From:
sukieferret
Date: 2002-05-10 17:02:00 UTC
Subject: Re: heavy breather
> She went to the vet this morning. The Dr. did a physical exam,
> took her temp and took and x-ray. Her temp was normal. Her
> x-ray showed an enlarged heart and fluid in the lungs. He
> diagnosed heart disease and has put her on 0.16ml of Lasix
> liquid 2x a day forever. He says forever is only as much as a
> year though. He said we caught it early - before she bloated
> up from all the fluid retention.
Cecila, if you go to
http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc
youwill find at least two articles on cardiomyopathy.
There are a lot of meds that can help beyond Lasix, but
addressing Lasix first: the upper limit depends on the individual.
Tha tused to not be known to be the case and some vet text still
don't have the current info.
There are a number of useful meds that have a long history:
Enacard, Digoxin, Co-enzyme 10 Q, and some folks have
remarked upon fine help from some meds that ease breathing,
too.
By doing an ultrasound your vet will have a good handle on
which meds to begin with and where to go with them.
Many vets are afraid of Digoxin. The one here with
cardiomyopathy who had the worst prognosis was Meltdown
who also had ventricular bigemini and some trigemini. She
wound up actually getting something like a year and half with
meds and for her entire time ill she had Digoxin with marvelous
results.
If you use the search engine at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ferret-Health-list
you will find many useful posts on cardiomyopathy. In the Files
section is a great piece by FHL co-moderator and librarian, Pam
Sessoms, on using the search engine if you are not used to
using them.