From:
"April Armstrong Campbell"
Date: 2005-05-14 00:14:11 UTC
Subject: Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency
To: <ferrethealth@smartgroups.com>
Message-ID: <23886295.1116030830581.JavaMail.nobody@strontium.smartgroups.com>
Re: my earlier post about Bandit; I took him in today and two ferret vets, including a
specialist at XXXXXX in Boston, suspect Exocrine Pancreatic Insuffiency as a possible
diagnosis for my Bandit. (We are also going to start treating empirically for possible
helicobacter and are running bloods and fecal and urinalysis at present.
Today his xrays showed an abdomen that was very angry-could not differentiate
organs well; palpation revealed a "string of pearls" in the caudal abdomen. Bloods
in midApril were pretty unremarkable save for his low BG (42-we raised his pred.
dose after that to the 0.4 mg BID) and some mild anemia. He is actually up to 750g
today, and some weight gain can be an odd effect of this disease, despite the
continued malabsorption and anorexia/cachexia.
The mild anemia, eating of the feces (coprophagia), color and consistency of the
feces, and the other symptoms seem to point to EPI as a possibility. It is not
unheard of, apparently, in ferrets, but pretty uncommon-Dr. XXXXXXX at XXXXXX
said she'd never had a case in a ferret.
Anyhoo, has anyone here ever encountered this in a ferret in their care?
Any help would be appreciated!
-April and Bandit
PS We are raising his pred dose to 0.45mg BID to accomodate hsi weight gain,
starting Viokase in his food, starting Amoxi, flagyl, continuing sucralfate and
pepcid; the tests you can do for EPI/TPI are species-specific for dogs and cats, and
even for them a lot fo the advice points to just starting the pancreatic enzyme
supplement (Viokase in our case) and seeing how the pet does.