From:
"nattackaro"
Date: 2011-06-14 21:41:44 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] Undiagnosed blood in urine.
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
I have a ferret just under 2 years of age that has a small amount of blood in his urine and my vet and I can't seem to diagnose what the cause is. He was diagnosed with lymphoma about two months ago but don't think that these are relative to each other. He's also anemic & no longer has his spleen so I'd really like some ideas about what might be causing this. The vet thinks the blood loss might be the start of adrenal but is unsure. If you want the WHOLE back story I've written it below
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About 3 months ago he had an accident outside of the box and it was very alarming because his urine was a very dark red. I'm not 100% how long this had been going on because we couldn't see the color of his urine on the pellet litter I had been using. So I got him into the vet and she tried to test his urine for crystals because she suspected a urinary tract So we decided to treat for UTI and see how he did and she sent me home with antibiotics. She also noticed during this visit that his spleen was a little enlarged but told not to worry about it too much because this is common in ferrets. The next week we went back and there was less blood in the urine, so we decided to keep on with the antibiotics. The third week I went to schedule a followup but had a very busy work schedule that didn't align with my vet's schedule. (She is an hour away so this is only possible on my days off.) I decided to try a closer vet that was recommended to me by a local ferret rescue group. So I took him in for this followup and the doctor was immediately very concerned because there was a mass on my little guy. He did an ultrasound and showed me me the size of the mass, urging me to let him do an exploratory surgery. I was terrified so gave him the OK and he went in to look around for me. His prognosis was very grim, my ferret has cancer spreading through his body and the surgeon suggested that I euthanize him while he was under. I asked if he was in pain and he told me that he wasn't yet so I asked for him to be sewed back up and took him home. I didn't feel like it was his time yet...The doctor told me that he removed his spleen free of charge because it was enlarged (I guess he was concerned it was going to burst?) but didn't really offer any treatment options, sort of just sent me home with pain medication. He did tell me that he had one large mass and some smaller ones forming down alongside his small intestine, and warned me to watch for signs similar to an obstruction that would tell me he doesn't have much time left. Shortly after my boyfriend's father contacted me because he's a vet himself (but an avian specialist) and was very concerned that the vet I saw didn't do much of anything to diagnose or treat my little one.
So day two...I take off work and go to my regular vet to see if we can do anything about a diagnosis. We have the writeup from the first vet sent over to her and she goes over this. Apparently my ferret was anemic which the first doctor missed before going into surgery. I'm incredibly lucky that he was able to stabilize after surgery. But now we know he's anemic and has no spleen to regenerate all those blood cells. She was able to do a cytology and we were able to diagnose him with lymphoma. She gave him some stronger post-op medications and put him on prednisolone.
It's been about 2 months since all of this happened and we've checked his PCV a few times. At first we were considering a transfusion but his levels continue to rise. I posted all of this on a different forum when it happened and someone suggested epogen shots to me so this is something my vet & I are looking into...BUT he still has a tiny bit of blood in his urine. Sometimes it's more and sometimes its less, it's always sort of an orange color. We discontinued the antibiotics because they sort of seemed to stop having any affect at a a certain point.I'm going to be bringing him in to check his PCV level soon and am really searching for a clearer understanding of what might be going on with the blood loss or at the very least explore more options about what I can do for the anemia. I'm very lucky how stable he is with the original life expectancy his surgeon gave me...but I'd like to do more for him if I can.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
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