From:
Steve Austin
Date: 2001-04-21 17:05:00 UTC
Subject: Re: Bear update
I want to thank everyone on this list who has taken their time to respond
to so many health questions. I personally am grateful to this list and
the FML- without which I never would have suspected Bear had adrenal
disease. I posted about him a few weeks ago, with the pics of his hair
loss just starting at the base of his tail.
I just got back from a very long trip to MD where I helped a friend with
her 2 month old triplets, trying to give her and her husband a break, and
at the same time I took the opportunity to take Bear to see Dr.Weiss.
It was well worth the trip, he is so nice and made me feel comfortable
leaving my baby with him.
Bear had an enlarged left adrenal, and 2 ectopic adrenals - one nested in
close to the vena cava. He also had a suspicious mass on his spleen, so
the spleen was removed and sent for biopsy.
Bear recovered wonderfully, and is feeling fine today- 2 days after
surgery. I am worried about all of my other fuzzies now, I can't imagine
going through this again, or some other illness- I always thought that I
would never pay the money that others have to treat their animals, but
when Bear was diagnosed with the tumors- I was so happy they were all
removed, and didn't even ask to the cost- of course, my husbands response
was slightly different. LOL
Thanks to everyone here and to Dr. Weiss -Bear has a good shot at a
complete recovery. It is upsetting that he is so young, only 2.
I read the journal article about Lupron and adrenal disease- it is so
hard to do a good study, due to lack of funding, But has anyone looked at
the levels of FSH and LH in the early spay/neuters to see how elevated it
is? If it may be the cause of adrenal tumors- would doing a study on the
effect of prophlylactic shot of lupron on a kit be worth while??? I am
thinking that if an early spay/neuter is the cause of the tumors due to
high levels of FSH/LH - then giving a med to bring down these levels for
the first 6 months may prevent the tumor?? Or campaigning for later
spays/neutering??
Although, a big problem with this is explaining why all the other ferrets
that are early spay/neuter aren't getting the tumors, just some are.
Maybe there are LH receptor tumors, and non-LH receptor tumors -the LH
ones are affected more so by the photoperiod/early spay/neuter-- like
there are certain breast tumors that have estrogen receptors??
Patty
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