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Aug. 18th, 2006 07:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alonewiththemoonMet the new Exotics chief resident at Angell today, and I am very impressed--she absolutely knows her ferrets. I think perhaps I was not the only person to comment to somebody at Angell that last week's vet didn't seem to know ferrets that well, because the chief resident was riding shotgun with her today. So the good news is that I left feeling confident again that my ferret had received excellent care. That's the good news. The less good news was that Ronan's symptoms had the experienced vet saying "huh, this is a wierd case." For now, he is on metronidazole, Clavamox, famotidine (pepcid a/c), simethicone (gas-x) and acidophillus. So far, acidophillus is apparently yucky even when mixed with linatone, but I am surprised that he accepts the simethicone readily. It provides such instant relief that maybe he was able to make the connection between the medicine and feeling better right away.
And we have an ultrasound scheduled for next Friday. His spleen has gone down, which is great, but his liver was enlarged and I learned that his x-rays from a month ago showed that his heart was slightly enlarged. So we'll do the ultrasound to see what is up with those organs, and also whether his intestinal walls show any thickening or thinning. The running theory now is that he probably has some irritable bowel disorder which made him susceptible to bacterial infections like the clostridium and enterococcus that most ferrets would not be affected by, and now the underlying condition and secondary infections are just making each other worse. That's not too bad a diagnosis, if we can get the infections under control. Once the infections are cleared up, then he'd go on prednisolone for the rest of his life.
Man, out of a total of five ferrets owned over the course of 12 years, I think I've seen close to every ailment a ferret can have. Bad luck, or weak ferrets? I don't know. I do think, on reflection, that my Canadians were healthier than my US ferrets; apart from Amelia's blockage surgery when she was young, their ailments were all old age illnesses, contracted in old age. Something to keep in mind for the future. I'm not a mindless Marshall Farms basher, but maybe they did lose something health-wise in breeding for temperment and color.
And we have an ultrasound scheduled for next Friday. His spleen has gone down, which is great, but his liver was enlarged and I learned that his x-rays from a month ago showed that his heart was slightly enlarged. So we'll do the ultrasound to see what is up with those organs, and also whether his intestinal walls show any thickening or thinning. The running theory now is that he probably has some irritable bowel disorder which made him susceptible to bacterial infections like the clostridium and enterococcus that most ferrets would not be affected by, and now the underlying condition and secondary infections are just making each other worse. That's not too bad a diagnosis, if we can get the infections under control. Once the infections are cleared up, then he'd go on prednisolone for the rest of his life.
Man, out of a total of five ferrets owned over the course of 12 years, I think I've seen close to every ailment a ferret can have. Bad luck, or weak ferrets? I don't know. I do think, on reflection, that my Canadians were healthier than my US ferrets; apart from Amelia's blockage surgery when she was young, their ailments were all old age illnesses, contracted in old age. Something to keep in mind for the future. I'm not a mindless Marshall Farms basher, but maybe they did lose something health-wise in breeding for temperment and color.
