A Very Delayed Vaccination Reaction

On Wednesday my three little weasels went to the vet for their rabies vaccinations. All three have a history of reactions, albeit mild ones, so all three were pretreated with Benadryl. I talked about waiting a full hour after vaccination to make sure there was no reaction. Dr. Wolfe, who is certainly an outstanding and very experienced ferret vet, thought that half an hour is enough. I still remember making a wild U-turn on Chapel Hill Road (NC 54) to get Adric back to Dr. Hudson when he reacted to his rabies shot nearly an hour after it was given. I waited the hour.

Well... after an hour Chin Soon, Ella, and Zephyr all seemed find. I took them home. Just as I was arriving, nearly an hour and a half after being vaccinated, Zephyr started vomiting. She ended up with diarrhea and projectile vomit. I called Dr. Wolfe, gave Zephyr some more Benadryl orally at her direction, and Zephyr and I headed back to see her again. Thankfully Zephy was fine after that and was quite bright and looked really good when Dr. Wolfe saw her again. We got home sometime around 7:30 that evening.

Zephyr has been fine ever since and was very much her bratty, playful, rambunctious self on Thursday evening.

Dr. Wolfe never heard of a reaction that long after vaccination. Neither had I. Next time we pretreat Zephyr with dexamethasone and I bring plenty of reading material to wait the full 90 minutes to make sure she's OK.

Why do I always have the ferrets with weird medical issues?

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