From:
crittercrazee2000
Date: 2002-04-19 09:50:00 UTC
Subject: Ulcers???? Or could it be something else
Hello, this is my first time to post here so this message is a
little long-winded. Ok here we go :P About 2 years ago I purchased
my first two ferrets. 1 male 1 female. Each were purchased from
different pet stores. Both shops having a very decent reputation.
As any ferret owner knows it does not take long to completely and
totally fall in love with the cute little guys. About a month ago my
male (Lars) became very ill. Symptoms as follows: Loose stools,
vomiting spells, inappatence, lethargy, severe weight loss, and
EXTREME TEETH GRINDING (just wanted to emphasize on that because he
was doing it all the time) I had an emergency visit with my vet and
had bloodwork and an open-exploratory surgery performed. My vet
believed that there was an intestinal blockage somewhere. During the
surgery I recieved a call at home and my vet told me that she had not
found anything wrong but his liver was very inflamed and she wanted
to know if I wanted a biopsy of his liver done. Of course I had it
done and when she got the results she gave me a diagnosis of
hepatitis. (SP?) It was not cancerous, but she informed me it was
pretty severe. I was given a perscription of Baytril (22.7 mg tabs
which I was to quarter and give once daily) And of course I was to
make sure he got plenty of food and water as that would be the most
important factor. Well I kept up his treatment for about 3 weeks and
not noticing any signifigant improvement in his condition I was
becoming very worried that it might be the end of the road soon for
my little buddy. Then it got to the point where whenever I gave him
the Baytril he would get very sick from it. After careful
consideration and a LOT of reading about ferret health I decided to
stop the Baytril dosage and only pray for the best. To my
astonishment a couple of days after I stopped the medication he began
to come around. (Eating and drinking on his own, more playful, ect.)
I was so happy to see him in a better state than he was. BUT it was
not long before he got sick again (a day or two) With the same
symptoms as before but one difference I noticed was in his stools. As
before he had runny stools, but now they are still runny but very
dark in color. (Black basically) And occasionally when they were not
black they seem to have a mucas-like texture with a pink/red color.
With a horrid odor. I know ferret poo isn't supposed to smell like
roses LOL, but this is a very bad smell. When I seen that I
remembered reading about ulcers and returned to the page where I had
first read about it. I provided the link here:
http://www.ferretcentral.org/faq/med/ulcers.html
My little buddy has ALL of these symptoms. What really caught my
attention was the part where it mentioned "grinding of the teeth"
because I asked my vet before why he was doing that and she said that
she didn't know but it shouldn't be any reason to worry. Now
currently I am giving him no meds right now. And here is the strange
part. Lars seems to feel great at times just like there was nothing
wrong. This usually only lasts for a day or two though. In this time
he is very playful, eats and drinks well, does not grind his teeth,
his stools take on a semi-hard tan colored appearance. Then after a
day or two of this he gets sick again. In this time he becomes very
lethargic, does not eat or drink a lot but he does not go without,
intermittent vomiting, and grinds his teeth like crazy, And this is
when his stools take on the black runny appearance or the pink/red
mucas appearance. And then this will usually last for a day or two
then he feels better again (so it seems) And if I had to make my own
educated guess I would put my last dollar on ulcers. But knowing the
fact that I am not qualified to be "for sure" I am asking anyone that
might know that this is the problem before I request the medication
to treat ulcers from my vet. Well I'll end this now and hopefully
someone that knows for sure might be able to help me out. I'm sorry
this was so long but I didn't want to leave anything out. Thank you
for reading and any help or advice you can offer will be GREATLY
appreciated.
Chris
p.s. If anyone can assist and needs to know anything else about Lars
please email me at
manowar2@t...