From:
Sukie Crandall
Date: 2001-11-06 16:54:00 UTC
Subject: Re: Re: Conjestive Heart Failure
--
There have also been those who have tried added oxygen or
bronchiodilators for some ferrets with cardiomyopathy. Never tried
those ourselves and don't have details. Have read mentions of folks
trying the approach, though, for increased comfort.
What made NO difference -- nada, zilch, zip -- when we tried it was
was reducing salt intake. It was worth the try but it had no effect
with our guys.
One of our's responded wonderfully to standard oral Lasix, and for
her Digoxin was a true wonder drug.
One had the reverse of the usual response and lost her sense of
thirst at the same time that she need to be taking in more water so
we had to flavor water and warm it up. She also was the one who had
the worst dry-mucus-membrane problem so could not smell her food.
making it stinky was essential or she would not eat at all.
Our one who had very bad fluid problems had hypertrophic (the less
common form) cardiomyopathy and she wound up with peripheral edema.
She responded to oral Lasix in high amounts, but perhaps injectable
would have helped her a bit longer. On necropsy her chambers were
almost non-existent any longer; vet said that he didn't know how
she'd gone so long, so perhaps it would have changed nothing.
There does seem to be a lot of individual variation in how fast
cardiomyopathy advances.
At 7:10 PM +0000 11/6/01, Ferret-Health-list@yahoogroups.com wrote:
From: Pam Sessoms <pjdutche@e...>
Subject:
On Tue, 6 Nov 2001 ferretsonly@h... wrote:
> When DB has a "crisis" episode (like an asthmatic does), I would give
> him a small dose of the injectable Lasix directly into the rear leg
> muscle resulting in almost immediate relief.
Carla, that was a *fascinating* post on DB! I love reading about how
others have dealt with cardiomyopathy; there are just so many things to
try. :)
I just wanted to "ditto" the joys of injectable lasix. I didn't mention
it before because the darn post was already so long, but whenever Sunny
had a wheezing crisis, we had this little procedure that brought her out
of it within literally like two minutes. I'd give her a lasix shot, in my
case subcutaneosly because I'm not really qualified to go for muscles.
AND I'd put a tiny bit of a nitroglycerin cream (from the vet's office) on
the sticky side of a tiny piece of bandage tape and stick that on the
hairless area inside her ear. Those two things really worked well
together for her... I tried one without the other and they worked OK but
the combo seemed to bring her the fastest relief and most comfort. Only
bad part was the "get off my ear!" squirm that usually happened when I was
trying to stick the nitro tape on. LOL.
Cheers,
-Pam S.