lots of infections and
> such low wieght is that even a good plan at all?
>
>SNIP>
Hope my comments give some direction, please keep us posted.
-Dr. Karen
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