Well, it finally happened to me. After administering several hundred canine
distemper vacinations to pets, kits and shelter ferrets and never having any
reaction worse than a stinging or itching at the site of injection, one of
my hobs had a rather nasty reaction to Fervac-D. A few minutes after
injection his nose, skin and foot pads turned bright red. He began to vomit,
had watery, bloody diarrhea and labored breathing. I injected him with
epinepherine and he defecated again this time passing pure blood. By the
time I got to my vet, about 20 mins. later, he was feeling better and his
coloring was back to normal. She injected him with steroids and gave him
benadryl. She told me to watch him carefully because the reaction can start
again, in rare instances, as the medication wears off. He had previously
been vaccinated with Fromm-D with no reaction. I used Fervac-D when it first
came out but switched back to Fromm-D when I heard about so many people
having problems with it. I had to switch back when Fromm-D was discontinued.
I asked a question a while back about Galaxy-D since I had accidentally
vaccinated some kits with it and I wondered how affective it was. One of the
good Drs., and I can't remember if it was Dr. Williams or Dr. Weiss, replied
that the vaccine should be effective but that since it was a mammalian cell
based there was a chance of a ferret actually contracting distemper from the
vaccine. How much of a chance? I was wondering if next time this ferret
needs his shots should I get him premedicated and then vaccinated or should
I try Galaxy-D? Even though he won't be due for a year I'm worrying about it
already. Also I recently had 5 ferrets vaccinated for rabies. When I got
home from the vets one of them passed some pink tinged mucus. Was that a
mild reaction to the vaccine? She was fine otherwise full of her usual fire.
Should I be concerned next time that the reaction will be much worse? What
should I do?
 
Anyone who vaccinates their own animals I highly recommend vaccinating
during your vets regular office hours and keep epinepherine on hand. It
works!
 
Cindy
[Posted in FML issue 1132]