Seedy poop every hour almost on the dot

[unclejoe]

yeah they do. My ferrets are free roam during the day, so I have puppy pads in several corners. The fuzzers will go from pad to pad, and circle and back up on more than one before they do their thing. It's funny to watch,until they back up next to a pad

[Charlie]

Welcome to the forum, Kindicane! It will be interesting to see what the results of the decal exam will be. Have you considered that it could be IBD/IBS? Does it happen only on certain foods or all the meals? What is your ferret eating? Just putting thoughts out there.

[kindicane]

Previous question: her food hasn't changed. She's only ever eaten the Marshall's premium diet. I didn't know then but I read now it is terrible. It is what all 3 of my ferrets eat, and I got the other 2 older and they were already on it. Occasional duk soup as 2 of them sometimes have loose stools. This degree of loose stools for Aria is new.

Update:
I know it has been a long time since my last update. It has been an emotional rollercoaster and I thought I was going to lose her. Shortly after my last post she rolled out of a hammock I have for them outside of their cage and was unable to stand up. She had to go potty. She was unable to use her left side. She ran tight circles. I don't know if anyone knows what neurological issues look like in a snake and how they move but that was how it appeared. We called several closer emergency vets, being put on hold for 5 to 30min, trying to find somewhere as close as possible that may see her.

We ended up driving 3hrs away to an emergency vet and getting there around 1230am. They took her in and noted she was dehydrated and underweight. She's normally 1 lbs 5 or 6oz and was just a few days ago at her vet visit locally. She was now 1.3lbs. Hours of waiting in the truck outside (covid protocol) and the doctor calls to sedate her and run blood tests because thankfully she is still scrappy. Her liver values were high, she had yeast in her left ear, and they recommend an MRI (at least $3k) which we could only possibly get at a nearby university. This doctor said she had neurological issues and could have a brain tumor. They prescribed tresaderm ear drops. From here on out I had to have my s/o handle things because I was a wreck. In the morning we waited for the emergency vet to get a hold of the university for an appointment. They didn't answer but were able to talk to avian & exotic about fitting her in for a CT scan, so we transported her there. The CT scan only showed "the tiniest lump" to indicate insulinoma but so small the vet wasn't concerned. She is mostly concerned about her GI issues. She prescribes critical care syringe feeding food (emerald carnivore intensive care), denamarin, and metronidazole, amoxi/clav and says to stop the pepto to see if these medicines help. She said that within the time there she had improved a great deal already. We are to take her to the emergency vet with her IV in for overnight care and observation.

The emergency vet disregarded and gave her pepto. They called the next mid morning to let us know she seemed brighter and stable enough to come home. For several reasons they were a terrible experience but unfortunately we didn't realize they did not provide us all of her meds which we already paid for, so after our 3hr drive home we see we no longer have her denamarin (liver protectant). Even though it would be late I called my local vet trying to get it and they eventually share that they can't provide that dose or quantity nor could any of our local vets/pharmacies. Avian & Exotic prescribed milk thistle (once every 24hrs). We eventually have to have that overnighted so she had a week without. Meanwhile- syringe feeding every 6hrs until her recheck ~2wks later, and all other meds every 12hrs for various days (ear drops 7, antibiotics 10).

We had her appt after 2wks (8/12/22). She's walking straight, eating her own food well, jumping, climbing, pulling herself up onto things, less interested in some of the things she was before and less interested in being out/playing. At her appt her liver values are perfect glucose is low even though she eats fine and drinks water. We get the implant for her and send off blood work for her glucose. Still concerned about her mush pile poos. The Dr feels lymphoma is on the table and possible gi tract cancer. She's holding off on trying steroids so it doesn't mask anything up. For now she is on milk thistle for 30 days from the appt. Give her a week for her poo to firm up. It has been a week, we'll talk with the Dr today and get more plans forward.

[unclejoe]

holy mackerel, you've been thru the mill and still no definite answer. After all that I sure don't have any suggestions, but thank your for the update. It may be helpful to others. Please let us know what your vet says Monday. You are in our thoughts and prayers

[Charlie]

Holy moly! So sorry you have been going through all that. Glad to hear she is still with you though.

[silentdook]

I hope you can get some improvement, or better answers.
Isn't it incredible that an MRI on such a tiny creature is as much as one on a human
We're hoping to hear an update.

[Cj]

Hello! I’m so sorry to hear about your girl!

