xeopse
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Post by xeopse on Nov 10, 2010 19:30:46 GMT -5
So, as we all know... Lulabelle is "special" in just about every way.
She started having a hard time going to the bathroom yesterday, she seemed like she how she was when she wasn't getting enough bone in her diet prior to me putting in the crushed eggshell in their soupie. So I put a bit more in there, figuring she might just be one of the oddballs in every group that needs more or less of something than everyone else. I took her aside and separated her from the group, and gave her more eggshell mixed in to her soupie, which she always eats readily. She drank some water.
Then I let all the others come out to play, and she played for a while, dipped her feet in the big bowl of water I had for them to patter around in, crawled around, but was a bit less active than usual. I eventually put her in the bathroom away from everyone else to see what she had for stool since she still wasn't going to the bathroom, and I observed on more than one occasion that she was having a hard time going - she would back up half a dozen times or so, but produce nothing. Sometimes she would produce a little puddle of urine equivilent to her normal puddles, but a fraction of the stool - maybe a couple centimeters. It was firmer than usual, so I figured she was constipated, since she was dragging her bum, so I gave her about half a teaspoon of Vaseline mixed with salmon oil (I ran out of ferretone to mix it in, and for whatever reason loves the taste of fish oil so it worked well), gave her more fresh water so she would keep drinking more, adn tried to get her to go to the bathroom. Her belly was a little firm, as if she was impacted, so I tried t help her along. I ran her around up and down my hallway, up and down a flight of stairs, and back down a long hallway hoping that getting her moving would stimulate her GI tract (she is normally not very active like all 4 of the others are, so I figured she just needed to move a bit more tonight) which produced no results. I then soaked her in warm water in teh sink, thinking that ALWAYS gets them to stimulate going to the bathroom. Nothing. I gave a bit more Vaseline, but she wouldn't take it. Eventually, a couple hours later, she pooped a small bit. Then got her nail stuck on a rug and while she was frantically trying to get free adn stressed out while I tried to unstick her, she passed stool then as well, also very small, and hard. At this point it was midnight and I was exhausted, and so was she. I put her back in her cage with her sisters so she could rest and let the Vaseline do it's job.
I woke up this morning, adn her belly was no better. I seperated her again, and kept her in the bathroom all day (it's a big bathroom and I covered the floors with blankets except for corners) so we could keep an eye on her. i went to work, my boyfriend stayed home on his day off. She passed two small stools again with a little urine. By now I've placed a couple calls to the vet and sent an email asking him what to do. He told me to bring her in right away, which we did. By the time I got home she had passed a rather large stool - about a normal size for her, but it was odd. Half green, half yellow, and some was mucousy which I assumed was from the Vaseline. Kevin said she had laid in the same spot wrapped up in a towel ALL DAY and pretty much hasn't moved, and when I told him I was coming to pick her up and go to the vet he took her out o the bathroom and had her laying on his chest - which she never moved for about 20 minutes, just wrapped in the same blanket, she wasn't sleeping, just not moving.
I brought her down, and they put her under to take an x-ray. She weights .57 kg - she has lost considerable amount of weight since she up until recently was one of the heaviest in the group. There were no compacted stools in the x-ray, in fact htere was very little stool at all. She does however have HUGE kidneys - they are much bigger than my thumbs, and her spleen is enlarged.
He said this doesn't look good, so we tried to take blood while she was under. He couldn't get anything, and he didn't want to poke around too many times. He said it's been a while since having to handle sick ferrets, so he consulted one of his many books - and they all say that an enlarged spleen and kidneys all point to nothing good. Now I'm looking online and it says that most of the time it's ideopathic and that ferrets just sometimes have enlarged spleens. haven't looked up kidneys yet, as we just got home a few minutes ago.
He said gave me Amoxicillin in case she has an infection, which he said wouldn't hurt her (although it would clean out her good bacteria as well as bad, when she's already having issues obviously) and Prednisone in case she has lymphoma. He said he doesn't want to do the biopsy, since no matter what there's no real treatment.
I am getting another opinion from another laboratory animal vet - she is my teacher - and who has actually worked with sick ferrets in practice and in research. I am bringing her the x-rays with me, and hoping she has better luck drawing blood.
Should I hold off treating her with Amoxi and Pred until a confirmed diagnosis, or is it truly harmless and my better option right now?
She is eating, drinking, and walking around. She was running around the OR prep room where we did our work on her, and very curious about the vet's office where he initially examined her. She does not make a peep or show any discomfort.
