Hi All: I was wondering if anyone here has ever heard of or experienced Evans Syndrome in their ferrets. My vet did a search on it, & can only find references to dogs, cats, & humans. Minxie is 4 yrs old, & weighs about 1.3 lbs. About a yr & a half ago, she began showing signs of adrenal disease, & 13 mos ago, she received a melatonin implant, which worked nicely for her. Back in April, she got her rabies & distemper vaccinations, & has a bad reaction to one of the shots -- tightness & tension all over her body, head turning, grimacing. I took her back to my vet immediately (fortunately, he's only a 2 min drive down my street), & as soon as he got her back to the hospital area, she began having rectal bleeding. He treated her, & by the end of the day, she was her old self. This is the only time she's had a reaction to her shots. It's only recently she's shown signs of needing another melatonin -- excessive grooming of herself & the other 3 ferrets, aggressive play w/ some of her toys, & dry, itchy skin. No hair loss. She got that yesterday morning at about 11a, under light ISO, & after a brief period of observation, she was sent home. As soon as I got her home, I noticed that she was bleeding quite a bit from the injection spot. I put pressure on it, which did nothing. I called the office, & they recommended pinching the area to put better pressure on it, which I did. This seemed to help, so I put her back in her cage & left for about 1.5 hrs to do a couple errands. When I came home & checked on her, the cage literally looked as though someone had been *savaged* in there! There was blood everywhere. I started calling out Minxie's name as I started looking through the cage for her, & she popped out of the hammie on the very top level, just like normal, except that she had blood running down her back & right front leg. I again called my vet's office, & they told me to bring her in right away (time was about 3:00p). My vet -- who is an *excellent* ferret vet - said he'd put skin glue on the spot, & keep her for a little while to make sure it worked. I picked her up at about 5:00p, & it appeared the bleeding had slowed down. He said it was hard to get the glue to work, since there was so much bleeding, there wasn't much of a dry area to work w/. He had the area bandaged w/ non-stick pads & vet tape wrapped around her upper body, to keep constant pressure on it. I brought her home & put her into the hospital cage -- & w/in 45 min, it was soaked in blood. I took her back in, & we worked on her for an hour. The dressing he'd put on earlier was soaked to the point of dripping blood. He put a couple stitches in the area to pinch it tight -- nothing. He got some silver nitrate sticks, & it took *4* of them to finally stop the bleeding. By now, she'd been bleeding continually from 11a -- 7:30p. She was weak, she was pale, & she was lethargic, but the bleeding was stopped, & we once again came home. She's now doing a lot better, no more bleeding, she's perking up, & pinking up, as well. His best diagnosis is Evans Syndrome, which is an attack of the immune system, specifically the blood platelets, which kills them off & prevents blood clotting. He believes it is a result of the bad reaction she had to her vaccinations back in April. (He said the other major cause would be exposure to rat poison -- which we don't even *own*!) We are treating her w/ pred, vitamin K, & a high protein & calorie diet, to build her back up. We'll taper off the pred dosage in 5 days, but will keep her on a minimal dose for some time. She'll also be on the vitamin K until further notice. I was wondering if anyone here has had this happen to their ferrets before, & if so, how did they do in the long run? My vet doesn't think it'll be a big problem for her, but it will obviously affect how she's treated for various things in the future -- definitely NO more vaccinations, no "elective" procedures (mast cell tumors, etc), & should she *need* surgery in the future, she'll have to be loaded up on pred & vitamin K beforehand, as a precaution. Any experiences or thoughts welcomed ~ Lin [Posted in FML 7210]