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Post by miamiferret2 on Jan 9, 2011 21:40:01 GMT -5
good advice. i am so glad i found this site. you don't realize how much you are not aware of. never even heard of this before! my ferret completed the third shot of the baby series a few weeks ago. so then i will check titers next year.
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Post by sunnyberra on Jan 9, 2011 21:50:42 GMT -5
Now I kind of feel :\ about my two youngest. Ever since Sian had bad reactions to her boosters I haven't vaccinated, but neither do I like the sound of "marginal protection" either. Def. going to check out the site and see about titers and if needed another dis. shot. I don't know the rates of dis. where we live (pretty low, or at least my vets have never given me grief or even looked askance about vaccinating either for dis. *or* rabies, and they know how long it's been), but still.
My mom's had one dog (when she was a young girl) contract distemper and even that second hand story is enough to scare me and to this day my mom is still shook by it, so :C I at least need the titers done, definitely, and then I can reanalyze my decision, yikes.
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Post by mustelidmusk on Jan 9, 2011 23:18:46 GMT -5
A lot of people give benadryl to mitigate the risk of reaction: For minor reactions, your ferret can be pretreated with a pediatric antihistamine (such as of a milliliter of Benadryl) 30 minutes before vaccination.
feeding reishi daily for t 2-3 weeks prior to vaccination will also help since it's a natural antihistamine. I need to check one other bit of info. on this - I think somebody mentioned they used something other than benadryl that seemed to work better.
the other thing to remember is that if you vaccinate for rabies and distemper, spread the vaccination a couple of months apart.
-jennifer
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Post by Jackie on Jan 10, 2011 8:49:00 GMT -5
Thanks for the great information, Jennifer. I apologize if I got anyone's hopes up. I didn't realize that the nosodes wouldn't produce an actual immune response. But that's why it's great to have an open discussion about everything I'm probably getting titers done for both my girls in a couple months. It is actually cheaper for me to do a titer than get the vaccine (the shot alone costs about $45-65) not counting the visit per ferret ($35).
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Post by mustelidmusk on Jan 10, 2011 9:20:54 GMT -5
No problem whatsoever - it's very good to know about this option....some ferts could possibly react badly to the baby series, although I've never heard of this.
And some people do not vaccinate at all....here's an option for people who do not want to risk a reaction and/or immune effects.
-jennifer
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Post by sherrylynne on Jan 10, 2011 10:15:25 GMT -5
A couple of months? I'd always been told(of course, by the vet ), that 3 weeks apart was safe
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Post by mustelidmusk on Jan 10, 2011 14:11:31 GMT -5
2 -3 weeks is considered to be safe. We have a vet here that gives a single office charge for two visits, one for distemper vaccine, the other for rabies. The visist are scheduled 2 - 3 weeks apart.
If I vaccinated my brats for rabies (and I don't), I would schedule them farther apart just because ferrets are small and they have sensitive immune systems. I just have a gut feel that it's easier on the ferret of the two immune responses are not triggered one right after the other.
-jennifer
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Post by sunnyberra on Jan 10, 2011 14:59:18 GMT -5
mustelidmusk: My vets did pretreat (I had brought up dosing at home, but they preferred giving her a shot and then waiting 15/30 min.s). The last time they hit her sciatic nerve with the medicine, and my poor baby couldn't keep her leg under her. Thankfully, it wasn't permanent or anything, but the vet tech who had administered it had tried to hide it from me until they were out of the room (holding her constantly and then throwing her at me before high-tailing it out of the room, WHAT). It was just a very bad experience (I then got in a fight (this is at their vet in NC, not where we live currently), because they tried to revax Yogi and it had only been a month or so since he had FINISHED his series. They wouldn't believe me for the longest time, not until I brought in his paperwork), and it turned me off, but well (and these were very well-respected exotics vets - I guess I just never got that service, because they mistreated all my animals, in effect managing to kill my rabbit and severely injure and sicken one of my gp's, as well). Time to get over that, though, I've got new vets to break in
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Post by mustelidmusk on Jan 10, 2011 23:33:34 GMT -5
I have not been on the FHL for quite a while, but I seem to remember that there was some controversy over the use of the benadryl shots prior to vaccinating. And some were using dex and benadryl to pre-treat. Some people found that the combo method (benadryl & dex) produced more reactions than either benadryl or dex used alone. Quite a few people are beginning to pre-reat with dex only. You can probably get specifics from the FHL. -jennifer
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Post by sherrylynne on Jan 11, 2011 10:20:06 GMT -5
I seem to remember something about that as well. I thought they were finding more ferrets were actually reacting to the benedryl itself
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Post by Jackie on Jan 11, 2011 10:54:51 GMT -5
My understanding of dex is that it acts as an immunosuppresant. I think there is some concern that giving dex before can decrease the immune response and reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine. Is this true?
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