Post by katt on Feb 3, 2013 23:10:55 GMT -5
The sock is a very good idea. At the least it will help keep him from ripping up his skin. Some of what you are seeing may be infection simply from him clawing and biting at it so much, making the skin more vulnerable to bacterial overgrowth.
I meant to suggest sudocreme as well - I bet it would help. I am not sure how you'd get it though, you are in the US right? You would have to ship it. I don't know if I'd mix the silver sulfadiazine and sudocreme without researching possible interactions; I'm sure it would be fine but why take the risk? Sudocreme covered in a sock would probably be very helpful.
If the symptoms of hypoalbumin fit some of what he is experiencing, I would definitely follow up on your vet's request of a UA to look more into that. I think you have a lot of possible things to try. You could try the benadryl until you are able to get him in and see if that helps any. Then when you see the vet again you could proceed with the UA, skin scraping, and ask about the Pred, abx, and Lupron. Even if bacteria isn't at the root of this issue, I do think that him scratching his skin as much as he is will certainly cause more breakdown of the skin and make it more vulnerable, so he could have a secondary infection starting up from some opportunistic bacteria. A light course of abx, or possibly even an abx ointment could help calm the irritation down. Even if it helped a little, that's something. The pred would help to reduce the inflammation. It sounds like you have as good of a handle on things as you can right now without more testing, med and diet trials, and time.
As for the vaccines, you won't find anyone here who will harp on your for that. Many (if not most) of us on the board don't vaccinate.
Oh and as for the meat. Unless he is continuing to get worse I would stick with the rabbit. It can take a while for the allergens from the previous food to clear out of his system, and longer for his system to begin to calm down. Usually you want to do a novel protein and stick with it for a while to really give it time to work before trying any other foods. With ferrets if I remember from Koda's trials, we did a min of 2 weeks on the novel protein (I used lamb).
It sounds like the oatmeal bath is helping, at least in the sort term? You'll have to ask Sherry or someone how often to give the oatmeal baths, I'm not sure about that one. Are you drying him off really well afterwards? That would probably be a good idea, making sure that esp the weepy areas of his skin are nice and dry. I would try to gently wipe them off a few times a day too to keep them clean. Not often enough to further irritate the skin, but with a gentle kleenex (something very soft) just dab up some of the oils and clean things up a bit. Or best of all - give an oatmeal bath, dry well, put on sudocreme, cover with sock!
I meant to suggest sudocreme as well - I bet it would help. I am not sure how you'd get it though, you are in the US right? You would have to ship it. I don't know if I'd mix the silver sulfadiazine and sudocreme without researching possible interactions; I'm sure it would be fine but why take the risk? Sudocreme covered in a sock would probably be very helpful.
If the symptoms of hypoalbumin fit some of what he is experiencing, I would definitely follow up on your vet's request of a UA to look more into that. I think you have a lot of possible things to try. You could try the benadryl until you are able to get him in and see if that helps any. Then when you see the vet again you could proceed with the UA, skin scraping, and ask about the Pred, abx, and Lupron. Even if bacteria isn't at the root of this issue, I do think that him scratching his skin as much as he is will certainly cause more breakdown of the skin and make it more vulnerable, so he could have a secondary infection starting up from some opportunistic bacteria. A light course of abx, or possibly even an abx ointment could help calm the irritation down. Even if it helped a little, that's something. The pred would help to reduce the inflammation. It sounds like you have as good of a handle on things as you can right now without more testing, med and diet trials, and time.
As for the vaccines, you won't find anyone here who will harp on your for that. Many (if not most) of us on the board don't vaccinate.
Oh and as for the meat. Unless he is continuing to get worse I would stick with the rabbit. It can take a while for the allergens from the previous food to clear out of his system, and longer for his system to begin to calm down. Usually you want to do a novel protein and stick with it for a while to really give it time to work before trying any other foods. With ferrets if I remember from Koda's trials, we did a min of 2 weeks on the novel protein (I used lamb).
It sounds like the oatmeal bath is helping, at least in the sort term? You'll have to ask Sherry or someone how often to give the oatmeal baths, I'm not sure about that one. Are you drying him off really well afterwards? That would probably be a good idea, making sure that esp the weepy areas of his skin are nice and dry. I would try to gently wipe them off a few times a day too to keep them clean. Not often enough to further irritate the skin, but with a gentle kleenex (something very soft) just dab up some of the oils and clean things up a bit. Or best of all - give an oatmeal bath, dry well, put on sudocreme, cover with sock!