From:
ferretwoman33@yahoo.com
Date: 2003-02-19 04:04:41 UTC
Subject: Anal Gland Surgery
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <19568730.1045627481756.JavaMail.root@scandium>
I had a 2.5 yr old ferret with impacted anal glands. He had surgery two weeks ago to have them removed and was just licking the area raw and it had become infected. We went back to the vet a few days later, and found out that the area had become filled with pus. So the vet went back in to drain the area, and put the ferret on stronger pain meds. My ferret stayed at the animal hospital for two days after that to make sure he was kept from licking the area. He was on constant pain meds and valium whenever he bothered the area while at the vets.
I brought him home Friday night with two doses of pain meds. Gave the first dose Saturday morning around 11:30 am. He seemed to be doing ok, eating ok, drinking ok. His stools were soft but ok.
Later Saturday night around 10 pm he vomited, and was trying to pass stool and only very tiny stools were coming out. He ran around crying, trying to get stool out for quite a while. I tried a lot of things including warm water and lax and nothing would come out. He was prolapsing from pushing so hard. So I ran him to the ER vet who checked him out real good and did an x-ray. It showed there was nothing in him to actually come out. The vet said that anal gland surgery is very painful and takes quite a while to actually heal. He gave him a powerful pain med and sent us on our way.
He was fine Sunday and most of Monday on low-dose pain meds that I had, giving them every 6 hrs. However Monday night, he started on the crying and straining again. I can see he is getting plenty of stool out, and I see a normal amount of urine being passed also.
I'm wondering why he feels he needs to go when he's already gotten a large amount of stool out. Could there have been another complication? Is that area numb or painful from surgery and it makes him feel like there is something to come out? I'm confused, and worried. I'm on the east coast where the vets office was closed, and my usual vet won't be in tomorrow either. So I'm posing the question here.
Any ideas or comments would be appreciated.
Linda