From:
Mary
Date: 2003-01-06 03:19:12 UTC
Subject: trouble pooping - more questions
To: ferret health list <ferrethealth@smartgroups.com>
Message-Id: <23450617.1041864572542.JavaMail.nobody@strontium>
Dr. Williams - thank you for taking the time to respond. I took her in
Friday and had an x-ray done. my regular vet wasn't there so other
than telling us what I already knew - yes, those livers are huge, and
confirming what you about the liver not constricting the intestines,
we got no further. I will be discussing the trouble pooping problem
with my regular vet when he gets back, but frankly he often relies on
me getting ideas from this forum to help him along.
what are the possibilities relating to this problem if its not an
eaten obstruction which i highly doubt? would a blood test weed them
out? to recap previous posts, she had liver biopsy which was negative
for lympho. i wonder if the sample was just a clear spot? an
ultrasound was negative for cardiomyopthy. she has been taking half a
5mg pred table once a day now for a couple of months. I had her on a
course of antiobiotics twice in the last 6 months. the vet decided to
go back to the antiobiotics, amoxi, .25ml 2ce a day in case the liver
or something else is causing a chronic infection of some sort. someone
emailed me the results of a necropsy of a ferret with similar troubles
and the intestine was thickened and fibrous - would this show on the
x-ray? maybe if we used barium?
Mary
P.S. you mention spleens, over the course of several x-rays neither
vet has mentioned the spleen but i will ask him how it looks (assuming
its not hidden behind the liver?)
> Dear Mary - No, I've never seen a liver get that big - it isn't all
> that close to the colon or intestine, and it rarely causes significant
> displacement of the GI tract so as to cause a decreased appetite
> (Spleens, on the other hand....)
>
> And it's not an effect of eating only soft food -
>
> this is one that probably should be seen on Monday by your vet....
> there may be something of grave import going on here....
>
> With kindest regards,
>
> Bruce Williams, DVM
>
[untrimmed quoting snipped by moderator]