This is a vet, that although he is a very nice man and he has gone out of his way to show me everything he can about primate medicine, animal safety, surgery, and a million other things with a lot of different species - is not a ferret veterinarian. I respect him, but I also know that this isn't exactly his strong point, and I just want what is best for the ferret. All of her veterinary care through the research lab is free, too, so I didn't have to pay for x-rays or Amoxicillin, just the $15 at a pharmacy for Prednisolone. Lulabelle has also not produced any stools since the one she had before we left for the vet over 5 hours ago so I can't see if she is better/worse in that department.
Opinions? =/
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xeopse
Cageless and Roamin' Free
Raw Feeder
Posts: 235
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Post by xeopse on Nov 10, 2010 19:46:44 GMT -5
I take it back, Lulabelle just had a stool but it's greenish and mucousy - Vaseline I imagine. She also had a puddle of urine.
I offered her a chicken wing, she's never had one before, and she eagerly got out of her sleepy spot to come investigate and eat. She has been happily chomping on the tip of it for a few minutes now, smacking her lips and really getting into it.
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Post by sherrylynne on Nov 10, 2010 21:16:20 GMT -5
When he did the xray, was it a barium xray? To be honest, with everything you have described, it sounds exactly like when Lucrezia had her blockage. It didn't show up on the regular xray, because it was soft foam. Some blockages do "move", allowing the stool to pass at times.
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xeopse
Cageless and Roamin' Free
Raw Feeder
Posts: 235
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Post by xeopse on Nov 10, 2010 21:50:26 GMT -5
It wasn't, it was just a normal radiograph. Lulabelle doesn't have access to foam or anything else I can think of like that where it wouldn't show on an x-ray, I am wondering though... I heard her coughing the other day and when I asked about it everyone on here said she is probably shedding because it's that time of season. Possibly a hairball? I asked the vet that, and he said that when animals get things like hairballs or foreign bodies, they wouldn't be eating like she is (or at all) So... I don't know Does anyone know how big "normal" is for a ferret's kidneys and spleen? I can measure them on the x-ray, they are far bigger than my thumb which to me is just amazing on such a tiny animal. And, a foreign body I don't think would explain the sudden weight loss. .56 kg = 1.2 lbs, her hips and whole back end are wasting despite how much she eats. She easily eats more than everyone else, she always has her head in the food dish, and is far more readily willing to eat new foods I introduce. She was chewing on the tip of a chicken wing for well over 45 minutes, not that she got very far because she hasn't ever had actual bone before so it took her a long time to really put a decent dent in it, but she got about 1/4 of the way down the chicken wing, and took the tip clear off. Just before all this, she was putting on a nice weight Now it's all gone. Out of curiosity, did yours pass the foam eventually?? Or was surgery needed? Where did the foam come from? I'm trying to think of what else she could get into that wouldn't show up... but she isn't even destructive at all, so it's not like she would rip up a towel, fleece, stuffie toy, or anything. Plus I inspect all that stuff every day anyways just in case. I pick up everything before and after ferrets come out to play, especially now tha Lulabelle found those rubber toys the other day. I've looked at the Kong she found, there is no chunk missing or really that could be in her GI somewhere.
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Post by mjohn143 on Nov 10, 2010 22:47:18 GMT -5
I'm so sorry I will keep you guys in my thoughts and prayers and hope she gets better with little to no issues.
