Meltie came through her third EKG with flying colors. It turns out that in
her early stage cardiomyopathy (walls slightly thin, compression still good)
with ventricular bigemini, the bigemini (which could have killed her
anytime) is helped best by a combination of Enacard (1/8 of a 2.5 mg tab
daily) and Lanoxin which is Digoxin in pediatric elixir (0.05 mg/mL, 0.2 mL
twice daily). This turned out to produce statistically significant
improvements in her EKG over the propranolol which we told about last week,
plus she had annoying immediate side effects from the propranolol on her
salivary glands (with massive amounts of saliva generated when the meds were
taken) and found taking it very stressful, hardly a great thing for a heart
patient. There probably have been others with her condition whose problems
went undetected because they passed away during their collapses before the
owners realized anything was wrong, or the owner simply felt they could not
afford to treat. We have no idea if her experiences will help other
ferrets, but at least we do know that both propranolol and dig. have helped
her, and which helped the most, so when someone else's ferret is in this
situation your vets can have the information on hand. Treating vet is Hanan
Caine of Basking Ridge Animal Hospital (908-766-4211). As usual with
informative health posts on the fml (i.e. in pretty much every issue), and
health or behavior or genetic posts on something new (maybe every week to
every few months as they vary in occurrence) it pays to give a copy of this
to your vet. After all, if you need the data when we are dealing with
crises at home, or with a server, or (heaven forbid) on one of our every 8
years apart vacations we will not be able to reply.
Bill, I doubt we could make a national reunion, but maybe could attend a
regional one. Have other originals replied? We do like the idea of fml
pins IF those don't create complications (legal, or representational, or
otherwise) for you or the list. If that is a problem maybe the list's
artistically inclined with the time to do so could submit silhouttes of
ferrets to you? You could then select maybe 3 or 4, and post them with an
issue for people to copy onto flat cardboard to make their own name tags.
Ruffle over-reacts to Lasix and for some reason loses appetite and thirst
with it (Yes, it should make her thirstier.) so is now on an 1/8 of a tab
every other day with reasonable results.
We had a scare with all of Meeteetse's nodes up, but they are responding to
antibiotics. For a while longer we will have our main cage with 3, and 3
separate isolation wards in our small condo.
The cage we need only if we have to isolate 7 (seven, but we have 6) ferrets
is on loan to someone who is getting a new adoptee. Yes, she DID check to
make sure that ferret was not ECE exposed, and when it comes back it will go
to our basement (which is not connected to the home and not accessible to
our ferrets) with a note on it to not be used for a year and then cleaned
again. (She will bleach before returning.) After all, some few folks and
stores/breeders are irresponsible enough adopt out ECE carriers to unexposed
households so we want to be extra careful.
I am a professional; do not try me at home.
Steve, Sukie, Meltdown, Ruffle, 'Chopper, Spot, Meeteetse, and Warp
p.s. I am running a fever, and am not a vet, so if a vet does run into
Meltie's problem that person should contact Hanan and just assume that I
may have put in a typo or that something new might have been found in the
meantime.
[Moderator's note: Yes, pins or badges are definitely still something to do.
Two people have offered to snail-mail me an idea, but haven't received them
yet. (But the post office lost several days worth of my mail (yet again) so
maybe they are among the missing.) I also have an idea of my own, plus
there have been offers of help posted to me privately as well as on the
list, so with all that help, should have something concrete eventually. BIG]
[Posted in FML issue 1546]
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