From:
Pam Sessoms
Date: 2002-07-30 22:52:41 UTC
Subject: Re: [ferrethealth] Re: protein electrophoresis
To: Lin Adkins <ladkins@creighton.edu>
cc: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <Pine.A41.4.21L1.0207301852220.49656-100000@login6.isis.unc.edu>
On Mon, 29 Jul 2002, Lin Adkins wrote:
> sometimes lurch stiffly back and forth (like
> a chameleon walking on a branch) then go on
> about his business.
That's an excellent description - the chameleon swaying thing, that
is! Little old Tammy, my girl who does this and who we had the
electrophoresis done on, is improving a lot but still does this,
especially upon waking. I actually just returned from the vet and have a
bit of news about her, although it may not relate to your guy.
Tammy is responding great to Lupron for her adrenal disease and is about
fully covered in hair now. That's the good news. The bad news is that my
vet palpated her peripheral lymph nodes and felt that they were too firm
and aspirated them. She's not a pathologist or an oncologist, but the
aspirates looked suspicious of lymphoma to her, so she's sending that
out. It would take a real lymph node dissection/biopsy to be completely
sure, though. Anyway, that may play into all of this somehow. Her nodes
are not so large as to cause her trouble walking, and they weren't big at
all when she came to me a few months ago when her stiffness was worse. We
did take radiographs and did *not* see any evidence of arthritis. No
obvious signs of lesions on the spine, but it was just a plain radiograph,
not a myelogram or anything like that.
> complete blood work-up next weekend and was
> wondering if anyone had any idea of what we may
> look for - what other test we might do.
The complete CBC/chem screen may lead you to further, more specialized
tests... That's what happened with Tammy - she had persistently high
total protein and globulins, and so we did the protein electrophoresis to
get a more precise picture of what was going on there. Her bloodwork
didnt' scream "lymphoma," but lymphoma is tricky that way and you don't
always see elevated lymphocytes, etc. Her calcium was borderline high,
though, and I think I've read that that can be a sign of some types in
some species.
Anyway, let us know how the bloodwork comes out. Love to follow this
case!!
Best wishes,
-Pam S.