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Post by Heather on Nov 10, 2010 23:29:55 GMT -5
As I was reading this, I'm thinking blockage too. Some plastics don't show up on an xray. I had this discussion with a vet one day, having her explain to me some plastics appear invisible and that the one way to rule it out is with a barium. Poor wee girl. The antibiotics and the pred won't hurt her and may well help her, don't hold off on them. I don't like the sound of the enlarged kidneys but...that may be part of her whole syndrome. The enlarged spleen usually signifies and infection or body stress of some sort, again we don't know the ramifications of the whole Waardenburg syndrome either. With all the external issues there has to be internal and organ issues. We know for a fact these kids don't live as long and appear to be more prone to the various diseases affecting ferrets. They are old before their time. My Aremis had lymphosarcoma, he was 6 (good age actually), Odin was 4, massive coronary. Porthos had lymphosarcoma, he was 3. I'm not trying to scare you or make you worry more than you already are....what I'm trying to say is that the enlarged kidneys may just be her. You do realize that her body is actually working in reverse anyway. The more egg shell you add the more constipated most ferrets get. If you want to loosen up their stools, you add more meat or better yet organs. I don't like the weight loss . That points to a major problem, the fact that she eats a lot but doesn't seem to put this food to good use concerns me. It means that she's not processing her food, she's not getting full nutritional value from what she's eating. My concern judging from what you state from her xrays is that her internal organs have become large enough that they're impeding the flow of stool. I would guess that your vet should be able to see this from the xray. I will light a healing candle for your sweet little one. She is so young, to be called back. Please keep us posted as to what you find out. ciao
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xeopse
Cageless and Roamin' Free
Raw Feeder
Posts: 235
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Post by xeopse on Nov 11, 2010 0:36:03 GMT -5
I'm trying to find out what I can about enlarged kidneys, but it seems to be that they are always cystic... which I really can't tell on her. They are enlarged, but not enough to distend the abdomen like what I've been reading. Still looking into it. Unfortunately, no real "normal" ferret x-rays up online either =/ And I agree with you Heather, it's very hard to tell what is normal for Lulabelle and what is normal for other ferrets because her, and other Waardenburg babies are so not normal, and what is normal for "healthy" ferrets. I have no previous x-rays to compare, so it's a toss up. I know that more bone causes constipation, but before I wasn't giving any bone at all for several weeks because I couldn't make my own eggshell powder. I was putting a whole egg (shell and all) included in the blender with everything else, but it was some time before I bought eggshell powder online. After a few eggs of just meat and organ (liver), Sherrylyne (my mentor) said that I needed to either make my own eggshell powder or somehow buy it, which I did, and it coincidentally came in the day after Lulabelle was having issues with a swollen bum, and generally acting what I thought was constipated. After giving about 1/2 tsp divided by both of their food bowls, things straighted out after about 3-4 hours and she was having normal stools again, although they were yellow. Apparently it was too much though, because everyone was having dry poops by the next day, so I cut back some more and it's relatively normal now - no diarrhea, not dry either, still light-colored though for everyone. Their soupie is chicken and/or pork muscle, a chicken liver, an egg, and some water so it actually goes through my blender. Sometimes they get just the chicken, sometimes just the pork, sometimes mixed depending on how much is left. Lately they have gotten fish oil since they love it and they have all been scratching a lot lately (it's dry here, I'm itchy and my skin is going scaley too without a humidifier) so Sherrylyne said she gives 1/2 capsule per baby, which I've been doing every other day or so depending on how itchy or not they are. Now they get the eggshell powder too, depending on how stools looked that day. Should I just cut the eggshell powder out completely for Lulabelle, then? She took the tip of a chicken wing clear off tonight, so she got a small dusting of ESP in her food that was also split with the other 4 in their cage. There was not much stool seen in her x-ray, so it was agreed she was not constipated like I assumed before I got there, but rather having "mechanical" problems instead. Should I keep with the Vaseline? Her stools have not been very good since last night - they are green and mucousy, like jelly (gag, relating poop to food) but I obviously want to keep her flow going, but at the same time don't want to just slide all that food right out of her without digesting it either! I have not given her Vaseline/Petroleum jelly in a while in hopes that she can start accepting the nutrients in her food better instead of passing everything right out. Her belly feels better, too. I ended up giving the pred and amoxi, she took it well after I gave her a couple licks of fish oil to realize I'm not poisoning her. She has been chowing down on a chicken wing all night so she's (finally) tired now, so she quickly went back to bed after a few sips of water. I shut the lights off in the bathroom and am letting her rest for the night. I purposely didn't put bedding anywhere she goes ot the bathroom so hopefully I will wake up to some better stools, I have a marble floor so I don't care what she does on it - I want to see exactly if things have gotten better or worse. If they are worse, we are going to the Tufts Veterinary school, or I'm calling every ferret vet between here and Boston. Do you think this sounds like lymphoma? All of these symptoms are so vague, it could be anything. The more I read up on everything, the more I realize "OH GOD WHAT IF IT'S THIS?" and then realize... I really have absolutely no idea what is going on with her. At all. And that's the worst feeling. I also asked if it was possible that her body was aging before she's supposed to given she already has these congenital issues, and he said he really couldn't tell for sure since he's never had a ferret like this. I think that's a reasonable explanation for what's going on, I wouldn't rule out anything just based on her being 1 year old - *I* think it's too young to think it's anything at all since she's supposed to be happy and healthy, but reality is she has a lot of defects and I am sure there are more there physiologically that I don't know about yet since I haven't had her for that long. I am sure more little interesting Lulabelle quirks will come up as we along, just like the rest of them do. We see this all the time in other animals, why would ferrets be any different? *sigh*
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xeopse
Cageless and Roamin' Free
Raw Feeder
Posts: 235
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Post by xeopse on Nov 11, 2010 9:51:04 GMT -5
Update: It's been 9 hours since I cleaned out Lulabelle's temporary living quarters in the bathroom, and have checked on her.
