From:
"Emily"
Date: 2008-03-08 15:15:48 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] Not eating; not syringe feeding
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
Phoebe seems to have taken a turn for the worst.
Up until last night, she was cooperating with us to syringe feed
her, but now she refuses to open her mouth. I literally have to pry
open her jaw to get a medication syringe or anything else in there.
There's nothing wrong with her jaw, she can open and close it at
will otherwise, but when there's a syringe in front of her face,
even if she's scruffed, she just clamps her teeth shut. She won't
eat off of a spoon. I don't know what to do here; I'm at the end of
my rope. She's already so tiny and frail that if she stops letting
us feed her, well it's going to end badly. Is there some other
ferret feeding technique that I can employ to get her to eat again?
Also, we're still suspecting IBD. We raised her dosage of PediaPred
upon vet recommendation when we first considered it a possibility,
and changed her diet to turkey instead of chicken baby food (at this
time she was already eating soft food), but her diarrhea continued
and now our vet is recommending starting her on Azathioprine for
IBD, or is suspecting pancreatic cancer and wants to start her on an
enzyme to help that a bit. This Monday she and our other adrenal
ferret, Bailey, are supposed to go in to the clinic for their
monthly Lupron injections. At this point I'm not even sure she's
going to make it until Monday, and if she does, if she's going to be
so bad off that new medications aren't going to help.
If anyone can offer any guidance, if you've been in a situation like
ours before, that would be greatly appreciated. Right now, she just
needs to eat. She's very wobbly and shaky because of the minimal
amounts of food I can squeeze in between her teeth at her feedings,
and we're feeling pretty hopeless. Any help appreciated.
Thanks,
~Emily and the four
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