You asked for more information on our use of oxygen with Augie who is 9
and has cardiomyopathy with more and more frequents episodes of congestive
heart failure(not quite 'failure' so far)..  Our Credentials: i have many+
years in computing and telecommunications, ray has a degree in music and
works as an artist and computer graphics consultant.  We adopted
(inherited) augie when she was five and she is our only experience,
wonderful tho' it has been, with ferrets.  So PLEASE check out anything
you think might apply for you/yours with your VET.
 
Symptoms for Augie have consisted of coughing/choking/turn herself inside
out attacks, or just very rapid, labored, shallow breathing.  At first,
i.e. last summer, she would run around in a frantic state as if lookng
for some 'solution'.  Now she just makes enough noise, in whatever way
(scratching or scrunching around in plastic bags, etc) to get our
attention.  Since ferrets are clearly related to the good Dr. Murphy, these
attacks nearly always came on weekends or in the dead of night.  There is
an emergency Vet clinic 15 minutes away that (now, at least) knows
something of ferrets and has resources on call.  They would commiserate,
agree that she was badly congested, confirm that we understood that the
heart condition was irreversible, shoot her with lasix and offer to put her
in their oxygen cage to ease her breathing til we could take her to her
real vet in the morning.  Each time they warned that she might not live
through the night.  Each morning she was stressed and exhausted from trying
to fight her way out of the oxygen cage, but calm and breathing normally
after the 15 minute ride home.
 
Then, miracle of miracles, Augie had two episodes on weekdays and her vet
got to see her in crisis rather than pretty much recovered.  ("Obviously
she plans to live forever" is the vet's assessment) She tried the same
approach, but with only an hour or so of oxygen (about long enough for the
lasix to do its work).
 
One of those days, Ray and I went off to have some breakfast: Augie fought
and scratched to get out of the oxygen the whole time.  The other time we
stayed with her and she curled up and relaxed and enjoyed it, which
certainly took an additional load off her heart.  So we asked the vet about
oxygen at home and she put us in touch with her source for the clinic.  She
also loaned us an air tight plexiglass box with fittings, but said that the
system didn't really have to be 'air tight'.  I located a plastic garden
cloche that fits nicely over the ferret and her covers in her petbed.  We
plop the tube in the bed, the cloche over the whole of it and if she is
particularly antsy, we stick a human hand in with her for stroking.  Once
we just held the tube in front of her face for a while 'til she calmed
enough to stay in the bed.  This gets the three of us through the rest of
the night, or the rest of the weekend, til we get to the vet and the lasix.
We, including the vet, don't think the oxygen is helping the congestion,
just de-stressing the heart a bit and the ferret and the humans a LOT.
 
But that was in part why i was asking if others on the mailing have any
other theories or practice with oxygen in these cases.
 
And our thanks to Sukie for her information on the CQ10.
 
Donna
[Posted in FML issue 2988]