She is improving. She was apparently active last night, she dragged her chicken around, dragged chunky soupie around, drank some water, ate some soupie. She pooped EVERYWHERE. They are mostly yellow, and very hard - some hard as rocks. I'm assuming this is what was plugging her up, because now her recent stools are a bit softer. In a couple hours I will give her some more pred and amoxi and see if there is further improvement.
I'm going to mix in some more liver and introduce a bit of kidney to the mix and see how she fares. This is the first time she's ever had a chicken wing (which she loved) so I'm not surprised about the hard stools. The wing has been jerkified now though =/ I tried to revive it with warm water, but she just keeps hiding it under the bathroom sink now - is she trying to save it for later? I don't think she understands she won't be ableto eat it later lol It will be too hard.
I need to find someone that can do the bloodwork on her ASAP, which is what I did up until about 1 AM last night. Today is a holiday though, no one is open besides the ER's, which around here is dropping about $500 right off the bat.
I'm going to take pictures of the x-rays and poops she's having now and post them up in a bit. As gross as that is, I'm wondering if someone can give me a hand figuring out what to feed her more of, or what is normal/abnormal.
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xeopse
Cageless and Roamin' Free
Raw Feeder
Posts: 235
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Post by xeopse on Nov 11, 2010 11:01:30 GMT -5
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Post by Heather on Nov 11, 2010 14:22:34 GMT -5
It looks to me as though whatever was the issue, may have been infection based if that makes sense to you. Those stools are rather solid, there are pieces of bone in there, that's good. They are very dry for a raw fed ferret though. Urine is of good colour so her kidneys appear to be functioning well. Unfortuntely, ambiguous symptoms and unclear and vague diagnosis is often the bane of looking after a ferret. My vet and I have both come to the conclusion, when dealing with multiple, vague symptoms with many possible prognosis to start with an antibiotic, usually amoxy. It doesn't touch all the nasty infections but it does knock the socks off most. So, observe closely for 24 hrs....no improvement then we start working the other vague symptoms. Pred is often a failsafe too. Your vet probably did a good choice given that you're dealing with a complete unknown and there was nothing significant show up in the xrays It sounds to me that you may have rounded the corner on whatever crisis she had. You're going to need to find out what she may need dietarily to keep her system functioning smoothly. If she's passionate about her chicken wings then let her have them. Usually because of the amount of bone vs meat in this I wouldn't normally offer any egg shell or extra calcium type supplements. Unfortunately, because of who and what she is normal standards to not apply, you're going to have to find out what works for her system. I think by watching her stools you may be able to set her up with what she needs. By looking at those stools I would probably increase the liver, or even possibly offer her some cod liver oil. Not very much, that stuff is concentrated and it takes only a little to do the job. You won't have to worry about her rejecting this, my guys love it and lap it up. I would give her no more than .25 ml to start, never more than once a week. This should loosen up her stool (it will also go black to don't panic) This little one is an anomality within a creature that is an anomality itself. Good luck, give her a hug from me, tell her to get better, we're all pushing for her and keep us posted ciao
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Post by sherrylynne on Nov 11, 2010 20:39:47 GMT -5
Glad she's starting to feel better, if nothing else. With Lucrezia, yes, she finally did pass the foam. We have absolutely NO idea where it came from, and believe me, we tore the house apart trying to find it. Only thing we could think of is maybe one of the cats were scratching at something in the basement, and some foam came up on their paws??? Here's hoping you are able to get to the bottom of this soon.
