Greetings to all the furry families
I am still a day behind on my reading of the FML but I wanted to respond.
My little Dooker loves to eat rubber things, I desperately try to hide them
but he is sneaky.  Occasionally he will get a hold of a pencil and "go to
town" on the eraser.  I have actually seen him pass a couple, (florescent
green or yellow chunks in his poop) but then one day I noticed vomiting.  I
have three kidz so I didn't know who it was, I assumed it was my 5 year old
Albino (who is the weaker of the 3) who is new to me by a year and had an
extremely sketchy childhood.  Then Dooker started to loose a LOT of weight
really fast, he only weighed 2 pounds to begin with and he is only 10
months old.  He looked like a pencil himself.  The whole family went to the
vet (recommended by FMLer's) and he was diagnosed w/ an ulcer.  When we
got home I gave him his favorite treat and he gobbled it up like he was
famished and when he was done he went under the bed to play.  5 minutes
later I saw vomit/regurgitation of his food under the bed.  We went
straight beck to the vet for x-rays.  Nothing came up but when I mentioned
the eraser fetish the vet told me that if it was rubber it would not come
up on the x-ray unless it was in his intestinal tract.  If it is in his
stomach it may be taking a while to break down because of the size and
occasionally it may be blocking the inferior sphincter of the stomach so
his food wont go down but comes back up.  This may be what is causing the
ulcer.
 
The meds (Amoxi and Carafate) eliminated the ulcer and vomiting and I think
he passed the eraser but it was so mutated in his stool it was hard to
tell.  He is doing better and gaining weight.  Stomachs are lined with
hydrochloric acid which will eventually break down pretty much anything
exposed to it.  If there is blockage in the intestines it will come up on
x-ray as serious localized gas.  If it is in the stomach keep an eye on it,
as long as they are eating and pooping then the systems are working.  I
am not a vet but I am studying the human anatomy and systems as well as
pathology's.  As I go through school I relate them to my Kidz as much as
possible.  I think I would like to go into exotic medicine.
 
Good luck to all and DOOK DOOK DOOK
Annie, Driz, Thunder, Dooker
[Posted in FML issue 3004]