From:
Fuzzbukket12@aol.com
Date: 2002-05-29 01:00:00 UTC
Subject: Yet Another Insulinoma Case?
On Sunday I came home from work to find Angus-a male rescue of
undetermined age, but at least 5 years years plus beacause that's
how long he's been with us, in a semi-comatose state.Totally
limp,unresponsive,and drooling/foaming from the mouth. I heard 2
sounds from him that were best described as a gag . I was able to
open his mouth and saw no foreign object. I then suspected it to be
a hypoglycemic event and tried rubbing a small amount of Ferretvite
on his gum. With that, he scrunched up his nose and twitched his
whiskers, but that was the extent of response.Not knowing if ti was
hypo or hyper, we ran to an emergency hospital and all the ride he
was so limp and his little head kept falling back, as well as the
rest of his body while I was trying to rouse him and talk to him.
His eyes were half closed,but twice on the half hour ride there,they
opened and he looked alert for a second, then went back to nothing.
The attending physician did the prudent thing, although he humbly
said he had absolutely no expertise with ferrets, except for a basic
knowledge of the most common illnesses they seem to succumb to, and
he did a blood glucose and it came back a 67. I told him I didn't
think that was extremely low. My vet, who is an exotic and who's
conferred with Dr. Williams with regards to another fuzzy of ours
who is ill with IBD, feels the normal range is 80-120. Long story
short,the ER vet administerd a 50 % DExtrose solution and within 2
hours Angus was eating, drinking and charming thier staff with his
antics. We picked him up and the vet said he felt insulinoma was the
culprit and to definately follow up with our vet. In the interum, I
paged our vet and she spoke to this vet and felt that Angus' blood
sugar number should not have put him in that state. Now, after
reading a slew of recent posts here, it would seem that opinions
vary, and numbers are misleading depending on the ferret. Someone
wrote that they've seen fuzzies act normally at levels of 30. When
the ER vet ran a second blood glucose, the number was 87. Angus goes
to the vet today-our vet, where I'm sure a CBC will be run. He had
one in February and everything was dead on ba**s normal. Other than
that, the only thing different about Angus is intermittent loose
stools, which after pulling off everything I could off the net about
insulinoma, was cited as being one of the early symptons of this
disease. I had my sister babysit him the past 2 days while I was at
work because I'm terrified of another episode. So sorry this ran so
long, but since obviously there are so many of you out there who
have ferrets with this, I just wanted some feedback and opinions as
to whether this episode and his past indicate insulinoma. He eats
and drinks heartily-maybe too much. He's almost 4 pounds, but not a
solid four. He's got a jelly belly. Our little chunky
butt......thanks in advance to those who wish or care to respond.
Erika