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xeopse
Cageless and Roamin' Free
Raw Feeder
Posts: 235
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Post by xeopse on Nov 12, 2010 16:02:32 GMT -5
Lulabelle is doing consistently better. So far we started her on a physical therapy regimen that consists of running down one of our long hallways in the building as well as up 2 short flights of stairs, then back down all of that and to our loft. She actually RAN recently, where she was at probably her top speed which I'ven ever seen before and she was passing me as I was walking a just-above average walking speed. Normally she's very slow and wanders around, but I think she gets the idea she is supposed to follow us now. She also found rubber tires on our community wagon (we use it to load up heavy groceries or something from the parking lot so we don't have to lug them around the building) She really does love rubber. Why can't she be obsessed witwh something that's healthy for her? She is also putting weight back on - her hips are not boney anymore although she still needs to gain quite a bit. I'm tempted to bring her to school with me on Monday so we can use the scale in the clinic. Her stools are darker now with the extra liver and newly added beef kidney, so I think I will keep her on this for a while. I will take pictures so I can get an opinion on whether or not to tweak it a bit since I'm still not used to what "normal" raw fed stools look like. She still sleeps a lot, even with the bathroom door wide open shse still prefers to walk around in tehre and not in the loft which is kind of concerning. I've been letting her rest for the most part though, I imagine her body is recovering and I still don't kow what kidn of an effect the pred and amoxi is having on her.
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Post by miamiferret2 on Nov 12, 2010 22:54:26 GMT -5
yeah lay off of the egg shell b/c it is probably constipating her. have you been breaking apart those hard poops to see if there is anything weird in them? that sounds alot like a blockage. our boy Sonny has a knack for swallowing things that he shouldn't. one day he got a hold of the toilet paper and he ate a bunch of it. he managed to get his paws on a piece of rubber that he got off of an old navy sweater hanger. it was my fault i was stupid and i left the hanger on the couch. i didn't know it had those rubber things on them. you know ferrets are doing something that they are not supposed to when they are too quiet. so i went to check up on him and i found him chewing on it. naturally i freaked out so i watched him closely and he kept eating and drinking like normal. we started to doubt whether he had swallowed anything but we searched everywhere and we couldn't find the missing piece of the rubber thing that he was chewing on. after a few days, and a few big doses of laxatone, he pooped it out. it was a good size piece of rubber. about a 1/4 inch thick and about an inch long. he was very proud of himself.
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xeopse
Cageless and Roamin' Free
Raw Feeder
Posts: 235
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Post by xeopse on Nov 16, 2010 14:02:19 GMT -5
Update on Lulabelle - she just saw another vet, one of my teachers during lunch break. She said she was REALLY impressed by how good she looks despite all the problems shes's been having. She also gained some weight - she went from 1.2 lbs (.56 kg) to 1 lb 5.5 oz (.7 kg) in a week and she said her body condition is great. She said her coat is SO SOFT and she looks really good.
However, she did note some things. Now, this is a vet that specifically has been working with laboratory animals for some time, although she previously worked in private practice before getting into lab animals - since these guys are lab animals, I feel a bit more confident on how she knows a lab animal acts vs. a companion animal acts because they are very different sometimes.
1. Lulabelle has an opacity near her heart - which makes her think she has an enlarged lymphnode. 2. Her heart is much more round than a normal ferret 3. Her kidneys are HUGE 4. Her spleen is large, but she's more concerned about the kidneys 5. Lulabelle is an oddball weirdo and most definitely different from everyone else
She thinks there could be a couple things going on. One is congenital defects - maybe this is all just "normal" for her in the sense that she was born like this, this is how she will always be, rather than a symptom of a disease. Or it could be an infection which is why the amoxi/pred combo worked. Or it could be lymphoma, or a couple other things, which is why the amoxi/pred worked.
She wants to get blood, but she said she hasn't had to take any from a ferret in so long she wouldn't feel comfortable doing it on Lulabelle. So she's asking around the clinic because seh thinks there's techs there with ferret experience, but if not she will find a good ferret vet for me to bring her to.
She said that she sees no morbidity in Lulabelle, and that I'm doing everything right given the very vague symptoms and that as long as she's eating/drinking/pottying well she is in the clear until we can get some bloodwork.
She also knows that my animals are rawfed, and she never says anything bad about it but you can tell she's uncomfortable with my choice. She said that her stools are a little soft but s he's not surprised since she's indeed rawfed. She knows me as a student, so I think she knows that I would not put my animals in harm by feeding them something - she knows I have an intense curiosity with nutriton and have done a whole lot of projects on carnivore nutrition for her, even creating a whole research facility specifically for long-term studies revolving about the issue. Plus, seeing Lulabelle in such good condition given her symptoms I don't think she will use that against me.
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Post by sherrylynne on Nov 16, 2010 18:35:25 GMT -5
Out of curiosity, and I don't know if this is something you could even access. All of them were lab animals for the first 9 months. Wouldn't they have taken any xrays or even ultrasounds of them during that time? If there is, it should show whether or not her kidneys/spleen/heart were like that previously.
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