From:
autumn_whispers2me@yahoo.com
Date: 2004-12-29 23:28:14 UTC
Subject: Ferret with ulcers and confused
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <6171110.1104362894588.JavaMail.root@thallium.smartgroups.com>
I've been reading through the archives, and I've asked tons of questions to our vet, but I'm still confused about some things and hoped you guys could help me.
One of my ferrets, Boo-Boo, has been diagnosed with ulcers. He lost 1.5 pounds before we got a correct diagnosis, which was purely by accident. They gave him some nutri-cal in the office and he went crazy, crying and clawing at his mouth---something I'd not seen him do before, but mostly because he was refusing to eat.
The first time we took him in his lymph glands were swollen, so they thought he had a virus. Gave him antibiotics (Cavamox.. sp?) and sent us home. A few days later he seems better, not quite as lethargic, but still not eating either. They suspected possible lymph cancer. When we went back they told us his glands were normal size... and the rest is history.
He's on Clavamox, but it's turned yellow quickly and has to be discarded now, and we were told to give him pepto bismol twice daily. We were also told to give him liquid tagament (sp?), which we had to stop because he hated it SO badly that he'd panic, scream, then vomit. he's not vomited since we stopped giving it to him.
We also discovered that the sound he's been making for months during/after eating food, ferretone, whatever is not what we thought (rubbing his tongue on the roof of his mouth); he's been grinding his teeth.
The teeth grinding continues, and I still have to hand feed him, which we've been doing since Christmas Eve. The vet we saw wants us to feed him 9-10 mls "every hour," which I'm told is too stressful for him. Is this true? Am I making his condition worse by waking him up so often??
I'm very confussed, befuddled, and very very scared... and I'm wondering if we're not the cause of his ulcers after reading the doc's articles on his web site. :o( We moved from MN to AL after the first of this year, then we got two other ferrets... all stressors. And Boo-Boo's scared to death of the sound the vaccuum makes, and I mean scared to death, so I wonder if that hasn't caused problems too?
Any advice, anything at all would be very much appreciated. Boo-Boo turned a year old in May, so he's not an older guy. and he's my buddy. I'm scared of losing him and would like to know I've done everything I could, and learned everything I could to help him recover.
Thanks, everyone.