From:
sympatico profile
Date: 2002-03-25 22:52:00 UTC
Subject: Help - Poppy has lost use of hind legs
Our Poppy was diagnosed in January 2001 with Adrenal. She also has a
heart murmur and suspected lymphoma (enlarged lymph nodes on sides of
neck and one in groin and shadows on chest x-ray). She has been on 0.1
ml of Lasix and 0.1 ml of prednisone BID since then. We added 1 cc of
Timmy's Tonic to her regimen in April of 2002.
After gaining a huge amount of weight (going from just under two pounds
to 3 lb 13 oz at her highest) she slowly started to lose weight in
September of 2001. At her highest weight she was unable to go up and
down stairs - the bulk of her belly restricted the movement of her legs
- she could walk just fine on the floor but not stairs. In September
she started to slowly lose weight and we found her again able to go down
into the basement and back up again when she chose to do so.
We lost our Ziggy to insulinoma just 5 weeks ago.
Last Wednesday, Nigel noticed Poppy 'losing her legs' - she would be
walking across the floor and suddenly be splayed out on her belly. She
did not appear to be confused and it only happened a couple of times.
The next day, I saw her left hind leg give out under her. She picked
herself up and headed off again only to tip over on that left side
again. But then she got up and made it across the room with no
trouble. So we started to watch every time we heard her up and moving
about. Sometimes she seemed to have a problem but mostly she seemed
fine. By Saturday we had convinced odurselves that she was okay - she
went to the vet's for her Lupron shot and happily toddled around the
clinic while we were waiting - we mentioned the incidents to the vet
tech but since she seemed okay then we didn't ask to see the vet.
Sunday morning and she was still getting around but that left leg seemed
to be bothering her more. We brought up the single level cage and moved
her into it thinking that if she had injured the leg we would try to
keep her quiet in a cage that had no ramps. I started to try to feed
her A/D every 3-4 hours and held a water bottle up for her every half
hour or so to make sure she was taking in some fluids.
She still made it up and to the litter box whenever she had to go.
This AM Nigel took her to our local vet (not hugely ferret savvy) to see
if there was an injury involved. By the time she got there, she had
basically lost the use of the right leg as well.
Attached are the results of blood test and urinalysis.
Any vets out there - can you look at these and tell us if they tell you
anything. Dr. V. has put her on Clavulin for the bacterial infection
her urine shows. Is there anything else that these show.
We have a ferret who is now totally paralysed in both back legs - in
fact the feet feel cool.
Rest assured, we are planning to take Poppy to a more ferret
knowledgeable vet tomorrow - as long as she makes it though the night.
We just wondered if anyone out there could give us an idea about what to
expect.
Many thanks and my apologies for the length of this message.
Bonnie & Nigel
Attachment 94k (application/msword) poppy report.doc