From:
Pam Sessoms
Date: 2005-01-20 16:00:15 UTC
Subject: Re: [ferrethealth] Sudden paralysis in rear end
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com, kenyr@axoncorp.com
Message-ID: <5c46b4a405012008004ba3daa3@mail.gmail.com>
On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 23:05:28 -0500, Ken Nyren <kenyr@axoncorp.com> wrote:
> Please help if you can, Our moose a 1.5yr old male was fine when we got home from work then 3 hours later he was in the bottom of his cage and his rear legs wouldn't work. There is no way he could have gotten injured in his cage, the longest distance he could have possibly fallen is about a foot.
Ken, let us know what the vet found.
The only help I can relate is a story about one of mine. Mojo was a
little under a year when he suddenly became paralyzed much like you
describe. His paralysis was a little less sudden; when we originally
took him to the vet, he could paddle his legs off to the sides while
he tried to slide on his belly. It progressed to full paralysis,
though. Xrays didn't show any fractures, but with no apparent medical
causes, we just assumed it was trauma and swelling putting pressure on
the spinal cord. We hit him really, really hard with steroids
(injections by the vet and large amounts of oral pred at home), and he
made a full recovery after a few weeks of rest.
Interestingly, years later, when he was about six years old, he had an
xray of his abdomen for other reasons, and it was an exceptionally
good radiograph, very clear and crisp. Anyway, the film clearly
showed an old, healed fracture in a vertebrae, so it seems that he did
actually have a broken back all those years ago, even though we
couldn't see it at the time.
Keep us posted,
-Pam S.