Post by Ash on Mar 4, 2021 12:01:53 GMT -5
Hi everyone! (Sorry for the incoming mouthful!)
As we patiently await the results of George's PCR Panel I was curious to see if anyone else has been in this type of situation & what the outcome ended up being. Our vet has the feeling that he may have a recurring or very resistant helicobacter infection. He's currently in his 5th course of antibiotics since the end of October (2x Amoxicillin, 3x clarithromycin), while also taking a course of omeprazole with every round of clarithro.
About a year ago when every so often he'd have a bad poop, sometimes off coloured (yellow to green) with mucous and quite soft. At the time, we were always able to tie it to something that stressed him out so we didn't think too much of it. (He's a 6-7 year old anxious rescue).
Summer 2020 - it started happening more often and after a couple of days of it being every poop we ended up taking him in for a checkup in late August/Sept where they simply told us to give him a probiotic paste and to see how things went. Spoiler alert, nothing changed. After a month of up and down we called back for our next steps and were told that the usual ferret vet had actually left a few years ago, they gave us her info and suggested we go there.
We got into the new vet about a couple weeks later (who is amazing and seriously knows her stuff) she dig a super thorough exam and suggested we get him on sucralfate & an antibiotic to start (and booked him in for his des implant, yay!). We first tried metro, which went horrible, so we were switched to amoxicillin. He ended up being good for almost a month, and then everything came back. End of Nov - round 2 of amox. This round didn't do much, so back to the vet we went.
Early Dec - Ended up having to see a different vet at the clinic as ours was away and she recommended Omeprazole w/ clarithro. The first course only kept him in good shape for a few days once it was over he got very sick very quickly. By Dec 28 we were honestly afraid he might not make it through the night as over 2 days he completely stopped eating/drinking (we had to force anything by syringe), was having pure yellow liquid poop every 30 min and had gone from 1.1kg to 0.89 and I noticed his nose and eyes looked a bit yellow.
We got in to our vet first thing in the morning, they immediately got him on fluids and kept him for the day. The vet said they saw blood in his poop while he was there which further cemented the idea of helicobacter. We were sent home with another round of clarithro + omeprazole & some critical care wet food just to get some calories into him.
For the next almost two months, he was amazing! Just got better and better, energy came back, put his weight back on and we were ecstatic! Then almost a week ago he started going downhill again, so we brought him in very quickly. This time the vet said she wanted to do the full fecal panel, discovered he had earmites and sent us home with some painkillers, clarithro & omeprazole and Feline advantage for the mites.
The first couple days he actually did worse & had liquid green poops in every shade you could imagine, then Monday night everything seemed to start turning around! Last night rolls around and things have started heading back in the opposite direction. It is only just now day 5 for this round of medication so I know we need to be patient, but its just a bit frustrating because he was in such bad shape last time and turned around so quickly.
Hoping we get our results back in the next few days.
Anyone else have experience with the rollercoaster of antibiotics? and did it actually end up being helicobacter?
As we patiently await the results of George's PCR Panel I was curious to see if anyone else has been in this type of situation & what the outcome ended up being. Our vet has the feeling that he may have a recurring or very resistant helicobacter infection. He's currently in his 5th course of antibiotics since the end of October (2x Amoxicillin, 3x clarithromycin), while also taking a course of omeprazole with every round of clarithro.
About a year ago when every so often he'd have a bad poop, sometimes off coloured (yellow to green) with mucous and quite soft. At the time, we were always able to tie it to something that stressed him out so we didn't think too much of it. (He's a 6-7 year old anxious rescue).
Summer 2020 - it started happening more often and after a couple of days of it being every poop we ended up taking him in for a checkup in late August/Sept where they simply told us to give him a probiotic paste and to see how things went. Spoiler alert, nothing changed. After a month of up and down we called back for our next steps and were told that the usual ferret vet had actually left a few years ago, they gave us her info and suggested we go there.
We got into the new vet about a couple weeks later (who is amazing and seriously knows her stuff) she dig a super thorough exam and suggested we get him on sucralfate & an antibiotic to start (and booked him in for his des implant, yay!). We first tried metro, which went horrible, so we were switched to amoxicillin. He ended up being good for almost a month, and then everything came back. End of Nov - round 2 of amox. This round didn't do much, so back to the vet we went.
Early Dec - Ended up having to see a different vet at the clinic as ours was away and she recommended Omeprazole w/ clarithro. The first course only kept him in good shape for a few days once it was over he got very sick very quickly. By Dec 28 we were honestly afraid he might not make it through the night as over 2 days he completely stopped eating/drinking (we had to force anything by syringe), was having pure yellow liquid poop every 30 min and had gone from 1.1kg to 0.89 and I noticed his nose and eyes looked a bit yellow.
We got in to our vet first thing in the morning, they immediately got him on fluids and kept him for the day. The vet said they saw blood in his poop while he was there which further cemented the idea of helicobacter. We were sent home with another round of clarithro + omeprazole & some critical care wet food just to get some calories into him.
For the next almost two months, he was amazing! Just got better and better, energy came back, put his weight back on and we were ecstatic! Then almost a week ago he started going downhill again, so we brought him in very quickly. This time the vet said she wanted to do the full fecal panel, discovered he had earmites and sent us home with some painkillers, clarithro & omeprazole and Feline advantage for the mites.
The first couple days he actually did worse & had liquid green poops in every shade you could imagine, then Monday night everything seemed to start turning around! Last night rolls around and things have started heading back in the opposite direction. It is only just now day 5 for this round of medication so I know we need to be patient, but its just a bit frustrating because he was in such bad shape last time and turned around so quickly.
Hoping we get our results back in the next few days.
Anyone else have experience with the rollercoaster of antibiotics? and did it actually end up being helicobacter?