From:
Sukie Crandall
Date: 2009-06-19 21:05:03 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] Whizbang update
To: fhl <ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com>
For those who are not familiar with Whizbang's history she has had a
persistent vulvar infection on and off for years, ditto enlarged
mesentery nodes (which have been stable so far). The left adrenal had
mild hyperplasia. When the right adrenal came out -- in case it was a
the cause though the TN Panel was negative -- it physically appeared
normal but the lab apparently lost her tissue. Both came out cleanly
and she needs to be on Fludrocort and Prednisolone to avoid being
Addisonian.
A great many tests have been done on her, some of them more than once.
At first the vulva was very responsive to penicillin but that has been
reducing.
During recent bouts she has improved hugely each time after losing
black debris. Most recently that looked like a huge blackhead -- a
bit over 1/8" across. The earlier ones looked more like possible
splinter segments. As usual she lost a flood of pus immediately
following that but this time she worsened again within just days and
both her axial and popliteal nodes are up though not hard, i.e. more
consistent with severe infection rather than lymphoma. So, back for
more testing today. The hospital we use got its own ultrasound so
that was cheaper than usual, at least.
This time it looks like she may have an abscess above the vulva so
perhaps a stump pyometra. That is consistent with the endoscopy done
this time but the infection could be something else. There is not a
firm diagnosis yet though she may have progressed enough to be closer
to one.
This time, also unlike before, she shows possible bladder sludge so a
cysto was done to get clean urine. Not only will a complete
urinalysis be done but we are culturing from the clean urine and also
culturing from the vulvar pus. Now, a bladder infection could have
been the origin but hidden before OR she may have gotten a bladder
infection from pus going into her urethra so it might be secondary.
So, that is where our 6 year old with her swollen vulva is now in the
latest attempt to pin this down.
Everything that is known as a possibility has been looked for before
and now some more likely ones of those are being looked for again.
Poor little girl has to put up with cleaning and compresses though we
now are waiting with antibiotics until after the culture results. If
they don't help then we try Clavamox again since it works better than
Amoxi and other antibiotics tried were less successful, yet.
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/
http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html
all ferret topics:
http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/archives/ferret-search.html
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