From:
Bruce Williams, DVM
Date: 2001-03-17 09:31:00 UTC
Subject: Re: concerned about high glucose
--- In Ferret-Health-list@y..., Pam Sessoms <pjdutche@e...> wrote:
> Standard disclaimer: I'm not a vet, but...
>
> On Fri, 16 Mar 2001 fshldy1017@a... wrote:
> > I was wondering if a ferret can have a high glucose with
insulinoma.
> > My ferret Bo had a CBC done about two months ago and his blood
glucose
> > was 175.
>
> Generally insulinoma results in low blood glucose. But here are a
couple
> of thoughts... First, I've often heard that blood glucose can be
elevated
> from stress - such as if the ferret wasn't terribly happy giving up
his
> blood. Someone else would have to comment on whether 175 is a
reading
> that could be from stress alone.
Ferret blood values generally aren't impacted by stress, or the
release of cortisol. In other species, we can see elevations in the
WBC (known in the trade as the "stress leukogram"), decreases and
increases in the types of WBC seen on a differential count, in horses
we can even see short-term spikes in the amount of RBCs.
In dogs and cats, we can see a spike in glucose due to the stress of
phlebotomy or the vet visit. It is usually fairly small.
But in ferrets, we don't generally see any of these, so stress is not
considered to have a major impact on blood values. If it did, we
would see glucoses like this a lot, and we don't. 175 is indeed a
high value, but certainly not in the range of diabetes. If this
animal is on prednisone for any other problem, that could account for
it, as prednisone does elevated blood glucose. You are also at the
tail end of the period , in which glucose is elevated from a meal,
so that might account for it.
I would suggest rechecking the test in a week, and fasting for about
4 hours prior (remember, you don't fast ferrets with a previous
diagnosis of insulinoma, though.) Then we'll see if it is back in
the normal range (likely) or has continued to increase, at which time
we may start thinking about diabetes.
With kindest regards,
Bruce H. Williams, DVM, DACVP
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