Sandi, well, the good news is that if Benedryl alone handled his systemic reaction without need for epi, steroids, fluids, etc. then it was a low grade systemic reaction. He should not be around it in the future, though, and that likely means his also not having contact with other ferrets who have the drops on them. Yes, this degree of reaction is vanishingly rare, but allergies are very individual. For example, we all know that while true food allergies are rare that many of those which exist are to peanuts or are to crustaceans, but there are people who are allergic to things that their allergists will never run into someone else being allergic to like butternut squash or something else which is virtually never seen as an allergy. And the risk of an allergy increases with number of exposures, so -- again using human food allergies -- as the consumption of potatoes (more pounds per year per person) increases in the U.S. the number of people who have become dangerously allergic to potatoes has also increased. A bad anaphylactic reaction is when sronger meds like epi are needed, fluids are needed, etc.. A really bad one is when oxygen also has to be delivered. Sukie (not a vet but we have not only had ferret family members with anaphylactic reactions -- usually to the older forms of CD vax, but in our human family there are 5 people in our families who do, including us) [Posted in FML issue 4431]