From:
jaime_wolf@rocketmail.com
Date: 2002-12-10 03:48:55 UTC
Subject: Should you test for insulinoma at a certain age?
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <31073634.1039492135662.JavaMail.root@scandium>
Hi- we just found out that two of our ferrets need surgery this week- not our lucky week at all... One (Peanut) for adrenal gland removal and one (Freddy) for exploratory surgery b/c of an extremely enlarged spleen and pancreatic surgery b/c of suspected insulinoma. Both are around 5 y.o. and til now have appeared perfectly healthy- but the vet did routine blood work last week on both of them to see if there was anything else wrong with them (at the time, Freddy was only going for spleen surgery), and found that he had a drastically low blood sugar (don't remember the # but it was bad). This leads our vet to suspect insulinoma so he's going to look at Freddy's spleen while he's under tomorrow. But Freddy has had no symptoms that we know of, so this caught us by surprise. He does tend to eat a lot and weighs more than the other ferrets- could a ferret w/insulinoma want to eat more to compensate for low blood sugar??
My main question is: we have 2 younger ferrets- 3y.o.- if insulinoma can appear without symptoms is there an age at which one should get some blood work done to make sure their blood sugar level is okay and head it off early? Any other "routine" tests, other than normal checkups that should be done at certain ages? I think we've caught it early in Freddy, which I understand is very good, but I don't want it to go unnoticed in one of the other ferrets.
Also, when you have their pancreas removed or partly removed (don't know which they do), and it's early in the disease, can anyone give me an idea of the success rate in stopping the disease? Or does it just slow down the progress?
thanks,
Jaime