From:
"Tressie"
Date: 2010-07-16 01:06:17 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] Re: 2nd degree heartblock
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
Yes, I had a ferret who was diagnosed with it a 5 1/2 years.
You do realize that medications are only to manage the condition until a pacemaker can be put in?
Mine died waiting for one to come available. In the interim these are the various medications that kept her alive for 3 months until she finally went into cardiac failure:
- atropine, at 0.04 mg/kg SQ (short term, short acting)to kick start the heart when it stopped. Therefore, only given when she collapsed.
- terbutaline was recommended by cardiologist but we could only get the inhaler in Canada so couldn't use it
- Sal-Tropine, 0.04 mg/kg BID oral - did not tolerate it very well - became extremely stressed every time she received it and cardiologist recommended stopping it because the stress was doing more harm than the good the medicine was doing
- injectable isoproterenol SQ (usually given IV) 3-4 times per day, which in the end worked best
- added Pimobendan, oral because she developed bradycardia as well, unfortunately she tolerated it less than the Sal-tropine and cardiologists recommended stopping it
- had to increase the isoproterenol to every 4-5 hours to keep her heart rate at least at 80 bpm, which created GI issues, so had to treat those as well.
Eventually nothing worked and she went into heart failure even when given isoproterenol in combination with atropine to bring her heart rate up.
If you want to email me off list - I can give you the names of the cardiologists we consulted with.
Are you on a waiting list for a pacemaker?
Tressie
--- In ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com, TR1212@... wrote:
>
> Does anyone have any experience with 2nd degree AV heart block?
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