From:
alustrial78
Date: 2001-12-16 20:35:00 UTC
Subject: Need Advice - Completely Baffling Ferret Condition
Greetings, I was refered to this list from some people from a
different message board in the hopes that someone here might be able
to help me.
My husband and I are completely baffled - and our vet seems quite
confused as well. Also - before I start, I would like to apoligize
for the HUGE post - I have just written about everything that has
happened the last week in the hopes that someone might understand
what is happening.
Just some background history on my two ferrets. We adopted them 4
weeks ago from a Ferret Shelter - that shelters only ferrets. Both
Kabuki and Nyago are approx 1 year old each and both come from the
same household previous to being taken to the shelter (because their
previous owner was moving). To the best of our knowledge - neither
of these guys have been exposed to the outside world and to other
animals or other shelters. Also, there have been no reports of any
of her ferrets in the shelter or adopted that have had any illness as
Canine Distemper.
It all started on the Tuesday just gone. One of our two ferrets,
Kabuki, started sneezing extremely bad at around 3.00am in the
morning. We did not think -too- much of it until we woke up at
6.30am and found that he was still having extremely bad sneezing
fits. So I took him out of his cage for a while. A minute after he
came out of the cage - he stopped sneezing - and appeared perfectly
normal. I would put him back in the cage - he would start sneezing
again, and so forth.
What was interesting about this was the fact that the day before - I
had just washed the bedding, in ordinary laundry detergent (purex)
and put the original bedding back in quite late - around 7-8pm Monday
night.
I came to the conclusion that he must have had an allergy to the
laundry detergent (as I remembered that last time I washed the
bedding - he has a little sneezing fit - but not as bad as this. So -
I took all the bedding out - and washed it twice in plain hot water
trying to remove the detergent residue. This seemed to help a little
bit.
BUT...then through the rest of the day, I noticed a dramatic change
in Kabuki. From being his normally happy running around like crazy,
eating like a pig self - he was laying down listlessly...he had a
runny nose (clear fluids - but which actually stopped on Wednesday),
his eyes were dull, and he was beoming dehydrated. Also, his toilet
visits pretty much stopped - and what he had managed to do beforehand
was very thin, green coloured poop. He also started having trouble
walking on his hind legs. It was a very strange turn around in his
health and I immediately started to worry. That night - I took him
to the vet at 7.30pm because he seemed to be getting worse.
Unfortunately, poor Kabuki had a very rough time in the car - and
worked himself up. By the time I got to the vet and I was trying to
hold him - he was panting like crazy and trembling extremely bad.
His condition was so bad - that the vet originally thought he had
rabies.
As the vet looked over him - he noticed Kabuki had a slightly
irregular heart beat - but after the x-rays and the visit - he put
down to the stress of traveling in the car. His CBC came back as
normal (sorry - I don't have the numbers). His weight was 2.6 pound.
The x-ray on the other hand was a different story.
I had been concerned that mayhaps he had a blockage (considering the
state of his feces) but the x-rays did not show that. What they DID
show though that his esophegus, stomach, intestinal tract etc was
completely filled with air. Also, his stomach was HUGE - a good 4
times larger than normal - and completely filled with air. The vet
was saying that no wonder he was not eating/drinking/using the toilet
etc.
The most likely explination we had was that if he DID have an
allergy - he was having trouble breathing - and swallowing the air
instead of breathing it. He prescribed 1cc Prednisone Liquid twice a
day and 0.5cc Clavamox liquid twice a day (to fight off any secondary
infection. Also, at the vet they gave him an injection of Lasix and
Prednisone.
They sent me off home with the medication - and also two cans of a/d
Hills Feline prescription food for me to forcefeed him with and made
an appointment for me to come back on Saturday morning for a checkup.
I got Kabuki home and managed to give him some food and water and put
him in the cage for the night - I stayed up until about 2am so that I
could try and feed him again before I went to sleep. By this time -
he really was not doing very well.
The next day (Wednesday) he was worse. I was really struggling to get
any food or water in him at all and at 11.20am he had is first
seizure. He was thrashing around on the bottom of his cage with his
mouth wide open and he was screaming. A terrible sound. When he
finished, he was sitting still...panting a little bit. I pulled him
out and sat down and gave him water - it was the first time that he
took quite a lot of water. He still refused to eat any food (I had
been trying to force feed him a/d mixed with the Gerbers baby chicken
food) from the syringe - or even lick it from my fingers. I put him
back in the cage and called the vet.
The vet was saing that the seizure could have been caused from pain
from the gasses etc - but the only thing I really could do at the
time was to keep my eye on him and watch him. Later that night, he
had another seizure - at 9.40pm - I got him out of the cage, gave him
some more water again - and when he went in he fell asleep. He was
continuing to get worse - and even more dehydrated despite me giving
him water. At 2.40am Thusday, I ended up ringing the vet because I
was seriously scared that Kabuki was not going to make it through the
night.
