Respiratory infection that is being treated: skip any OTCs (over the counter meds) unless the vet approves them first because too many are dangerous and even fatal for ferrets. Try plain steam, holding a ferret high while steaming up a bathroom, etc. If you have a clothing steamer those work well. Just take precautions to not burn or over-heat the ferret by using distance and times away from the steam. Of course, okay it with with the treating vet in the same phone call message asking about the other stuff. Just call the office asking for a call-back and have your questions next to the phone for when it rings. You did exactly the right thing having chest x-rays done. I'm afraid that I can't recall offhand what combo of antibiotics we had when Meeteetse had pneumonia and pleurisy, but you might be able to find that and certainly will find what others and their vets used in the archives here at http://listserv.cuny.edu/archives/ferret-search.html or the Ferret Health List Archives at http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org/ Interesting, salt is not often mentioned as possibly playing into things with ferret heart disease, so your's is among not all that common situations. Am I right in assuming that there is one heck of an ascites problem for your sweetheart? We had to watch it with two -- with one that turned out to not be a needed caution, but the other one even had peripheral edema. With a/d another time to use an alternative when possible (in this case all-meat baby food) is when the ferret's body is having trouble digesting fat as seen with some bird seed stools but needs an easy to digest food. a/d is a WONDERFUL food; it's just not perfect but since nothing is that should not be a surprise. The world lacks cure-alls or perfection -- which is just a fact of life thing and not a fault -- and therefore we quest for improvement or we dream of demi-gods. Hopefully, we don't throw up our hands in the way of too many folks in _1984_ and just accept things without checking on them, especially the important things. That is said knowing that too much double-speak abounds in the world. (Verify, verify, verify, think, think, think, and especially question, question, question, question, question...) This a/d thing is just one example; it's great but it sure isn't perfect anymore than anything earthbound is. As usual, I am not a vet and also as usual, nothing -- absolutely nothing -- replaces hands on vet care. [Posted in FML issue 4121]