This is my first time really dealing with older ferrets, so I really don’t know much unfortunately, but I seem to be going through a similar situation.

Both my ferrets turned 5 this year, and my little guy Teddy has had, what I’ve been told, is IBS. We would typically have an emergency or two throughout the years with him having diarrhea and vomiting. We get the typical medications you were prescribed on your visit, his poops would get better immediately and essentially we would wait until the next emergency and go through the motions again. As he got older, probably the last year or so, he has solely had seedy poops and will not use the litter box. Sometimes they’re frequent, like yours, every hour. Sometimes it’s in the good 3-4 hour time frame. But overall, he’s in good spirits, he has a healthy appetite, drinks normally, and has pretty good energy for an old guy. I have tried to transition him to better foods than the Marshalls, and he will eat whatever you put in front of him, but nothing has ever made a difference in his poop consistency. He did get the implant in April for showing some signs of adrenal disease, and they hoped that might help with his poop but it didn’t. We are now waiting pretty much to see if it has become cancer, we just need to get him scheduled for an ultrasound.

Now, with my other guy, Timber, We had an emergency with him in February of this year. I unfortunately hadn’t noticed that he wasn’t eating as much because I was trying to transition them to better food. Well, he is a die hard Marshall fan! He had been out of his cage for a couple hours and I went to go put them up and as I put him on the level with food and water, he couldn’t stand upright, he was like leaning to the right, almost as if his head was stuck like that. You couldn’t turn his head, so I put him down on the floor and he was so disoriented and couldn’t walk straight. I had no idea what it was at the time, but my first thought was this is neurological, could it be Aleutian’s disease? I don’t really know what it is, but I know that it causes neuro issues. So we packed up and drove to the vet, and his glucose levels were extremely low! So, if your baby is still having glucose issues and they clearly saw the presence of insulinoma, it might be best to start a low dose of Prednisolone.

Teddy, was put on it as a possible treatment for his GI issues for his first emergency this year. It was one week 2x daily, one week for once a day, and then 7 days of every other day. He seemed to do well, but after a little while it was back to the same old issues which is why we are thinking it’s probably cancer.
Timber has also done pretty well on the Pred, and we haven’t had any glucose problems since we started him on it.

I wish you the best of luck, and hopefully I can update soon on our ultrasound visit, maybe it will give you a little insite to what’s going on with yours.

[kindicane]

Updating again:

Saturday morning, the vet tech called. Since she still has the seedy mush piles of poo they decided to send us prednisone. Twice that day she really showed interest in coming out so we let her out and she played a little over an hour each time. She wanted some time Sunday as well. It's worth noting that she will run around and play if I just let her out but I've been focusing on her resting and decided I wouldn't force it but let her tell me she wants to run around.

I had weighed her Thursday (8/18) and she had maintained her weight from her 8/12 appt. I weighed her Monday 8/22 and she lost 20 grams. So I gave her some wetted food a few times Monday but she started to have small splats of poo. So I stopped and reasoned maybe I'm giving her too much water to food ratio.

Tuesday (8/23) we received the prednisone in the mail to mix together and start giving her. She's on 0.3mL every 12hrs for 2 weeks, 03.mL every 24hrs for 1 wk, 0.15mL every 24 hrs for 1 wk, then 0.15mL every 48hrs for 1 wk. Last night, after her 3rd dose she moved back to pooping every 2hrs then overnight it became every hour again. These poops are very wet looking plops of poo that come out audibly again. I don't know if this is normal with it being a new med. I'll call the vet office here soon but chances are that I won't get an answer until tomorrow evening at the earliest. She is still on her milk thistle as well.

Her appetite and spirits are still good. She eats, drinks, has energy. Of course I'm at work now and unfortunately not able to watch her through the day 🥺 we haven't gotten her glucose results back either. I think IBS and cancer are what are on the table as of now. She hasn't had the MRI or ultrasound at this time.

[kindicane]

Aug 22, 2022 13:37:32 GMT -5 Cj said:

I wish you the best of luck, and hopefully I can update soon on our ultrasound visit, maybe it will give you a little insite to what’s going on with yours.

Thank you for sharing your experience. This has been a scary and emotional ride. She was my first after wanting one for so long, so these are my first experiences as well. My other 2 girls miss her but I try to keep them separate.
They played a little together once but I think Aria got too used to being on her own and was like why are there other ferrets here? I play here.

Please update after your ultrasound, I also wish you luck with your babies.