From:
GRNTEE@aol.com
Date: 2002-04-26 02:10:00 UTC
Subject: Adrenal Disease questions
In a message dated 4/25/02 3:52:23 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
Ferret-Health-list@yahoogroups.com writes:
"Bryan & Becky"
I have a five year old female ferret that is showing signs of
adrenal disease
. I was wondering what the best course of treatment would be for a
ferret of her age.
Becky, in my opinion as long as your ferret is healthy and has no
other problems and shows no signs of problems your best course of
treatment at this point would be to opt for the adrenal surgery.
There are other forms of treatment, lupron and melatonin are the two
other forms but this only masks the symptoms and does not cure this
disease. At the age of five, with good health, your ferret should
come through okay. There is always that risk, and that is also
something you need to discuss with your vet. A few other questions
that I asked my vet when Bria had her surgery were: Make sure that
your vet is skilled in this type of surgery and you may want to ask
what type of anesthesia is used. I prefer the new anesthesia Sevo,
and there is another name after that but forget it right now. Also,
you may want to ask if the vet is limited in the number of surgeries
he/she has done, how many right sided and how many left sided has
been performed and what the rate of survival has been. Also ask if
pre-surgical blood work will be performed.
One other thing you may want to think about is timeliness of
the surgery. Obviously you do not want to drag this out for your
ferret or yourself, as the tumor will only enlarge but with our busy
lifestyles, make sure that you are going to be available for a bit
of aftercare TLC. One thing that I did that is absolutely necessary
is to take a heating pad with you. Ferrets need this warmth and
without it could go into shock. I read somewhere, not sure where
now, that a large percentage of ferrets that have not survived the
surgery was not due to anything other than the ferret was not kept
warm. I got one that you put in the microwave and heat and it stays
warm for hours. After heating it, wrap it in a towel and put it in
the carrier with your baby.
I hope this helps.
Sincerely, Tina and the fuzzy trio