From:
leese10ferts
Date: 2002-01-16 11:51:00 UTC
Subject: Re: Adrenal disease, insulinoma or both?
--- In Ferret-Health-list@y..., "renee" <renee@n...> wrote:
> Hello.
> I'm new to this group because I didn't know where else to turn.
There are no vets in our area that treat ferrets and I thought maybe
someone here would have some information to share. JC is 4 1/2 years
old. She has a swollen vulva and some hair and weight loss.
Adrenal, right? Surgery is not an option for us as there is no one
to perform the operation. What medicinal options are there?
Hi Renee,
Have you checked in other areas to see about a vet who knows
ferrets? I've been known to drive 4 1/2 hours for surgeries for my
ferrets (Pittsburgh to Maryland) before my local vet started using
cryosurgery. To search for vets within a reasonable drive for you,
check here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ferret-Health-list/files/FerretVets.html
There are medical treatments for adrenal disease, which include an
injection of Lupron, and some oral medications. If you do a search
on the archives of this group using "adrenal" or "Lupron" for the
search word, it should pull a lot of information that's already been
posted a number of times. But any medical treatment only holds the
chance of stopping the signs of adrenal - it doesn't stop the tumor
from progressing.
As for the insulinoma, pedia-pred is a good medical treatment for
rasing the blood glucose, but again, does nothing to stop the tumors
from growing and getting worse. And over time, the pred will stop
working and as the insulinoma progresses, he will require more and
more pred, and eventually, that won't help.
If JC's up for it, surgery is still the best option. You might want
to think about and look into ferret vets in other areas. Long term
medical treatment can end up being more costly (and greatly lessen
the ferret's quality of life) than just doing the surgery in the
beginning.
Best of luck,
Lisa Shortley