I'm posting on behalf of a friend of mine who has two ferrets and is not
online.  Both her ferrets (approx 3 years old MF sprites) had bilateral
adrenalectomies about two weeks ago.  I'm pretty sure they didn't do
cryosurgery on the right adrenal in both cases.  One of the girls, Sashi,
has seemed to have bounced back fairly well but the other girl, Spunky, is
not doing well at all, not eating, not acting herself.  She's always been
one of those ferrets that's on the delicate side but Wendy says she is all
but skin and bone now.  The vet has Spunky (and possibly Sashi too, though
I'm not sure) on prednisone, and that helped a bit at first but I think
it's all but lost its effectiveness.  Spunk has been in and out of the vet
(my friend is a pharmacist and a very conscientious ferret mommy) but the
vet she goes to is not particularly ferret specific and is at a loss as
to what to do for her.  Wendy also mentioned that Spunk has been grinding
her teeth, which I was under the assumption was a sign of nausea/potential
ulcer so I faxed her a copy of the Helicobacter FAQ for her to take to
Spunky's next vet visit.  After some cajoling, they're going to try the
Amoxil/Biaxin protocol, but in the meantime I thought I would ask for some
advice here.  Spunky's surgery took quite a while, I figure partially from
the vet not being terribly experienced with surgery and doing the non-cryo
right adrenal.  Is this something other people have run across-a ferret
undergoing a long and difficult adrenal surgery having a lot of difficulty
eating afterwards?  Spunky is one of those ferrets who doesn't eat anything
but her food-getting baby food, ensure, pedialyte, etc, into her is next to
impossible.  Any suggestions I can pass onto Wendy in this situation would
be greatly appreciated.  I've been after her to take the ferrets to Dr.
Weiss (thank god he's so close by) and I'd bet she's going to be paying the
good doc a visit soon.  So other than that, any experiences anyone has to
share would be wonderful.
 
Thanks again,
 
Laura
[Posted in FML issue 3148]