From:
mjanke@miamiferret.org
Date: 2002-10-08 02:50:39 UTC
Subject: RE: Insulinoma - Questions for non-surgical candidate
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <24690473.1034045439971.JavaMail.root@scandium>
> this time, Linus is on .04ml of Prednisone (1mg/ml)
> and .06ml of Diazoxide
Are you sure you didn't mean 0.4ml and 0.6ml? .04 and .06 are miniscule doses and it would probably be extremely difficult just to measure out that little and it probably wouldn't help much at all.
> 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?
I have had one ferret on pred very long term and he definitely never got dehydrated because of it. In fact, I would say it is just the opposite as they tend to retain fluid.
I'm not sure about the panting part... seizures do not appear as one usually thinks of a seizure, i.e. thrashing about. The hypoglycemic seizures I've seen (once too often I might add) usually consist of rythmic gasping actions. Could this be the "panting" you are trying to describe?
> 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?
Seizures are not pleasant to watch, that's for sure. but seizures three weeks apart would not have me thinking about euthanasia. If surgery is not an option I would consider going MUCH higher on the pred dosage. They tolerate it well and if the only other option is euthanasia, it certainly is worth a try.
Frequent, high protein meals help too. Lots of people report good results with "Bob Church's Chicken Gravy."
mike