Chin Soon's Delayed Reaction To Her Distemper Vaccination

Last Tuesday it seemed that Chin Soon's reaction to her distemper vaccination was the least severe of the three. By last night Ella and Zephyr were completely back to normal and were especially playful. They were the proverbial energizer weasels: they kept going and going. Chin Soon continued to look and feel out of sorts while the others recovered and by last night it looked like she was in serious trouble. She had no energy at all and still seemed off balance. By last night it was so bad she could barely walk. Chin Soon had obviously been losing weight despite still having her usually strong appetite for chicken gravy. I'm just not sure she was eating much of anything else. She was weak but it didn't look at all the same as when she had insulinoma. She just plain looked miserable.

I was able to reach Dr. Powers around 10 PM last night and she really came through for Chin Soon and for me. Based on her instructions I gave Chin Soon 0.05ml of pediapred (1mg/ml concentration) as an anti-inflammatory. We still had pred in the house from when she was taking it for insulinoma. I also gave her a tiny amount of famotidine (generic for Pepcid AC) crushed up in some more gravy. I've been offering her gravy every three to four hours since then. If need be Dr. Powers offered to see Chin Soon today on an emergency basis. Thankfully it wasn't necessary.

The good news is that Chin Soon seems to have turned the corner and is slowly improving. She's more perky and is eating plenty of gravy when offered. She doesn't feel nearly as light. I checked her blood glucose just in case and it was a nice, normal 101 this morning. Dr. Powers called to check up on Chin Soon and instructed me to continue the pediapred once a day for another couple of days and to continue carafate (now discontinued for the other ferrets) and the famotidine for another four days. We'll touch base on Monday or Tuesday.

Chin Soon is scheduled for her rabies vaccination and having her teeth cleaned right after the 4th of July holiday. Right now it's an open question whether or not we'll go ahead with either of those things. It all depends on how she recovers from here on out.