From:
Steve Austin
Date: 2001-04-10 19:16:00 UTC
Subject: Re: GOod news at last
I posted some time ago about an older female ferret I took in right
around Christmas time. She has the insulinoma and the anemia ( initial
hct was 12, then repeat send out was 28). She is on prednisone and
epogen shots 3 days a week for about a 6 weeks now.
She was looking quite pink/red so I decreased the epogen to once a week
about 2 weeks ago, and she had her follow up today.
Her glucose stays around 70, and her low was 55 when I woke her up,
before the prednisone. This is a whole blood calculated machine, so add
12% or so to those numbers.
The good news was she went from 1.3 to 1.6 lbs and her HCT was almost
60%! Well, maybe too much epogen. So, we are going to stick with epogen
once a week, and continue the prednisone. Follow up in 3 months, Yippee!
I am not sure the cause of her anemia in the first place so I am not sure
why the eopgen worked so well in her case. She should have enough
erythropoietin of her own with no signs of kidney problems, but if there
is chronic kidney failure, and a lack of the hormone, then it should work
even better. I guess the main thing is that if the anemia is mild or
causing no symptoms than probably makes no sense to treat. However, with
enough anemia to cause problems, or warrant a transfusion then I think it
makes sense to try the epogen.
Now anyone know of a good place to get the epogen? I want to see if I can
get it cheaper than at the vet office, cut out the middle man so to
speak. The Walgreens by me has 3000iu/cc and I need 2000iu/cc ( just too
hard to draw up the tiny amount needed as it is)- they have to order it
in batches of 10 vials, so they didn't want to order it for me. However,
the price on the 3000iu/cc was about $15 less than what I paid ( and I
will get more doses out of it), so I may go for that one- just not sure
about giving a shot of 0.03cc- seems most will be lost in the hub of the
needle.
Patty
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