Message Number: SG2555 | New FHL Archives Search
From: miles_musc@yahoo.com
Date: 2002-12-11 13:27:57 UTC
Subject: diarhhea and ulcer - anxiety
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <22878148.1039613277537.JavaMail.root@scandium>

We are trying to get a grasp on our ferrets diarrhea and would
appreciate any advice from you.

Our ferret, Miles, is a 3 year old male whom has battled diarrhea
for the past several months.

We have taken Miles to several vets and finally found one vet that
seems to be able to diagnose Miles' diarrhea.

The vet believes Miles
suffers from a ulcer brought about by helliobacter. Miles diarrhea shows no signs of blood, only
clear watery mucuos.

The vet prescribed Amox and Metronidazole for 4 weeks. Everything was
great during the month of meds. Now the month has ended and the
watery diarrhea is back.

Our other ferret shows no signs of infection and no diarrhea.

Miles lives in a clean cage and eats marshall food. The diarrhea always seems to be the worse in the morning as soon as we let them out of the cage for a run. He eats offen, but does lose weight with the diarrhea. He does not grind his teeth and is active most of the time. There has been no stressful events in Miles life except for diarrhea.

The next option the vet wants to investigate is exploratory surgery to
take a biopsy of Miles' gut but I am not quite sure that its a good
option.

What are some other options?

Is there a non invasive blood test for helliobacter yet? I read Dr. W was working on one.

If exploratory surgery is positive for helliobacter, what next?

If negative results, what could be the problem?

We need all the help we can get to try to stop the diarrhea.

Can anyone give some advice?