From:
"Sukie Crandall"
Date: 2008-10-02 17:01:33 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] Re: Distressing last moments of ferret, what happened, please?
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
Depending on the types heart disease(s), the case,
the accompanying diseases, and other factors survival
time with heart diseases is highly variable.
In our decades with ferrets we've encountered several
cases of dilated (hyperplastic) cardiomyopathy, a heart
tumor (and that ferret also had dilated cardiomyopathy
and a range of other illnesses including insulinoma which
required a med that can be hard on a sick heart, one with
a horribly diseased heart (and some other organs from DIM),
another with complete (level 3) A/V Heart Node Block, and
one with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
Ironically, the one expected to be shortest lived -- because
she had ventricular bigemini and sometimes trigemini with
her dilated cardiomyopathy -- lived the longest. She was
expected to die at any time, but with Digoxin she got
something around a year and a half of added life if memory
serves. (Finally, she began throwing clots, thromboses, and
that is what became too much and led to her mercy shot; she
was one of only two have had throw clots and the other did
it because of kidney disease.)
It is possible, too, for heart disease to be hidden. Finding
what was wrong in out ferret who had hypertrophic
cardiomyopathy was very hard; her most pronounced symptom
for the longest time was unexplained weight loss.
Some other diseases can make treating heart disease harder,
and some have cumulative negative effects.
In addition, the level of care needed to avoid changes can be
huge, especially in situations where the disease is so advanced
that even small perturbations can be too much.
So, it's not really possible to generalize from one case to
another, and some may have complete surprises, such as
Meltdown's long survival with her Cardiomyopathy, or Seven
of Six getting 9 months with complete A/V Heart Node Block,
but surprises go both ways so Warp's advanced insulinoma and
beginning cardiomyopathy combo was too much for her while
'Chopper the Ferret Helicopter's hypertrophic cardiomyopathy
hid itself for a good while.
In the ferret who had so many things wrong at once (5
potentially terminal things and 3 serious things), a female with
multiple physical deformations and such severe intellectual
limitations that she could not even understand ferret body
language (but who was able to get 6 years with about the same
level of care a 3 ferrets would normally need) we saw something
which Uli's ferret may have encountered. Ruffle's esophagus was
impinged upon due to components of her illness, so she had to
get everything down a compressed tube to her stomach. (In fact,
when she had to be on a liquid and semi soft diet for her final
months she became our only ferret with gum disease.)
So, it is not possible to generalize about the cases themselves
in terms of length of survival with treatment when dealing with
heart disease in ferrets; it's just too variable and too complicated.
Some do not stick around long, but others have many months
to enjoy with you. All a person can do is to try, and to remember
that things like simultaneous insulinoma, or simultaneous lung
disease, or simultaneous kidney disease can make it harder.
Luckily, there are a range of meds so when there is also luck
combined with the careful care sometimes there are good outcomes
to forever treasure.
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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