Hi Everyone,
I want to ask if anyone knows what "illness" our ferret experienced
recently.  Here's Clyde's story:
 
Three weeks ago he began to go "off his feed".  We were at the bottom of
our old food bag and the new order (it's Amway high protein kitten food)
had not yet arrived.
 
He had loose stools but was drinking well and would eat A/D 3-4 times a
day.  We tried crunching up the dry food in A/D and he would have none of
that!  New food came and he would still not eat, not with coaxing,
crumbling it up, etc.  Sukie suggested via e-mail that we try a second
bag--that did not work.
 
When he had lost half his body weight, was lethargic and began digging at
his mouth we took him to our vet who seems to do all the right things based
on y'all's posts.
 
(Let me say that Clyde occasionally goes off his food especially during
sheds and high stress periods--when are holidays NOT high stress?--and so
we were not too alarmed at first).
 
Vet noted he had no fever, gum color/condition was fine, but he was
lethargic and of course not eating.  Clyde also has a huge spleen from day
one, which I swear gets larger during these stress periods but goes back
down when he is on the mend.  The vet I think believes I'm nuts to say
that, but Clyde has never had any noticeable ongoing symptoms related to
the spleen that we are aware of.  He did have some abdominal tenderness--
made little mewly sounds if we were not careful handling him.  There were
no intestinal parasites from a fecal smear the vet checked.
 
Clyde's Blood sugar was low normal.  We sent off blood to have a complete
panel done.
 
In the meantime we started him on Baytril 22.7 (1/4 tablet, 2x a day) which
I grind up and mix with A/D to get him to take it down.  The vet said to
give him dextrose (50%, 2cc 3-4x a day) to get some sugar into him because
his blood sugar was on the low side.  As soon as we began the dextrose
Clyde crashed really bad.  No muscle tone, no responsiveness, no nothing.
I was freaking out because that was exactly what happened with our Bonnie
(who died last April), and so I elected to stop the dextrose.  I gave him
1/2cc Pettinic every couple of days, and Ferrotone.
 
Clyde bounced back within a couple days.  More energy, eating enough A/D to
maintain body weight, but any sweet stuff threw him into a downturn.  At
this point we also had seen green poop, seedy poop, regular poop, no poop
and anything in between depending on what we gave him.  We decided to try
to break up some solid food and force feed him by putting small pieces in
his mouth--he really went nuts then!  He produced volumes of thick mucous,
started clawing at his mouth (I stopped that by immediately giving him a
little A/D) and I was horrified to see some sores on his gums from that.
Happily these healed up immediately.
 
Eventually (we were waiting for the blood test results over Xmas weekend)
with coaxing and by gradually decreasing the amount of A/D we gave him,
Clyde began to eat small amounts of solid food on his own or with us
holding and petting him.  Throughout all this he would walk up to his food
dish, stare at it, act nauseous, and curl up to go to sleep.
 
He is now back to normal--still on the Baytril--but eating and playing and
his old self.
 
Blood test results came in Thursday--normal this and that, low normal blood
sugar, slightly elevated liver enzymes, high cholesterol (he is not a
treats eater, no table stuff, only occasional vegetable oil when he seems
to need it), high red cell count, high red cell density, and WBC's are
okay.  Vet says he had no sign of infectious disease there.  So, what WAS
this?
 
Clyde has had similar incidents many times over his six-in-February years,
but only one other time was it as serious and that was the 3-4 weeks after
Bonnie died.  He's very affectionate with us--a chubby 3lb 4oz neutered,
descented male with the sweetest disposition you've ever seen.
 
Happy New Year!
Gail and Bob and Clyde and Bonnie-Rainbow-Bridge-Gate-Watcher (since April
'98)
[Posted in FML issue 2543]