Dear Karen:
 
>I was under the impression that a ferrets metabolism was approx 3 to 4
>hours, so the food, medicine and barium should have been long gone in all
>instances.
>
>Do you think this may be part of Rinkydink's problem?  Is this symptomatic
>of EE?  Is there a way to speed her metabolism?  Is this a different
>disease or medical problem in addition to her EE?  Is this damage caused
>by the EE?
 
I think by metabolism, you mean GI tansit time.  And yes, you are correct -
the GI transit time in ferrets generally ranges from 3-6 hours, and gastric
emptying time is generally around an hour.
 
Without knowing what Rinkydinks normal GI transit time was prior to the
diagnosis of EE, I cannot tell if this is part of her problem or not
(although I suspect that it may be.) Tissue damage from the influx of
massive numbers of eosinophils into the muscle and nervous tissue of the
GI tract may actually impair peristalsis (the propulsion of food along the
GI tract, but usually it it the other way around - an inflamed GI tract
usually results in food going through too fast rather than too slow.  The
damage requiered to increase the transit time is generally far more than
that required to decrease it.
 
How do we speed it up?  Righ now, we don't.  We're not seeing constipation,
and the incidences of vomiting do not appear to be often enough to warrant
mucking around with the speed of her GI tract.  By doing that, we can do a
lot of harm instead of good, especially with her EE.
 
At this point, we want to let her recover and not further aggravate her EE.
(See, I can be conservative sometimes, too.) I would stay the course of
current therapy - most EE cases are very fragile and this is not one that I
especially want to be trying unnecessary things with.
 
With kindest regards,
Bruce Williams,d VM
[Posted in FML issue 3305]