It's very late, I'm very exhausted, but I didn't want the sun to go down on
two topics (I will get to everyone else's posts tomorrow....)
 
To Grace Sylvan - Thank you for your gracious post.  We are all friends here,
and friends will occasionally squabble.  That does not make us any last
friends.  As far as I'm concerned, the whole issue is closed.  Also thank you
for your comments on rubella - I will bear them in mind.
 
To Andi Lockhart and Bailey: This sounds like a serious problem.  Aspiration
of medicine is probably the most common cause of chronic smouldering pneumonia
that I see.  Whereas you would think that nothing would grow in medicne or
antibiotics, what actually happens is that the presence of the medicine in the
lungs causes an influx of edema, which in itself is an excellent culture
medium for bacteria to grow in.  Even antibiotic aspiration will lead to
bacterial pneumonia.
 
My suggestion is to go to the vet - get a chest X-ray done to see if you can
quantitate how much of the lund is damaged, and start a course of antibiotics
and steroids (to decrease the damaging inflammation that goes on in areas of
aspiration.  If you ignore it, you may turn what is right now an acute coughing
and wheezing problem into a chronic one.
 
Concerning children's Sudafed in ferrets with colds - I generally reserve it
only for the severe cases in which the animal's sense of smell is completely
blocked so that it won't eat or drink.  Anything less than that, I stay away
from it.  It isn't approved in ferrets, a dosage has not yet been published,
and many ferrets don't like the taste, resulting in struggling and possible
aspiration, as we have now seen with Bailey.
 
Although I rarely advocate running right out to see a vet, I think this is one
of the times to do it.
 
Keep us posted....
 
Bruce Williams
[Posted in FML issue 1101]