From:
sukiec@optonline.net
Date: 2003-05-18 23:50:12 UTC
Subject: pumpkin for diarrhea
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <4770129.1053301812452.JavaMail.root@thallium.smartgroups.com>
Steve and I have read that those who respond to the addition of pumpkin do it almost immediately.
We're trying it on Sherman who has IBD but are having only a slight change for the better, but the change is within his normal range of variation so that may not be from the pumpkin.
How much do you use if you have had good luck with this approach?
We know that response to this dietary trick varies and for some ferrets it is useless.
I may try some rice water to see what happens and if we can get him stabilized enough for a while to help him. The Predniolone isn't working any longer and it looks like his fur loss could be from long term Pred use rather than from early adrenal neoplasia.
His possible adrenal fur loss has never been quite adrenal if you know what I mean, and we thought that we might have to quickly leave at some point due to someone dear to us having a malignancy so the vet suggested trying Lupron. There is no change. Nada. Zip. We thought that perhaps we had our second early adrenal case ever but it doesn't look like we do. It looks like it is more likely fur loss from the Pred. (That makes me feel even better about the way we are careful to provide them with a lot of true darkness; so far the only known early adrenal case we've had in our family in 21 years was during a time when we didn't provide a lot of true darkness.) We're staying open minded in relation to him but it looks less and less adrenal the more we try to find out if it is adrenal.
Anyway, we know about other IBD approaches that have been used for the past 6 months or longer so we'd love to hear about useful ones that are more recent, and we would like the pumpkin amount, please. We need that.
(Sherman is the little boy who was found as a lost or dumped MF kit, emaciated, so covered with ticks that they stopped counting at 30, and with gangrene that cost him his tail. He is now in his prime years, small for a male but a bit robust in shape, and is a very active wrestler, low-level climber, and world-class "Lie down; Roll over" boy. He just has this long term diarrhea and loose stool problem and the fur loss.)