From:
sukiecrandall@telocity.com
Date: 2001-11-12 23:35:00 UTC
Subject: Re: suki...
Jen, enlarged hearts are associated with dilative (hyperplastic)
cardiomyopathy and ones with thickened chamber walls are
hypertrophic.
We've seen cardiomyopathy symptoms in ferrets whose
cardiomyopathy did not show up, yet, in x-ray and one whose
cardiomyopathy didn't even show up, yet, in ultrasounds though it
developed into cardiomyopathy shortly later. Ruffle was rather
startling that way; she had quite a bit of ascites before there was
clearly dilative cardiomyopathy. That's something that no one
can do anything about in terms of more conclusive test results
except wait, watch, and act on best guesses.
*IF* it is that you can perhaps catch it early which is a real win in
terms of giving more quality time. What type of arrhythmia does
the ferret have? Meltdown had ventricular bigemini and
trigemini. The vets consulted with a pile of people, and it was
Bruce Williams who figured out that we should try Digoxin early
on. It gave an incredible amount of control over her rhythm for a
very long time.
Sukie
--- In Ferret-Health-list@y..., "Jen & Andre" <jen.andre@i...>
wrote:
> It was originally thought that she had a dilated heart and pulm
edema but when the radiologist looked at the rads and did the
ultrasound, she said that the heart looked normal (and that the
'edema' was more likely enlarged thoracic lymph nodes).
Enlarged heart is associated with cardiomyopathy isn't it? I'll
bring it up when I take her in anyway, I can't wait to get this
settled.
>
> Jen