Dooks to all the fuzzies and their families, my love to those with someone
sick or who just passed over the bridge.
 
I have been fighting for months now with an incurable case of diahrea.  I
am wondering if someone out there has had a similar issue and has found a
solution.  Almost two years ago, my Casper had been having horrible
diahrea.  At the time my old vet and I tried several different medications
and nothing seemed to work.  We settled on Centrine, because that helped
the most.  Over a year ago, a different vet asked me if I'd ever tried
changing his food because sometimes they have an allergy to chicken.  I
then had him on Marshalls food.  We changed him to 1/3 Marshalls mixed
with 2/3 ProPlan Turkey and Barley.  Once I got him adjusted he was much
better.
 
He started getting bad diahrea several months ago and then vomiting began.
That's when we realized he had a life-threatening hairball that needed
removal.  Just after his surgery, his stool was better for about a month.
Then suddenly I started getting diahrea (or at least very loose stools
again) and was grinding his teeth.  My vet was concerned that he may have
another hairball starting, but I had been giving him hairball remedy
religiously since his surgery.
 
I have recently read that they may actually have an allergy to corn.  So
I decided to start "adjusting" his diet some to see what happened.  At
the time I had been mixing 1/3 Marshalls/Superior Ferret and 2/3 Pro Plan
Turkey and Barley.  I left out Marshall's for 2 days, that wasn't pleasant.
I left out ProPlan for two days, that wasn't any better.  I left out
Superior Ferret for two days and, though the stool was still soft, it was
significantly improved.  The only thing that was different from the
Superior Ferret is it doesn't have corn.
 
So, I thought I had it all figured out.  I went to the store and got
Zupreem and 8in1 Chicken and Rice and figured, "if I can get him switched
from his current mix to this mix, we should be all set, since none of these
have corn in them".  Over the last couple months I have been trying to get
him to switch over.  Per a "ferret expert" that I know, I got Flagyl from
my vet to help with the diahrea until we got him transitioned.  Now, though
he's not overly happy, he's now starting to eat the new mixture (without
ferretvite on it).  But, if I don't give him Flagyl every day I might as
well have left his food alone.  Even with it the stool is still pretty soft
and last night I caught him grinding his teeth again.
 
I don't know if he's stressed out still from the food change.  He's still
not eating as much as he should (and has lost some weight during the whole
thing - though my other ferret, Rosco, thinks he's died and gone to heaven
with all the new stuff in the dish).  Any thoughts or advice that any of
you have would be greatly appreciated.  Dr. Troy - Any thoughts!?!?
 
Please respond to me privately, I haven't had enough time to read the list
lately and don't want to miss any ideas.
 
Thanks in advance!
Lisa
Casper - Mom, can't I just eat raisins all day?
Rosco - wow - I've never SEEN so much food, this is great!
[Posted in FML issue 3526]