Animal Medical Issues.... Spanxy's Lymphoma & Adrenal Gland Tumor updates

Well... Well.. Well. where should I start....?

Recently after his bath

Spanxy is still hanging in there although his 2 cancers and whatever else is going on in his system is making everything hard to treat. Lets recap He is Lymphoma, adrenal Gland Tumor and an enlarged spleen. Enlarge Spleen which maybe caused by the Lymphoma... Anyways... So he has been on Carafate for probably the last year of his life to keep his gastric ulcers away because the lymphoma is in his intestines. He also goes on and off 2 types of Antibiotics as needed... along with SubQ fluids and syringe feeding when his ulcers are acting up... Which in the last few months haven't acted up at all till just recently and we have had to start his Antibiotics again. He is also on Pred to try to shrink his tumors down and to hold off inflammation in his system as much as possible but this also has its down falls and draw backs... Once you start them on pred for lymphoma it only works for so long... And the cancer is also harder to treat if you decide on an actual treatment but there is no cure and it would only by him a few months... At which he would be sick if we would have done kemo or radiation... So we decided against that and any invasion procedures to remove his viable tumor and enlarged spleen.  The last ferrtonin chip ( helps with symptoms caused by the adrenal gland tumor)  has not seemed to help him get his hair back, with muscle tone, aggression, hind leg weakness, really anything it did help with the first time... In the last 4 months or so he has now started retaining fluid in his abdomen and is having more back leg weakness as caused by the cancers. But there is no cancerous cells in the fluid which is good. So the most invasive thing we have put him through is having the fluid removed from his belly twice... and once we do he is like a new lil Ferret again. So after the 2nd time we started him on Lasik which seemed to help at first but now isn't seeming to help as much and I am going to have to have his belly drained again very soon. He is also eating just chicken baby food, ferretvite, and Ferret duck soup mixed in.. The last two so he can get some vitamins.

It has been a long road... His original estimate was 3 to 6 months of life... and that was almost a year ago... He is our lil fighter there is no doubt about that... He has been so strong but lately he has been worrying me more and more. Fingers crossed and prayers going out that he still has more fight left in him to make it through these ulcers again...

Before his belly was drained

After They drained him lost almost 2 pds

Gaia Chicken Undate & Spanxy Ferret Going to the vet

She is still fluffy... her comb is still not bright red.... She is looking unkempt...  She isn't walking around being a happy chicken... She is standing still, fluffed up, looking miserable.... So I am not sure if she is egg bound again... or if she has an infection from the last time she was bound... Maybe there was something left and it wasn't just a yolk ball... She is still eating... she spends alot of time at the feeder and if I throw the eggs in and bust them she runs over to eat them, all excited!. She even stalks the eggs... If someone has laid one she will stand there beside it till someone comes outside and busts it open for her to get.... But she used to be the chicken that would run over and bust the egg herself. She was the egg destroyer!  But I think it is time to have her spayed! So she can have a good guilty of life..

 We have an appointment Friday with a vet I have never had the chickens to. She is an exotic vet that I guess will see chickens. She is at the same location as my normal avian vet. But he is out for the rest of the week. So I am taking Gaia and Spanx our Ferret to the vet Friday.

Spanxy is the last ferret we have. He is doing well although he lost his cage mate over a month ago. He did seem lost without her for the first few days. But we have been visiting with him more and he has been doing ok. But he is showing more symptoms of Adrenal Gland disease. He is losing muscle around his back hips pretty severely and is what I am going to consider, getting a pot belly. He has minimal hair loss right above his tail that comes and goes and his tail is bare but normally it all grows back after his spring shedding. So I am not sure exactly what is going on with him. But I think I have a good idea and I am trying to decide if he has adrenal gland disease do I have the surgery? The same surgery that we lost Sade having? do we treat him with hormone or tummer killing drugs? do we let him live out his life as happy as possible? I don't want to give up on him... I want to do everything possible for him to have a good guilty of life. I am just not sure what that is right now...

So many hard decisions in a matter of a few days.... I wish everything would just calm done for a while and give me a chance to sit back and breath...

Ferrets- Gastric Ulcers

Dates are wrong on all photos below.OOPs... Battery reset.

Recently my poor Spanx become very ill and lost about half his body weight in a week and 3 days!

