Message Number: FHL4773 | New FHL Archives Search
From: "ktnil"
Date: 2008-04-28 04:19:50 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] DCM - Lymphoma, Too?
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com

My vet & I are grasping at straws, as to what's going on w/ my 6.5 yr
old guy, Oberon. My vet is very ferret knowledgeable, & is a long
standing owner himself, but we live in a very rural area (more cows
than ferrets), so he doesn't see as many as other vets do.

Oberon's been as healthy as a little horse his entire life, but in the
past couple mos, he's suddenly become a very old man. It started out
w/ what we thought was a respiratory infection - heavy breathing, wet
sounding, etc. Antibiotics didn't help. An xray showed a lot of fluid
in the chest, as well as an enlarged heart (4.5 vertebral heart
score). We started him on enalapril, which, after a few dosage
adjustments, still didn't sit well w/ him - loss of appetite, etc. He
was also put on lasix. We tried pimobendan. This seemed to work well
for a few wks, but then Oberon started getting very lethargic. Blood
tests showed that his BG was lower than it should be, but not at a
level that would indicate a problem other than maybe he still wasn't
eating enough (BG read 72 at that time, which was about 2 wks ago, &
was taken about 2.5 hrs after he'd last eaten). He was put on pred for
10 days, to see what would happen. A couple days later, he had an
attack of what our vet called syncope - while eating, drinking, or
being scruffed to give him his meds, he'd suddenly cough, then go
totally limp - his breathing became irregular, as did his heart beat.
He made a couple whining noises as he attempted to come around. He
lost bladder control. We rushed him to our vet, who gave him more
lasix, some glucose, & he put him in oxygen for the night, took him
off the pimobendan & put him on digoxin. He was better the next day.
This continued on & off over the course of a wk - some attacks lasted
only a couple min, some lasted up to almost 10 min. Over the course of
the wkend before last, he had 8 - 10 attacks from the Fri night
through Sun morning. We planned to have him PTS on the Mon morning,
but our vet wasn't in, & we decided to wait until Tues. The rest of
the day Mon, though, he did great. Tues morning - doing fine. He had
no further attacks of the syncope for the rest of the wk. On Fri, a
recheck showed his heart rate as doing better than it had done in a
couple wks (114, but strong & steadier than it had been since before
this all started), & on Sat morning, it was the same. Sat afternoon,
however, he had another attack of syncope, which he came out of
quickly, but it was the first one in about a wk.

We are stumped. Oberon's now on the digoxin 2ce a day, lasix once a
day, & goes from being fairly well (albeit tired) to awful at the drop
of a hat. Our vet says this doesn't appear to be following the normal
course of typical DCM, & is wondering if there could be another
component to it, that might be contributing to it, such as lymphoma or
a brain stem problem. He only has the attacks when he has something
"exciting" happening to him (drinking, eating, or getting meds), but
it's not happening every time. Our vet thinks he shouldn't be as
"down" as he is between these attacks. I plan to have him do an
ultrasound of Oberon's heart this wk, as well as an EKG if he can.

Any ideas or input would be welcomed.

Lin


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