Dear Arlena-

I Don't usually answer these medical questions (I am more like an FML
court jester than a fuzzy expert) but I was doing research on *just*
this subject the other day, and here is what I found.

If there is a blockage in the intestine (which is a smooth muscular
tube no bigger around than a pencil that can really only push in one
direction) vomiting will *not* dislodge it. Once the object has passed
from the stomach into the intestine itself you have missed your window
of barfing opportunity! Now you ferretlax the heck out of your fuzzy
and call a vet ASAP, if you think this is what is going on.

The substance you refer to from childhood (Oh, I remember this stuff!
Every home with kids used to have an evil looking bottle of it in the
medicine cabinet.) is called ipecac. It's a kind of plant extract made
into a syrup, and a little bit will make you hurl and hurl and hurl.
I just went online and read about it, and it is now out of favor with
pediatricians. They say that it delays treatment in poisoning cases,
making parents think that a kid will hack up a poison and be safe, when
in fact the kid needs to be in an E.R. right away. Further, little
children (who think that amaaaazing substances taste good) can drink
the whole bottle and make themselves desperately ill, hospital ill.
Further, the side effects of ipecac can confuse the whole poisoning
issue, making it harder to guess what kind of poison a kid has gotten
into in the first place. A big overdose causes sleepiness, and the
vomiting will cause dehydration.

Given that there is no dosage for ferrets on the little bottle, you
really don't want to guess and be wrong. I think that you might do
terrible damage to a ferret with this stuff, and you should give up
on the idea. If only it could be that simple! Give a ferret a drop of
ipecac, and up comes the chewed eraser! Nope.

Alexandra in MA

[Posted in FML 5998]