Ferret Ulcers

When you hear "Ulcer" you may think that it is something that may pass or something that is not that dire. But in reality it can kill you ferret very quickly! Do to weight loss, dehydration, and basically starvation. An ulcer lowers the digestibility of the ferrets food. Which in return lowers the nutrients in the body and causes vomiting and diarrhea, black tar stool & green mucus stool. Ulcers also bleed which causes the ferret to become animic. This blood is what makes the stool black tar colored.
Ferrets must eat every couple of hours to keep their energy & weight. When a ferret stops eating it can go into organ failure quickly . A ferret eats and with in 2 to 3 hours excretes that food. And the cycle begins again. So ferrets must keep eating. When they have an ulcer they will stop or significantly slow their eating.
So that is one of your first symptoms.
My Spanx lost weight at around .5oz to 1.5oz a day. When a ferret only ways 2lb 9oz to begin with this is a very drastic loss. Within a week he was down to 1lb 13oz.

SYMPTOMS
Weight loss
lethargy
Teeth Grinding
anorexia- Stopped eating
Stool: Grainy, slimy, black tar looking, can also be other colors, Diarriha
Increased water intake
Vomiting

Teeth grinding is another serious symptom. If you have never seen a ferret grind its teeth you may not know what I am talking about. But a ferret will grinding its back teeth making its eyes look like they are going in and out of his head. This indicates extreme stomach pain. Which normally refers to an ulcer or blockage of some sort. teeth grinding again is a very important symptom!

Dehydration happens quickly with ferrets. And one of the leading causes of death when it comes to ulcers. If you ferret gets dehydrated it is very important to get them to the vet. But with the ulcer it is very important all on its own. But make sure you vet gives your fuzzy IV fluids so they do not get dehydrated. My vet sent home on IV fluid bag for me to give him. I was giving him 20ccs every 12 hours. After I started getting more food into him I took it doen to 20ccs once a day. After a few good days of syringe feeding him atleast 90 to 120ccs I stopped the fluides. Because there was alot of liqiud in the Syringe feeding.

Treatment

During the Doctors visit your vet will feel for intestinal obstructions and which is very important. He she doesn't feel anything she may want to do an ultra sound or x-ray just to be certain. An intestinal obstruction is deadly. If she does an ultra sound they can check things like the adrenal gland aswell. Which is an added plus. The ultrasound ran me about $80. which isn't bad at all. She didn't do the ultra sound till the 2nd visit though. If all signs point to an ulcer try not to be alarmed. That is better then alot of things. Although still scary and still can cause death if treated right your fuzzy should recover in a hurry. There could be underlying causes such as adrenal gland disease or insolinoma, as well as others. For an ultrasound your fuzzies belly will have to be shaved. Make sure the tech who shaves it knows how thin and senstive a ferrets skin is. I took this for granted knowing how ruff they play so I never really thought about it. But the tech shaved Spanx wasn't told how thin there ferret skin was and she knicked his poor litte belly and they had to put glue stitches on him. So if stress caused the ulcer the vet didn't help much withthe stress. But the vet I seen was very nice and helped us alot. She has answered every question I have presented to her. ( Th pic is about 2 weeks after the cut him with the trimmers.)

A CBC will probably also be taken and that will run around $1oo to $120 depending on what kind of lab runs the blood work. Ferrets are really hard to get blood sample from and my poor Spanx was a pin cushion. They also had to shave his neck.

After this if it is decided that an ulcer is the problem your fuzzy will be put on some meds.
Amoxicillin & metronidazole whish are both anti biotics and Carafate for his tummy. All this medication is extremly important.
Spanx was Prescribed
Amoxicillin .5ml every 12 hours
Metronidazole .15ml every 12 hours
Carafate liquid- 2.5ml every 8 hours ( But I only gave .5 to 1ml)
(They have with the new prescription lowers it to .5 to 1ml. so my dosing was right)
They also have carafate in pill form which is called something else. It can be crushed mixed with water and given to your ferret.
There are also other antibiotics that can help. If your fuzzy does not respond to these then he could be treated with Biaxin (Clarithronycin) But it is very expensive. Around $80 for a 10 day cycle.

It is very important to work out a good med schdule and kep to it. The stomach meds need to be given after the antibitics so that the antibiotics can be obsurbed. So Give the antibiotics about 15 to 30 minutes before the tummy meds.
Also wait 30 minutes before giving him food.

Syringe feeding
Syringe feeding your ferret. My ferret had never had any other food then Marshels. Which I have now changed to EVO. When he started losing the weight I started tryig to feed him chicken baby food. He had no interrest. So try to get your ferrets to eat other foods before you need them to. After I mixed up a concoction of sorts and force feed him a couple times. He figured out either I wasn't going to leave im alone or that he liked it. But by the end of syringe feeding he loved it and would much rather be syringe fed then eat from the bowl.