The vet rang back and said that it could have something to do with
his blood sugar levels - and told us to try and feed him something
with sugar or glucose. And to get him to eat - to try and mix the
food with some of the sweet things to see if he will eat. So I gave
him half a tea-spoon of Ferretvite, and also some of his food - and
he finally ate for the first time that day.
I took him back to the vet Thursday morning and they did a second set
of x-rays on him. Once again - there appeared to be no sign of a
blockage. And a good sign - his stomach had returned to normal -
although there was still traces of gas in his system. They weight
him and he came in at 2.7 pounds, so he had not lost any weight at
all. Also, he went to the toilet for the first time in a day and
ahalf - it was quite large, but it was wobbly, and a green colour -
but turning brown again. The vet was saying that she was not sure of
what was wrong with him - but she was afraid that it may be an
underlying thing - and Canine Distemper came up. She said that the
best we can do was to take him home (once again) and keep an eye on
him - force feed him (they showed me how to do it correctly) and to
watch out for signs of him getting worse.
Once again - I took him home. I gave him a decent amout of food
before I decided to take a nap (about 10cc of food - they had given
him some at the vet as well). Not long after waking from my nap -
Kabuki had his third (and so far - last) seizure. This one was not
half as long as the others - and although he was vocal, he was no
where near as loud as the first one. I once again got him out - and
gave him a mixture of water and a little bit of honey - which he
drank heaps of. Also, after this third seizure..I noticed that he
started "flinching" when you would accidently surprize him - make a
loud noise or sudden movements. I would not call it twitching -
definately flinching. The rest of Thursday was great though as I
managed to force feed him three more meals of 20-25cc through the day
(mixed with a little bit of Ferratvite to entice him to eat) and gave
him heaps of water - with a little dab of honey at the end of the
syringe to entice him to drink. I felt comfortable enough that night
to go to bed and sleep at a semi-decent time - waking up once at
about 3am to give him another feed and more water.
Friday came - and I noticed that he was becoming a little bit more
active. He was still doing the flinching though and still walking
funny on his hind legs. He was eating ALL of the food I was feeding
him and had started going to the toilet regularly again. His feces
was returning from a greenish colour back to his normal brown..and
starting to become much more solid again. In the afternoon I was
quite excited as I noticed for the first time since Tuesday - he
started eating his dry food on his own again - and slowly started
drinking his water from his water bowl. I was woken up by my husband
at 4am on Saturday morning to be told that he was eating and drinking
from his bowl again AND going to the toilet. This was a dramatic
improvement since Tuesday.
We took him back to the vet again on Saturday, and told him how he
had started eating/drinking/using the toilet again on his own
accord. How he was becoming more active etc. When we told him about
the third seizure though, and the flinching - he became worried. He
was holding Kabuki in a certain way - that the muscles were making
his jaw spasm involentary. He said that that really scared him and
Canine Distemper came up YET again.
He managed to draw blood from Kabuki and ran a bunch of test:-
SGPT, BUN, CBC, Fecal exam, Glucose (from my reciept) and ALL of
these test turned up normal - nothing to worry about. The white
blood cell count was just a fraction higher - but he said it was most
likly caused by the Prednisone. Once again, it appeared that he was
rather baffled - and told us the best thing we can do is to take him
home again - keep him on his medication (although we have to lower
the dosage of the Prednisone), make sure he is eating and drinking
and if he gets worse - to take him back again.
So we took Kabuki home and fed him, gave him his medication and after
that we had to take a trip to the Ferret Shelter to pick up some
custom bedding we ordered for their cages. We were speaking with
Carin (the shelter owner) about all of this with Kabuki, and she was
very confused - and she was also angry that the vet even mentioned
Canine Distemper - she really feels that it is not that at all. She
pulled out a book that she had - about the sypmtoms etc, and he had
pictures of how the ferrets look - there is no way Kabuki looks even
remotely like that. And whilst he has the neuological sypmtoms (the
seizure and the flinching - although I think twitching is the
sypmtom - not flinching) he is not showing ANY of the other symptoms
at all. One thing Carin did mention though was that mayhaps he had a
stroke - which could then be causing the neuological symptoms.
I don't know if this is the case - but it is so strange. Today
(Sunday) he is almost back to his old self. He is still weak and is
still showing a little bit of weakness in his hind legs. He is still
flinching every now and then - but not half as bad as it was on
Thursday or Friday. And right this very instant, he is kicking his
litter box around telling me he wants OUT of the cage. To look at
him - you would not have even thought he had been extremely sick the
last week. Also, as to this day still - my other ferret, Nyago is in
perfect health - there is nothing at all wrong with him, and he has
shared the same cage as Kabuki.
So...if you managed to get through this mega big post -
congradulations! :] I would really appreciate if anyone might have
any idea what could have happened - or if anyone has experienced a
similar thing.
Thank you so very much if you took the time to read this, and I look
forward to hearing from someone who might be able to help.
Naomi