From:
Pam Sessoms
Date: 2002-12-25 02:16:53 UTC
Subject: Re: [ferrethealth] strange things on xray
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <Pine.A41.4.44+UNC.0212242115030.68398-100000@login0.isis.unc.edu>
Hey Lisa,
Well, I'm not one of the Dr.'s, of course.
I recently lost one (Mojo) with off/on strange long-term "hiccupy" noises
and occl wheezing much later. Rads looked odd, but it doesn't sound quite
like what your guy's look like. One more diganostic we did on Mojo was a
trans-tracheal wash. You probably know about this procedure, but just in
case it hasn't come up yet, they inject a cc or so of sterile saline into
the windpipe, stimulating a cough, and then suck the saline back up. Then
they analyze anything that came up with saline - they can culture for
fungal organisms, see what bacteria is involved, look for neoplastic
cells, etc.
In Mojo's case, it was fairly unrewarding, but we only did it once. It
came back "inflammatory". We were going to do a second one around the
time he began having other worse problems, and the lungs were no longer
the primary concern. Lymphoma (sigh) was finally diagnosed after
necropsy, through histopathology. His CBC/chems were always pretty normal
- his lymphoma was infiltrative, no masses, no enlarged peripheral nodes.
It was in the lungs, liver, spleen, kidney, and elsewhere. :(
I hope the Baytril gets your guy on the mend! Just wanted to mention the
tracheal wash as one more possibility to try if diagnostics are needed.
It's non-surgical, but of course it won't help unless the lesion is
actually in the lungs.
Best wishes,
-Pam.