From:
ferretsonly@hotmail.com
Date: 2003-04-07 12:47:16 UTC
Subject: Periactin to stimulate appetite?
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <14615347.1049719636480.JavaMail.root@scandium>
Hi all.
A friend of mine now living 3000 miles from me has a ferret that recently had bi-lateral adrenal surgery. Shortly thereafter, the ferret became very ill and was diagnosed via bloodwork with hepatitis. The 5.5 year old ferret is slowly recovering but now refuses to eat.
Between the two of us, we have 33 years of ferret ownership and she has tried everything we can both think of get her ferret interested in food again. My friend is force feeding about 6cc's of soup before he refuses to eat any more. At that point, the ferret gets so upset he starts vomiting. He will, however, happily devour raisins. I'm not sure if she has tried the raisin coated 8 in 1 food but has tried a/d, chicken baby food, lamb baby food, deliver, in addition to his normal Path Valley/Totally Ferret mixture. He seems to turn his nose up at anything meat based.
Her vet put him on pred after surgery and he has remained on pred. The vet doubled the pred in the hopes that would stimulate his appetite - without results. He also put the ferret on Pepsid (I had suggested carafate). This afternoon, he put the ferret on periactin to stimulate the appetite and gave a B vitamin shot.
Does anyone have any knowledge of periactin? My extremely knowledgeable ferret vet has never used it. Her less-experienced vet said it is used to stimulate the appetite in cats but didn't know if it would work in ferrets. My internet research found that it is used for cats but can also cause the loss of appetite. One source also said that valium can be used to stimulate the appetite so I will also suggest that to her.
Her ferret is bone thin now and very weak. The vet says there is nothing physically wrong so we are looking for ideas or suggestions. One other thing I will suggest is Ensure but based on his response to Deliver, I'm not hopeful. Any other ideas?
Thanks.
-Carla