[Note: The purpose of my post is not to publically grieve, but to
possibly help someone who might be having a simular problem with this
rash of viral/flu stuff going around the country right now.  I would
like to know if anyone else has ever had a simular problem with their
ferrets.]
 
About three weeks ago I caught what I called a "super cold" (the very
day after I had gotten my flue shot, argh!).  I don't know if this was
the current bad flu that's going around or just a random viral infection
but it had all the symptoms of a bad cold - sinus drainage, sore throat,
dried out/inflamed sinuses, coughing, sneezing, and a fairly high fever
for an adult [I'm a 45 year old male] - 103F.
 
Anyways, why I'm writing is that this viral infection, or whatever it
was, was passed on to all nine of my ferrets.  First, it wasn't serious.
They were all sneezing and had some drainage.  At this point there was
nothing I could do about it I thought.  There were all just going to have
to go through it like I did.  During the worst of my cold my left ear
became somewhat inflamed and I could feel the makings of an earache.
It went away, however, as my cold dissipated.  I didn't think too much
about it.
 
Four or five days to maybe a week after my ferrets had shown their cold
symptoms my wife noticed that Mocha was lethargic and really not feeling
very well.  All of the other ferrets during their bout with this virus
had still been pretty active.  My wife called our vet and made an
appointment for the next day.  My wife then went to her own doctor's
appointment.  When she got back she noticed that Mocha was barely moving
and had a discharge from her ear.  She immediately rushed Mocha to
Petroglyph (our emergency vet hospital).  On the way she thought she had
lost her a couple times.  When she got to Petroglyph the vet immediately
rushed Mocha back and started to work on her, but it was too late.  Mocha
had passed.  She had neuro symptoms at the vet and on the trip there.
Our vet said the drainage from the ear was pus and blood.  The vet
thought that maybe Mocha had gotten into some toxin.  We went nuts trying
to figure out what she might have gotten into.  The only thing we could
come up with was the Mr. Clean my wife used to clean their cages.  The
vet thought that maybe Mocha had found a drop in the cage possibly.
The vet went through her list of chemicals and found out that Mr. Clean
contains the same toxin as antifreeze (Naturally, at this point we
decided to throw out all our cleaners, angry at ourselves).  My wife
then came home to find Taz and Jaws having the same symptoms, including
dizziness.  They both had a "head tilt".
 
Well, as you can imagine, we just went nuts.  My wife had been giving me
updates at work about what was going on with Mocha and the other ones.  I
got someone to cover for me at work and I rushed to Petroglyph.  At this
point my wife and I still had no real clue as to what was happening or
why and we were beside ourselves.  Our vet still thought at that point
that it was possibly a toxin.  Blood work was done on Jaws.  He had a
BUN, creatinine, and phosphorus level check.  All of this showed normal,
ruling out the toxin theory.  The vet couldn't get blood from Taz because
his pressure was low.  Taz and Jaws went into support therapy.  They got
IV antibiotics, steroids, and fluids overnight.  The next morning they
were faring better, although neither one had any sense of balance.  They
still had severe "head tilts".  The vet prescribed Baytril (an
antibiotic) and later that afternoon they were allowed to come home.
 
[On a side note, we weren't really happy with the knowledge of treatment
the vet had given our ferrets, although I think she acted to the capacity
of her knowledge.  When it comes to vets I don't care about touchy feely
crap - I want someone who has the experience, logic, and knowledge to do
the job.  It's a hard thing to deal with, especially in an emergency
situation.  You just have to do the very best you know how to do.]
 
The next morning we took every one of our 8 ferrets to see a vet we
really trusted (An English vet, who raised and trained ferrets as a kid
in England.  He was a human doc at one point, but decided that it was too
political and that if he wanted to practice medicine as he knew best he
would have to become a vetrinarian and practice on animals.  Much more
rewarding, if you ask me).  He took a good long look at our remaining 8
and told us that he thought that this was some kind of viral outbreak.
What had happened to Mocha, Taz, and Jaws was a secondary bacterial ear
infection that had gotten out of control.  A few days later Sid (our
youngest) came down with the same ear infection, including the dizziness
and "head tilt".  Sid had a temp of 103F.  Our vet put him on the same
Baytril and gave him a sub-Q injection of a secondary antibiotic
(Ampicillin).  He then instructed us to start an aspirin therapy for
three days an an anti-pyretic to bring down the fever, which worked like
a charm.  All three of my sick guys are now eating on their own and doing
well, except for the loss of balance.  Our vet said this might take some
time to go away, possibly 7-10 days or longer.  We stopped giving Sid
aspirin yesterday afternoon to see if the fever remained.  At 1pm to day
we'll take his temp (not a fun thing to do...) to see if it's normal.
I'm pretty sure it is, as Sid was running around the house acting like
a ferret early this morning.  Jaws and Taz are doing OK, except for the
loss of balance, and even that's getting somewhat better.  It would be
comical if I had the ability to see it that way, but at the present time
I don't :( Maybe later, when this is all over...
 
We were relieved and distressed by our three guys getting through this so
far - relieved that these three are doing better, but distressed that we
didn't catch what was going on with Mocha.  Mocha was one of our best and
brightest.  She was our climber.  She liked to climb up my leg when I was
at my computer, just to see what was going on.  My wife and I will miss
her very much.  We just wish we had known what we were dealing with.
Anyways, things are looking up for the rest of our guys.  That helps to
take the edge off our loss.
 
Hopefully this might help some other ferrets who might go through this
same kind of ordeal.  I just wanted to pass this on so we could compare
notes.  I would be interested in what Dr. Williams thinks about this.
At this point all we know is that our guys had gotten some kind of viral
infection.  Our vet doesn't think it was flu.  He said that he hasn't
seen a true case of flu in ferrets in over 15 years, but he can't totally
rule it out.  I would really like to know more about this, if possible.
 
Roary and Yvonne
Albuquerque, New Mexico
[Posted in FML issue 4355]