From:
"Sukie Crandall"
Date: 2007-12-27 18:12:38 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] Re: Possibly Sick Ferret - need advice
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
If he hadn't been coughing before but is coughing now as well as eating less you need an
actual appointment and I wouldn't wait. From personal experience, a ferret can have
pneumonia, even severe and potentially fatal pneumonia with pleurisy and show almost
no signs, with it only being able to be diagnosed by x-ray. X-ray will also show most
cases of cardiomyopathy, another cause of coughing. In either case some ferrets don't
feel well enough to eat much. On the other hand (or other organ) a partial blockage in
the stomach might lead to reflux. In humans reflux can promote coughing...
The reason I am concerned is because what we went through with Meeteetse. We we told
that her chest was so opaque with extreme pneumonia that she could die at any point,
BUT she had almost no symptoms. Meeteetse almost never coughed, but one day she had
a rare and slight cough. She also did something that she ONLY did when she felt sick.
She gently took my big toe into her mouth and held it. Then we knew it was an
emergency and called the vet hospital, said that we had an emergency and, yes, we would
pay the emergency fee to be fit in. Our regular vet was busy with another client and the
vet we had listened to her chest and heard nothing untoward, but Steve and I said, "For
Meeteetse this is just not right." so the vet said that she could x-ray Meeteese's chest and
we happily agreed. The next thing we knew, we were overhearing our ferret vet being
pulled from another exam room for an emergency, and we knew it had to be the x-ray
results but we expected cardiomyopathy, having had a few with that in the past. Both
vets then came into the room with us and told us that Meeteetse appeared to have both
pleurisy and severe pneumonia but that the image was so opaque that she had to have an
emergency ultrasound the next day and had been begun on two antibiotics because the
infection had to be knocked down fast. They weren't sure if she would make it. She did
make it, and lived years after till she finally got lymphoma ini her spinal cord but if those
mild symptoms had been ignored, or if the listen to her chest was done without imaging
she never would have survived.
So, now our take our that group of symptoms is that it is better to waste a bit of money
on chest x-rays that may not show anything and be relieved than it is to not x-ray the
chest of a ferret who is showing symptoms that could be lung infection or heart disease.
(If the "wasting a bit of money" sounds like we are made of money, we aren't. We are still
on the original 22 year old builder's carpet which was supposed to last us 6 years and
after several false starts will finally be getting new flooring next year. It's not that we
have a lot of spare money, just that medical care for ferrets is a place where we personally
put it by eliminating some other costs in life... Not preaching since everyone's situation is
different, just explaining how Steve and I personally chose to handle that...)
Sukie (not a vet)
Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html
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