From:
Sukie Crandall
Date: 2001-10-08 11:03:00 UTC
Subject: Want some good news about a liver? A food with concentrated
nutrition?
--
Now, as many know, Scooter has had on-and-off trouble with liver
results for about 6 months: bilrubin up, atypical lymphocytosis when
biopsied, etc. -- never normal, just different levels of not-good.
During this time he has also had chronic gastritis that greatly
thickened and enlarged his stomach for which we could find no cure,
and twice had furballs despite precautions. This is a chicken and
the egg problem: did furballs happen and cause or worsen gastritis,
or did the gastritis cause him to be unable to handle ingested fur,
or did each worsen the other? We don't know though we lean toward
the last explanation.
He also had a left adrenal growth which arrived without symptoms till
he had an acute urinary blockage.
For about a half year he has been on antibiotics most of the time.
The little guy has been through a lot in six months.
A while ago we decided to find out if he might be allergic to normal
ferret and cat foods. Folks on the FHL were marvelous, practically
coming out of the woodwork to suggest alternatives. We settled on
Hills feline z/d with lamb baby food as a treat. Tooty's results
have been no less than spectacular. (It took about 3 weeks to see the
improvement.) He began playing again at normal ferret levels last
week and his stools have firmed up marvelously, with rectal prolapses
also stopping and foul odor (beyond normal feces odor) stopping.
Now we have even more good news: his liver blood test results were normal!
As Dr. Bruce Williams explains in part of his article, "Controversy
and Confusion in Interpretation of Ferret Clinical Pathology" at
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/Clin_Path/ClinPath.html , and in past FHL
posts there are liver results that can happen from gastric
disturbances. We can attest that these can become rather pronounced
and last for quite an extended time.
BTW, you know how everyone talks about the ferrets needing less of
the concentrated foods to achieve the same nutrition? Well, it turns
out that very little z/d is needed to supply enough nutrition even
compared to the high-quality ferret foods. It strikes me that this
may be useful information for some sick and recovering ferrets with
other problems. The volume reduction is amazing. (It is an
expensive food so he gets most of it: the others get to raid it
during their daily hours of play and sleep together when it is the
only food available, then he alone has it at night.)