From:
Patti Higgins
Date: 2004-03-15 08:53:10 UTC
Subject: X-Ray shows lots of internal gas in stomach and intestine
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <40556EF6.1080402@keytoalaska.com>
My beloved Butter is having a very hard time. He is my first ferret and
I love him dearly. Butter is a six year old male from Marshall's. When
he was two he had ECE and almost died. For over a year we had to force
feed or hand feed him.
Two years ago Butter started losing hair on the back of his shoulders.
His Dr.did exploratory surgery and removed the left adrenal, the very
enlarged spleen, and several insulonmias from the pancreas. The Dr. put
him on pred as a precaution.
Shortly afterwards - maybe three weeks; we came home and found him
almost dead: sprawled out on the floor and very cold. We rushed him to
the animal hospital and they barely brought him back. They increased the
dose to two doses a day. It happened again but not as bad..
So now Butter is on Prednisolone 5 mg tablets that we cut in quarters
and give him one of the quarters in the morning and another at night.
Butter hates it, he starts foaming at the mouth as soon as he sees the
syringe. Sometimes I mash up the pill and put it in some cream cheese
which he loves but not if he happens to get a chunk of the prednisolone.
Sometimes I add ferretone to the water and crushed pill but that only
helps a little. If I am a few hours late with the pill he starts to
crash again. I am worried that this constant giving of medicine that he
hates causes too much stress on him.
He is losing hair on his tail so the adrenal must be back. Last Friday
we were taking one of the other ferrets to the Dr. and so I made an
appointment for him at the same time just so the doctor could check on
him. Three hours before the appointment he started getting very weak and
crying if we touched or moved him. At the clinic the Dr. took an X-ray
and came back to say he showed a lot of gas in the stomach and
intestines. There is also a lot of fat. So we went and bought baby drops
of simethicone and he was a lot better. All this time I thought he was
puffy because of the prednisolone. He is probably fat because we always
feed him Marshall's kibble very wet and mushed up. He eats some and then
looks up expectantly so we remoisten the food with hot water and he eats
some more (this is learned behavior on our part after the ECE
nightmare.) So now I don't remoisten his food. All my ferrets (4 in all)
are free roam and have access to three kinds of food all the time
(Marshall's, Eagle, and high protein kitten food (which they mostly
ignore.) He will eat hard kibble but I don't know how often he would do
that.
The question is - what could be causing the gas, should he go back in
for surgery on the adrenal and the pancreas, and how can I keep him more
stabalized on the prednisolone? Thank you all for being here for very
scared moms.
Patti