From:
"Lin"
Date: 2003-07-14 20:36:12 UTC
Subject: Ariel's Heart
To: <ferrethealth@smartgroups.com>
Message-ID: <7791465.1058221698119.JavaMail.nobody@vanadium.smartgroups.com>
Hi All:
I posted a few wks ago, looking for a vet who could do an echocardiogram on
my 3 yr old ferret Ariel, who'd had an xray that showed an enlarged heart.
Just thought I'd post that, Ariel did indeed have her echo today, & they think
they found out what's wrong w/ her. The physical structure of her heart -
muscle, chambers, walls, valves & their functions - are completely normal.
However, when they measured her heart rate, it sometimes shot up as fast as
350 bpm!
Superventricular tachycardia, if I spelled that right, is the Dx. Our regular ferret
vet said that *this* could have caused her heart to appear enlarged during that
last set of xrays, if he happened to snap the pic while she was having an
episode of this - the heart's pacemaker was telling the heart to "beat again",
when it hadn't yet finished pumping *out* the blood it had just pumped *in* -
resulting in a temporary overload of blood in the heart, which made it
momentarily look enlarged. As the testing done today could find nothing else
physically wrong w/ her heart (test performed by the former prof of veterinary
cardiology), this is what we're left w/. After about a half hr follow-up phonecall
w/ our regular vet, they agreed that putting Ariel on a beta-blocker is the way
to go (specific med starts w/ an "A", has a lot of "L"'s in it - sorry, I'm blanking
out - long day already!). After crunching the numbers tonight, our vet will call
the Rx in to my husband (a pharmacist) to compound at work tomorrow. We'll
put her on it for 2 wks, then see what her heart rate is like, if we need to make
any adjustments in her dosage, etc.
I'm just relieved that there's no actual physical damage to Ariel's heart!
Thank you again to everyone who helped me out w/ this, via personal emails &
stuff. Your advice has been invaluable.
Any comments/experiences w/ this sort of heart condition, & the treatment
we're pursuing, is welcomed!
Lin, Ariel, Oberon, & Max