From:
"Pam Sessoms"
Date: 2006-07-14 15:35:54 UTC
Subject: Re: [ferrethealth] Violent aversion to food. Vets seem puzzled. Please advise.
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Dear Desear,
This is going to sound bizarre, but I've sounded bizarre before and
lived through it, so here goes.
Consider middle/inner ear infection. Otitis media/interna. Here's
why, and of course, this just a stab in the dark, but some of your
descriptions made me perk up my ears.
I've just been through an ordeal with my old girl Harriet. She gets
soup (Bob's chicken gravy) twice a day, morning and evening and has
always been healthy aside from early cardiomyopathy. A few months
ago, she started showing a moderate aversion to her soup. I'd put it
down for her, and she's sniff, shake her head, try to get away, rather
than diving right in as usual. This happened right around the time
that I'd made a new batch of gravy, and it's not that uncommon for
them to be a little weird about a new batch, so I didn't think too
much of it. If I gave her a taste off of my finger, she'd decide the
stuff in the bowl was, in fact, delicious and eat it all. This went
on for a couple of weeks. I didn't notice anything else was wrong
with her. There was never any tooth grinding, unusual lethargy, bad
poop, etc.
Then one night, I went to get her for evening gravy, and she was a
wreck. All she could do was fall over to the left. When I held her,
she sort of spasmed over to the left side, craning her neck and
tilting her head. I thought "insulinoma seizure!" and checked her
blood sugar with my glucometer, and it was like 133, totally normal.
I looked at her more carefully; heart sounded normal for her. Her
face just didn't look right; one side seemed strange. Then I noticed
her eyes. One pupil was pointing straight up and the other pupil was
pointing straight down. Both eyes were vibrating rapidly side to
side. I knew the name for the last sign: nystagmus, and it's never
good. I was thinking brain tumor, blood clot, etc, at this point and
was sure we'd have to put her down.
Our vet met us at the hospital at midnight. Turns out, her left
eardrum was ruptured, and a swab showed an infection. Middle/inner
ear infections can cause a vestibular syndrome, which would account
for all of the problems we were seeing. We loaded up with Baytril and
some other meds, had some exudate sent off for culture and
sensitivity, and took her home. The next day, she was actually worse,
and when placed on the floor, she would just spiral to the left.
Literally roll. Could not walk. Within about two or three days, she
could stagger and maintain a course for a general drection. Severe
head tilt. Her pupils were starting to drift to a more normal
position, though. A few days later, the nystagmus had stopped, her
eyes and face were normal, and she could walk pretty much anywhere
besides the stairs, which she avoided. The ear culture showed
Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which was luckily responsive to the Baytril.
Many weeks later, the only sign remaining is a slight head tilt,
noticeable only when she sticks her nose up in the air to sniff
something. She goes up and down the steps perfectly, even, and is
back to playing and dancing. She still doesn't much like to be rolled
onto her back, which she used to love. I think it makes her dizzy.
She is also still picky about the first bites of gravy, and we're
investigating her abdomen further on Tuesday with an ultrasound just
to be sure nothing is really going on in there.
I really suspect, though, that the aversion she had for her gravy
early on was the first sign of her ear infection. I think it was
making her queasy.
Once again, this might be a long shot for your girl, but it is worth a
look. To visualize the ear drum, my vet had to sedate Harriet. Their
ear anatomy makes the ear drum difficult to look at.
By the way, prior to her crisis, her ears were never all that bad; I
thought they had normal amounts of ferret ear wax. There was no odor,
etc. I've had ferrets with obviously crummy ears before, yeast
infections, etc, and this was not like that at all. I don't know if
better ear hygeine would have prevented her problem, but you can bet
I'm a total ear nazi now. Everyone gets their ears gently flushed
with sterile saline once a week nowadays!
Good luck and keep us posted!
-Pam S.
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