From:
grassy_grass_girl@hotmail.com
Date: 2006-09-10 06:47:18 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] I have to know
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
It might be pointless but I really have to know about my ferret Felix and why he
died, so if anyone has any ideas I would REALLY appreciate. He was my baby and I'm
still pretty torn up about him. I have been searching for what was wrong since he
fell sick in February 2006. He passed away May 11 2006. I'm 17 years old; I had my
Felix for almost 2 years. I got him when he was just a baby and had no problems. He
got a vaccine in late Jan and Feb 15 I noticed he was lethargic and breathing quickly.
He basically only moved around to get to food and water and to come to my lap. For
the first little while he only crawled around using all his legs and he starting
normally again. All he did was sleep. He had a high fever that in the last month went
up and down and almost pretty much back to normal. I noticed near the end that he
was pooping more frequently, but it might have just been my imagination. I brought
him to the vet and they gave him baytril injections every other day for 2 or 3 weeks
and it didn't make any difference at all. The vet also did an x-ray and consulted with
other vets on the internet and he gave me some of the postings which I will copy
some out at the end of this. The vet did this test on Felix's back legs and the legs
went back and he did not bring them forward again. My vet thought in the x-ray
that he saw some colouring of the horse heads on spine and first told me he
thought he had a slipped disk and it was infected and it was going towards his
brain, but that was not it. In March he started to lose weight. I lost the paper that
had the weight chart but I'm sure he went down to half the weight he was before.
The vet also did a blood test but I wasn't told of any results and my vet still hadn't
made a diagnosis. Felix's eyes were bright and alert, he didn't seem to be in any
pain and got along with my other ferret. A week before his death I was asked to
bring in a stool sample and I did and they said it wasn't enough and that night Felix
died, extremely thin (wasting in the posterior) and with coarse fur. I hope someone
can help me, it would mean a lot.
Here are some of the things the vets wrote:
(my vet) wrote:
Dear Doctors
1.5 year old ferret with left rear leg porpriocption deficit
T 40.9 to 41C
On injectable Baytril for 5 days will not touch temperature?
Should I try another antibiotic?
Any differentials?
The radiograph may show filling of the "horse heads" of the intervertebral spaces or
this may be my immagination or artifact. Please see Blood work and I will try to
place rad on the file this afternoon.
Thank you for any words of wisdom.
[Name of treating vet removed as per rules]
[Consulting vet 1 name removed as per rules] wrote:
Not sure if you are seeing it in Canada yet, but your description and bloodwork
sound suspiciously like disseminated idiopathic myositis (DIM). I would love to see
the rads though.
He [Consulting vet 1} also wrote:
There are some things that don't fit. How does your ferret look? DIM ferrets typically
look blah, along with their fevers and high WBC. Your white blood cell count would
be high for our lab, but it looks like it's within your reference intervals. Typically
ferrets with DIM have shockingly high WBC, which it doesn't look like your has based
on your lab. Your rads are difficult to interpret on my screen, but it looks like there
is a strange gas pattern in there--I may be crazy, but do you see extraluminated
gas around the kidney on the DV?? The guts just look really strange for a ferret--
there's some loss of detail that could be normal if this is a young ferret with a lot of
intraabdominal fat...
Thank you so much,
Jessica Cantin
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