From:
Troy Lynn Eckart
Date: 2001-07-03 09:34:00 UTC
Subject: Re: Not eating
I'm currently going through this with one of ours. He came to us on the
Wed before Memorial Day. His people were moving to CA, Spike and Gizmo
are 7+ yrs old, had been with those people since 1997 and Spike has an
ulcer. He was barely over 700 grams and should be about 3 lbs. He went
first to a temp home to get him stabilized before I brought him home. He
gained a bit of weight and on Sunday before Memorial Day I brought him and
Gizmo home. For the first week they both thrived though that very first
day Gizmo had watery cottage cheesy yellowish diarrhea (coccidia) which
she politely shared with the majority of the family. After the first week
Spike took a turn for the worst and for the past 5 weeks it's really been
a struggle getting food into him. He only eats ensure and chicken baby
food and then it is gently syringe force-fed. At times I was only able to
get a few cc's at a time in him so I'd feed every hour or two. And it got
to the point that he urinated and pooped on me whenever I fed him. he
detested me. It was heartbreaking. Thursday we went to Larry and tested
stools.... salmonella looking rods and lots of them. We started him on
medication (chloremphenical) and by the next morning he was much worse and
by Saturday morning I was afraid he wasn't going to make it. I stopped
the antibiotic and called Larry to discuss our options. We decided on
surgery Monday.... Saturday night I sub-q'd about 200 cc's of lactated
ringers and poor Spike didn't move all night. He leaked and leaked. By
morning he was feeling just a bit better and by early afternoon I was
surprised to have to search for him for his meal. That evening when we
took him to Larry's he was eating about 12 cc's of recipe and walked all
over the office and exam rooms.... His weight was only 847 grams so we
decided to do bloodwork and xrays first. Blood work showed (as all of
ours do for some reason) low potassium (o.k. someone tell me what leaches
potassium), low albumin, and slightly elevated globulin (adv negative at
least on who we tested), and low glucose. Xrays showed a definite foreign
object in the stomach. I'd thought perhaps we had a stomach blockage but
I was surprised it showed on the xray. So now we know and Spike will get
some weight on and then we go for surgery. Whew! His symptoms were a bit
confusing with the initial ulcer (definite bloody diarrhea), the coccidia,
the salmonella, the initial eating well, then the inappetance and any or
all of these symptoms could relate to an assortment of ailments...
As for his reaction after the medication, well, salmonella secretes toxins
when it dies and it overloaded Spike's system. Fortunately the sub-q
flushed his system and he made it. We lost Podo to the same situation
with e.coli. Had I stopped his meds and sub-q'd him, he might be still
with us... It's knowing when to do so, of course, and on the advice of
the treating veterinarian. So a valuable lesson learned to be shared.
There is so much to learn about these little one's ailments and so
much to share....
Hugs to all. tle
Troy Lynn Eckart
Ferret Family Services
http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~sprite/ffs.html
http://www.geocities.com/Petsburgh/Haven/5481/