Message Number: YG3302 | New FHL Archives Search
From: macdoodle99@yahoo.com
Date: 2001-05-06 10:03:00 UTC
Subject: Re: pred belly?

--- In Ferret-Health-list@y..., "Regina Harrison" <regina_z@h...>
wrote:
> My six year, six month old ferret Amelia has been on pred since
late
> November for insulinoma. Although she's generally a healthy,
robust ferret,
> we didn't opt for surgery because her BG was too low to consider
her
> stable-- she tested at 43 (!) before pred, and has since leveled
off in the
> upper 60s

Hi Regina,

I am not a vet. I just thought I would mention that the low blood
sugar alone should probably not keep you from getting surgery on
Amelia. When my ferret was diagnosed with insulinoma with a blood
sugar of 46, my vet wanted to try to get her blood sugar up before
surgery. However, she didn't respond to the pred. My vet tried
increasing doses of pred for 2 weeks (got up to 3 mg/kg twice daily)
and then he decided to operate. Her blood sugar never got higher
than 49. He just put her on a dextrose drip intravenously for the
surgery to keep her sugar up. She did just fine.

However, it sounds like you may have some other things going on and I
don't know if those things would preclude surgery. Hopefully some of
the others on this list will be able to help.

Good luck!
Kristy