From:
sukiec@optonline.net
Date: 2005-04-15 17:12:05 UTC
Subject: RE: cardiomyopathy/adrenal disease
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <1847819.1113585125276.JavaMail.root@thallium.smartgroups.com>
I have to strongly agree with the others on the importance on it being essential to spend the money for better imaging of the heart than the x-ray will provide. How the heart is functioning lets the meds be chosen for the specific's of an individual's disease, and then they can be changed later as things chance.
When there is a rhythm problem then an EKG/ECG is also of great importance and may need to be repeated a number of times IF the type of problem found warrents it.
We have had a ferret with an extremely serious type of rhythm problem: vetricular bigemini (sometimes trigemini) for whom Digoxin was her single most important medication. In her case she was expect to die soon but we were able to give her a lot of time (over a year) even though this was many years ago before the treatments were as advanced as they are now.
(She kept going until a while after she began to have her diseased heart throw clots. The first was just to a leg so we used massage (often and in shifts so I know it was for longer than 24 hours) to help it break up in small pieces and it resolved well. Then she was okay for a while until within 24 hours she threw one to a kidney and then before her exam first thing the next morning in case the kidney clot had succeeded in breaking up she threw a clot to her brain.)
I suspect there are advances for dealing with that, too, and a cardiologist will be able to tell you.
This is not the sort of medical problem a person can wait on.
We HAVE had a surgery done on a ferret with full blown cardiomyopathy because she had liver cysts which literally gave us just hours to make the choice. She survived, but I have to tell you that the vet we had at the time was the single best veterinary surgeon we have ever had. (He moved away from NJ to NYC and then later to MA.)
Because we also now have a very fine surgeon we have also had one survive who developed Complete A/V Heart Block on the operating table during surgery for insulinoma which in her case was partly in a section of pancreas which could not be completely removed due to its location. A/V Heart Block is a rare complication of insulinoma and also has its own way of messing about with rhythms (They don't match up).
You can find some compilations on cardiomyopathy and on Heart Node Block in the FILES section (pages one and two of that section) in
http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/ferrethealth
and then read up on later advances by using the past posts from later dates in the archives at
http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org
This information should help you and your vet.
In the Node Block write-up there is contact info for a vet consultant who has been helpful for multiple ferret people and if there is not a local cardiologist then using such a cardiologist may be the best way for you and your vet to get the advice needed.
Also, look into
http://www.vetsoftware.com/acvc2002-hess2.htm
For may reasons surgery is usually the best approach to an adrenal growth, but if the cardiologist decides that cardiomyopathy is present then that is the disease with the most critical needs. Respond first to the most dangerous disease and shape what you do for other diseases around it. (That is the only reason Ruffle had surgery with cardiomyopathy even though she WAS expected to die on the table, because the liver cysts would have ben fatal in almost no time at all and the window within which anything could be done was so narrow.)
Finally, there is some interesting case study information on humans iwth cardiomyopathy. It may be that at least for some that taking (Shoot, I am going to split up the word because some people's junk mail scanners remove all mail with it: first syllable: Vi Second syllable: a Third syllable: gra) actually appears to have reversed cardiomyopathy. Nothing has ever done that before. It needs a LOT more study to learn the specifics of when it helps and when it is safe to take even, leet alone if it will have a similar effect in ferrets, but there may be promise down the road with that medication or similar medications.