The anaphalactic shock experienced by my ferret Cooper is, as Dr.
Williams stated, extremely uncommon.  My vet also said that in his 8 years
of practice on all types of animals, he has never seen anaphalactic shock
either.  He said he did see it once when he was in vet school.
Anaphalactic shock is the most severe form of an anaphalactic reaction.
My vet says that he sometimes sees hives and swelling but shock is rare.
Dr. Williams said he had never seen a case "face-to-face." Well, I can
tell you that having to give mouth-to-nose artificial respiration is
about as "face-to-face" as you can get with a ferret! :-)
 
        I had been careful about giving shots because one of my other
ferrets, Magellan, had a reaction last year. After the scarey episode with
Cooper, I decided to let my vet give Magellan his shot. It took a lot of
soul searching to get the courage to even have him vaccinated. I gave
Magellan the oral dose of Children's Benadryl suggested by my vet and then
took him to the vets office. About 45 minutes had elapsed between giving
the Benadryl and the shot.  Magellan sailed through the injection with no
problems but we waited around 45 minutes afterwards just to be safe. I had
had enough excitement for the week so I was really glad when Magellan
tumbled out of the carrier when we got home and proceeded to play for at
least 1 hour non-stop.
 
        -Carla
[Posted in FML issue 1162]