Jessica wrote:
>Dr. Ruth responding saying that she no longer uses Benadryl to
>premedicate because she was still seeing reactions with it and also
>because she had heard of ferrets having reactions to the Benadryl
>itself. She now uses dexamethasone instead and has seen a reduced
>number of reactions that way.
>
>You can read her full post at http://ferrethealth.org/archive/FHL2771.
Our vet has seen the same thing.
For a while there had been a concern that the use of steroids might
reduce the body's ability to respond sufficiently to the vaccine. When
titers for canine distemper protection have been done on our own that
does not seem to be the case for our crew. Some of ours have very high
levels after 2 or 3 years. The steroids did not seem to diminish effect
in our own crew.
My hope is that once the challenge study is done to show what the titer
numbers actually mean in ferrets that any canine distemper vaccine
which provides high enough numbers (as Galaxy did for ours) will be
permissible for show use.
I suspect it will be much longer before we have the data needed to know
about vaccinating for rabies less often. Getting that is even more
complicated with a higher private funding need and only special places
where it can be done.
I've seen distemper in a dog and in a raccoon, and rabies in a small
brown bat and how their behaviors were changed by those viruses
reproducing in their brains. That is not a torment I ever want to again
see in another animal. Diseases like that make heartbreaks like JL look
less terrible in comparison.
Hey, my new computer just got delivered.
Sukie (not a vet)
Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/http://ferrethealth.org/archive/http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.htmlhttp://www.miamiferret.org/http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/http://www.ferretcongress.org/http://www.trifl.org/index.shtmlhttp://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html
[Posted in FML 6366]
