I guess I've been fortunate up til now in regards to distemper vaccines.
My first four ferrets never had any problems except for one who had some
slight redness around the area of his last shot.  Well, now that good luck
is over with my current group.  They both just turned a year old last month
so off to the vet we went this morning for their shots.  Paddy Wack went
first and while Asher was getting his shots, Paddy started vomitting
profusely.  He turned bright red from nose to tail tip all over his entire
body and all his fur puffed out.  He then went comatose and his feet, ears,
nose and mouth turned grey!  My vet tried to get a catheder in one leg but
couldn't find a vein.  She then shaved the other leg and actually made an
incision and pulled the skin apart to find a vein.  Because of his reaction
the vein was as thin as a thread.  I don't know how she managed to get the
needle and catheder in since they looked bigger than the vein but she did.
She then administered what she called the antidote, some benadril and
dextrose.  Paddy never moved the entire time this was going on.  He was so
out of it he didn't even react to the incision!  After about 15 minutes he
started to come around and his color came back.
 
I then sat with him wrapped in a towel with a hot water bottle in my lap.
Well about 5 minutes later he started jerking and then vomitting again.
This time he had bloody diahhrea (sp?) too.  So back to the exam room again
and this time my vet gave him epinephrine (sp?) with some more dextrose.
He stopped vomitting soon and only had a few more bouts of diahhrea.  I'd
say it was about an hour after the vaccine shot before he was anywhere
close to semi normal again.  Needless to say, he stayed at the vets all day
today because I had to go into work.  He seems to have recovered but he is
sure worn out!  What a day he has had, poor baby!  I had no idea this bad a
reaction could happen.  My vet says it's an anaphylactic reaction due to
how fast it hit, the turning red all over and the bloody diahhrea.  Not too
sure what we will do next year.  What an un-nerving experience this was!
 
She thinks that he might have reacted to one of the additives in the
vaccine and maybe not the vaccine itself.  She is going to try and see if
she can get the pure form of the vaccine.  Has anyone else ever seen this
type of reaction?  Will be really be okay now?  One other thing, Asher had
ECE when I got him as a baby so I'm sure Paddy was exposed too.  My vet has
seen a couple of ferrets who never previously reacted to distemper shots
have bad reactions after being exposed to ECE.  Has anyone else seen this?
By the way, Asher did fine and had no problem with his shots.  Go figure!
 
Thanks for listening!
Pam Zuiderweg (formerly Franklin)
Asher and Paddy Wack
(In spirit - Chubba Wubba, Big Foot, Fluffy and Oreo)
[Posted in FML issue 3000]