Spanx's Mix
1 Jars chicken baby food w/ broth (not gravy)
1/2 can of A/D cat food
2 Tbsp blended EVO ferret food
1 Tbsp of duck soup powder (all mixed duck soup must be used in 24 hours)
Pedialyte to thin out the mix to a thick paste
1 to 2 Tbsp Ferret Vite ( I used 2 when I first started, then took it to one)

He really loved this mix. I think the duck soup powder smells funny though.
I started out just giving him a few CC's at a time. But the more I fed him the more he wanted it. I gave him 20 to 30 ccs the first day... and worked my way up form there. Start them out on food slowly if they have not been eating. Every for hours they will need around 15 ccs of food. But you have to work your way up to that. To gain his weight back Spanx was eating between 100cc's and 180ccs a day. Sometimes close to 200cc's. the recipe above does not make alot. Just enough for half a day to a day. You can get syringes from your vet so you know how much he is taking in.

After we started feeding him enough he agined back his strength fast. With in a day he was up and about and couldn't wait to be fed. When we first started feeding him extra I didn't know if he would make it through the night or that weekend. Its amazing what food and water can do for a very ill ferret. I'm sure the meds helped alot too. He gained from .5 to 1.5 oz a day. Normally around 1oz a day.

Causes
Helicobactor- This is a gram-neg bactoria that is believed to cause ulcers in humans and now also believed to cause them in ferrets and other animals. Sind this is a bacteria it is treated with antibiotics.

Stress
Poor Santitation
an underlying health problem such as adrenal gland diesease.

Prevention is the key!

After a ferret has an ulcer it is predisposed to have another.So watch them carefully.

Vitauls
Temp: 100F- 103F
Heart: 216- 250BMP
Resp: 33- 36 per min
Fasting Glucose at 4 to 6 hours: 65- 164

Spanx has been doing alot better. After 20 days of Amoxi and Carafate and ten days of Metronidazole. His tool went back to normal and he gained all his weight back. Although he still has a naked belly.

Over the last week though his stool has started turning a different color and has mucus in it again so he is starting another round of meds. This time amoxi, metronidazole, & carafate for a month. If it is helebactor it can take a while to treat. If that doesn't help then the Biaxin will be started . He also has to go through more blood work to see about adrenal gland disease. They did not see is adrenal gland on the ultrasound which is really good. But he has experioused hair loss on his tail. Not at the base which is where it normally starts for adrenal gland disease. But just to be safe we are going to do more blood work in the near furture. Because you never know if there is another under lying problem.

Please keep him in your prays.
If you have any questions on this ailment or other ferret ailments please let me know. I will answer them or have my vet answer them.


Update: add fish oil. A few drops a day to the ferrets food. I add 1 whole capsule squeezed into lil droplets on the food every week for 2 ferrets. They have grown back most of there hair.Just having them on meds I have had to remedicate... but since starting them fish oil..knock on wood... they haven't had anymore problems.

Sade's Adrenal Gland Surgery

I am mourning the loss of my baby. Sade past away yesterday after her surgery. I don't know what to think of this right now. My heart has been broken. I was told at 2pm so was doing good and she could go home after 5. When I got there they told me she needed to go to the emergancy vet clinic for the night. By the time I was taking her from the clinic she was gone. My baby is gone.

This picture was taken the night before her surgury. She was happy and playful. We miss her so much.

Adrenal Gland Disease

Last night I was checking on my ferrets, looking them over, cleaning their cage, etc and noticed my oldest ferret is losing her hair from the base of her tail going up her spine. This is one of the first symptoms of adrenal gland disease. (If you have a ferret you should know about this disease, it is very common.) I knew what it was as soon as I seen it. That was one of my biggest worries when I started rescuing ferrets years ago. Yesterday it became a reality. Those of us who have ferrets and other exotic animals know that when one has a disease or needs a check up it is hard to find a vet that knows what they are talking about. A vet that is formally trained in exotic care ans surgeries. I have had bad experiences with the vets I have tried for my Chinchilla and rabbit in the past. So I am hoping I found a vet that knows what he is doing and is very knowledgeable this time. I thought I had in the past and even had referrals to those vets. So I pray this time everything turns out ok. So as strange as it may sound to some, but not to all.. Please pray for my Sade to have a safe surgery and recovery. Thanks Everyone. (I will post pictures of her soon. (The picture below shows some of her hair loss. sorry I forgot to turn off the flash.)

UPDATE: Sade has surgery on Jan 30, 08 to remove her adrenal gland. They said she has a good chance of a full recovery. Her age is really their only worry right now. Lets just hope that it is her left gland affected. The right is alot more complicated.