From:
motorcityferrets@hotmail.com
Date: 2003-10-12 05:27:38 UTC
Subject: chewing off end of own tail?!?
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <3551412.1065936458390.JavaMail.root@thallium.smartgroups.com>
recent rescue
7-8 years old
owned for 2 years by surrendering party
caged/ignored for past year
insulinoma known during last year - sometime - but ignored / not treated
eating mazuri for past 2 years
upon surrender, cage mate too rough for her...no fighting back, thought perhaps stress causing anxiety so we kept them together with supervision, bully calmed down. :)
immediately screened for insulinoma, started on pred
1.25# female, .5 pred BID
has always been slow, recent trouble walking around, never any desire to really motor or check things out.
glucose is now in normal range, but the trouble continues!
these last few days laura has really had trouble getting around, so we've upped the pred and started her on supportive feedings of nutrical and (bob c original recipe) chicken gravy. she LOVES pred but is having trouble with anything else.
tonight when we came home we found the end of her tail bloody. washing revealed dried blood further down the tail, then a glob of "fresh" red blood, very sticky and congealed. there was no blood on the floor or blankets - we searched absolutely everywhere! a small portion of her tail is gone; the end is no longer smooth and round but jagged with a clear chunk missing. it almost seems as if the bleeding was so slow that it just didn't go anywhere and instead just hung out in a glob on the end of her tail.
she's still having much trouble walking and is falling over. no interest in drinking but is not dehydrated; of course we'll start fluids tonight. takes nutrical but nothing else, mush is being force fed.
has anyone seen this sort of behavior? i've never even heard of such a thing! the closest i can come is a few years ago we had a critter with a creeping paralysis. as his legs started to scelerose (sp) he started chewing the area around the legs and on the back. he chewed himself some nasty flesh wounds and i never did catch him doing the chewing. :) i started applying ointment and wrapping the area; since the paralysis kept marching up the body he wasn't really able to get around the bandages so the chewing stopped.
i must admit i'm worried sick that something is seriously wrong with this little one! any advice would be appreciated - of course we'll get into see the vet on monday! :)
nanci
motor city ferrets
www.motorcityferrets.org