I was up almost all not unable to sleep due to my 8 year old ferret who I
dearly love who has been having painful bowel movements all night long it
seems every half hour or so now.  He is getting worse and this has been
getting slowly worse for on months.  He has been to my vets (and Dr Karen
to begin with) for diagnosis of IBD and colitis.  I cannot stand him
crying out anymore, hearing him cry kills me inside knowing there is
supposidly nothing I can do about it but ignore it!  How can this be????
 
He is now just doing tiny little drops with a little mucous sometimes, at
each interval during the night when he is out.  He gets up out of a sound
sleep and runs to either one of the pans or newspaper and goes.  Right
now there must me at least 10 spots where he has gone within the last few
hours.  At one point he was on sulfatrim for a period of time and it did
help him until he went to the vets for a recheck which brought it all
back again.  He has also developed a thickening in the bowel and now his
lymph nodes are up.  He is 8 years old, used to be spunky like a kit but
has slowed down and sleeps most of the time (can't blame him).  I really
do not want surgery done on him because I am so afraid of losing him.  I
am also afraid of losing him to whatever is going on now.  His little
life is very precious to me.  He is my favorite little boy.  ( I have
asked for an ultrasound but my vet said that it would be a waste of money
because the bowel is so looped that the ultrasound would not go through
all of it.)  Winter also has kidney failure for which I put him on a
special diet many months ago of, KD feline kibble softened with water and
KD canned mixed with one jar of chicken baby food and a lot of water in a
blender that he gets 3 times daily.  He also gets 1/4 tab of 5 g pred
every morning for his diet and I know caught his kidney failure in the
beginning and his kidney values are good and have improved since being on
this diet! and still in normal range!  I keep up with having his urine
checked and bowel but she said there is nothing we can do about the bowel
but go in.  Winter is a very nervous ferret.  His stools are not loose
except for the past 2 days.  They have been firm but on the thin side.  I
have added laxatone as suggested by my vet to help with the firm stools
hoping it would help and it seemed to help but I stopped and now he has
total diahrea.  He threw up this morning also.  He is not eating as much
as he usually does (can't blame him there either).  I did hand feed him,
finger fed him and will continue to do so through out the day.  I need to
know what is the best food for him right now to calm his bowels and if
there is any kind of medication out there to calm him down or calm his
bowel down??  or at least help aleviate his pain ???  He cannot win.
 
PLEASE help my boy.  I cannot stand the pain he is going through.  My vet
said there is nothing else she can do, but open him up.  PLEASE, any
suggestions???  any ideas??  any pain meds or anything to calm him down?
she said no.  My vet is now gone to the superbowl and won't be back till
Monday.
 
Eleanor Mead
[Posted in FML issue 4409]