From:
"Crowley, Christy"
Date: 2002-10-07 13:11:46 UTC
Subject: Insulinoma - Questions for non-surgical candidate
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <B22FDC02B657D611BB6200034723E3060F5F2C@MCDC-ATL-81>
My ferret Linus is approximately 5 year old. He had surgery in April of this
year and the vet removed his left adrenal gland and a tiny portion of his
pancreas. The vet said that his right adrenal looked iffy but not obvious
and opted to leave it in. The bigger problem was the tumor(s) on his
pancreas. He had been diagnosed with insulinoma about a month prior to his
surgery, his first glucose test came back at 36! We opted to have the
surgery right away. When the vet started on the pancreas she was only able
to remove the tiniest portion because either the pancreas itself or some of
the tumor(s) were attached to his duodenum (I'm not entirely sure which).
She was afraid to be more agressive in excising the tumor and accidentally
rupture his bowel. He made it through the surgery with flying colors and has
been fine on meds until recently.
Three weeks ago Linus had his first seizure. The timing was weird because a
few days before he had been to the vet for a blood glucose and it was up to
50, the highest it had been in all the time before or after his surgery and
he hadn't previously had any seizure. He was walking around in a circle with
his head cocked to one side and his butt flopping over. He was spaced out
and drooling uncontrollably. I took him to the emergency vet (panicking the
whole way of course) who administered IV glucose. Linus rebounded after a
few hours and I contacted my regular vet who advised me to up his meds. At
this time, Linus is on .04ml of Prednisone (1mg/ml) and .06ml of Diazoxide
(50mg/ml) twice a day.
Linus had another seizure this Sat. I caught it very early and rushed him to
my vet. They administered IV glucose and sent me home with him. On the way
home he seemed to get worse and began making this 'heh heh' panting noise
that I usually associate with a ferret who has gotten overheated. He was
shivering and it was fairly cool out so I don't think it was that. I
returned to the vet where they gave him an injection of Pred, a topical dose
of Progylceem, and more IV glucose. They had a terrible time finding a vein
on him but he was so out of it he didn't even move. Finally they also
administered some subq fluids which seemed to perk him up immediately. After
several hours I was able to take him home and he has been fine since. The
vet suggested I add in a midday dose of .02ml pred to give him less time
between meds.
My apologies for the long post, but I have some questions and I wanted to
give a full background.
1. Has anyone had this sort of problem with the pancreas or pancreatic
tumors being attached to the bowel? Does this mean there is nothing further
surgically that can be done for him?
2. Has anyone heard of dehydration as being a side of effect of either long
term pred/diazoxide use, seizures or the insulinoma itself? Or is the 'heh
heh' panting he was doing indicative of anything else?
3. In order to get Linus to ingest the doses of meds, which he is never
thrilled about, I have to mix in a tiny bit of baby food and about 1/2 to 1
tsp of Ferretone per dosage. He is a very picky eater and doesn't care for
baby food but loves Ferretone. He won't eat Nutrical either. I have heard
that Ferretone has high vitamin A content and can cause liver damage. My
question is does the importance of getting all his meds in outweigh the
potential for liver damage? My vet didn't seem to think Linus has a lot of
quality time left so if the liver damage doesn't occur immediately or
accrues over a long period of time, he may not be around long enough for it
to become an issue.
4. Finally, although his 2 seizures seemed bad to me, they were three weeks
apart and he has recovered back to normal each time after a few hours. For
people who have had experience with this and had to let their ferrets go,
when did you get to that point? I have spoken with the vet and they
euthanize by giving anasthesia and then a shot into the heart. In previous
discussions on the FHL, this seemed to be considered the most humane, but of
course I'd like to hold off this eventuality as long as possible.
Thanks all for spending (lots) of time reading this. I know many of you are
going or have gone through the same things and it is enormously helpful to
read the posts and get your input and suggestions. I know I've been able to
converse more competently with my vet about the care Linus should receive
and that is terrific.
Christy
Christy Crowley
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