From:
Barbara Griswold
Date: 2003-03-15 16:23:43 UTC
Subject: Re: insulinoma hair loss?
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <3E73538F.1070000@direcway.com>
Good morning
My Gus is 6 and a half years old. He is full-blown insulinomic. I found
him in a coma, was able to pull him out and he then had a partial
pancreatectomy a year ago last January. He also had his left adrenal
removed 2 years ago. Last summer I noticed adrenal symptoms
again...thinning coarse coat, wrinkling of the skin and and loss of hair
on the tip of his tail. No loss of hair at the base of the tail. This
little trooper went thru another adrenal in October, had a vena cava
ligation and they also removed a teeny tiny insulinoma nodule at the
same time.
Yes, insulinomics can be adrenal and as in Gus's case, he's now
bi-lateral and insulinomic. He is doing exceedingly well. His last BG in
January was 105!! To say I was thrilled, is an understatement.
Because he's bi-lateral, I was concerned about symptoms however I chose
to let him go to see when and if he needed the DCOP injection
(Percortin.) It's difficult at best to decide which disease is kicking
in as both the bi-lateral symptoms and the insulinomic symptoms are
somewhat similar in that they both have weakness in the hind quarters.
Bi-laterals also get very sick to their stomach, can experience heavy
duty diarrhea (so I'm told...I haven't experienced that as yet) and can
die fairly quickly if it's not taken care of.
Sooo...to make this long story short...Gus has been on 1 ml of Pred
every other day and I held off on the Percortin. He experienced, this
past week, some violent upset of his stomach and weakness in his hind
quarters. It'd been 11 weeks since his last shot. I thought every 25
days or so was the norm however, my vet has advised me that the length
of time can be different in different animals. In Gus' case, we'll now
put him on a schedule of every 8 weeks or so. The shot won't hurt him if
he doesn't need it and will help if he does. Having both insulinoma and
being bi-lateral is very confusing.
Am I saying what I intend here...I hope so! Yes, insulinomics can have
adrenal tumors and in many cases, if they're doing well, they can handle
the surgery.
Barb and her 6 whirling dervishes...Gus, Hope, Bren, Kate, Tess and Cher