From:
mjanke@miamiferret.org
Date: 2005-08-11 16:50:39 UTC
Subject: RE: Coughing
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <5530097.1123779039134.JavaMail.root@thallium.smartgroups.com>
Author wrote:
> Ever since I got him, he's had this cough. Now the vet said that it could just be hair stuck and to give him some hairball removal.
I've often wondered about this. To me, it doesn't make sense, but perhaps I'm missing something. A hairball is in the stomach. How would that cause coughing? With eating and all, could hair actually remain stuck in the throat? Would that cause coughing? I don't see it entering the lungs. Anyway, I don't expect you to answer those questions, but if anyone out there can explain this to me with facts, I'd love to hear it.
We just finished transcribing the talk that Dr. Tom Kawasaki gave at the ferret symposium in St. Louis recently. He's a well known, long time ferret vet.
One of the topics he covered was heart disease in ferrets, and I recall him saying that even with cardiomyopathy, ferrets don't cough. The only time they cough with a heart condition is with heartworms.
Now those aren't his exact words, but close enough without me pasting in that whole section. And of course that doesn't mean that nothing else can cause coughing, but it might not be a bad idea to have your vet do the IDEXX heartworm test.