gse

If you have used Grapefruit seed extract and have ANY comments either positive or negative please let me know.

From Catherine - 7 April 2006

Hi Julie

A progress report on Stevie and the capsules you sent us to try on him. We tried everything to get him to eat it but he sussed it every time, and after the cage was moved to the new house, he stopped eating completely and started gasping for air through his mouth. We were so close to taking him to the vet to have him put down, as he was suffering so. I sat with him under my jumper to keep him warm, and as a last ditch attempt to get some meat on him we tried him on the ferretvite, which he lapped up. So we mixed the ferretvite with some of the capsule and he ate that too! Over the last ten days he has looked healthier than he has for a long time - since his half brother died of the same thing at the end of January in fact. He doesn't have half a capsule a day, because we can't get that amount in him without him detecting it, but I would say he has about a tenth of it a day, and together with the ferretvite, he has put on some weight (he is still scrawny, but he always was a manic active rat) and best of all, he very rarely wheezes now. He is also much more active (more like his old self) and his breathing is a lot easier. He is also eating more normal food, (although this is probably down to the ferretvite), and he doesn't get out of breath eating anymore. And he's standing up to Monty (our roan from Sue), who was getting a bit bossy with him.

We're so pleased - its definately a combination of the two, and we are still giving him the ferretvite and capsule mixture every day, but its such a turnaround! And you couldn't have asked for a more difficult rat to try it on, to be honest. He is the runt of his litter, more human rat than rat rat, extremely intelligent and sensitive to change, always rushing about before he became ill and so near death just after we moved - his half-brother was gasping like Stevie did fifteen minutes before he died. Sue could tell you what a funny little rat he is, as she met him (and his cagemates) when we went to pick up Monty last year.

We can't thank you enough for sending us the capsules, and if you decide to sell them, we will need some more soon!