From:
jbecker@dot.co.pima.az.us
Date: 2003-06-02 17:52:30 UTC
Subject: RE: Long-term pred use
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <3153115.1054576350490.JavaMail.root@thallium.smartgroups.com>
I'm not a vet, and maybe a vet or medically trained person might expound on my idea/theory (please?), but I recall that VPI (pet insurance company) recently stopped covering "endocrine" (gland) problems in ferrets. Now, guess what? Both the adrenal glands and the pancreas are components of the endocrine system. These and other glands are the "functional units of hormone secreting cells located in various regions of the body making up the endocrine system." Therefore adrenal disease (adrenal tumors) AND insulinoma (pancreas tumors) are both endocrine-system diseases.
>From my limited internet research, I learned that the adrenal glands respond to and regulate stress, and the endocrine pancreas responds to and regulates digestion and blood sugar. It may be possible that a ferret who develops one of these endocrine-system-related diseases could have additional endocrine regulating problems/issues that could lead to the onset of the 2nd disease as well, irregardless of the treatment of the initial disease (for (for suspected causes see past posts regarding these diseases).
Of course, it has been discovered that certain hormonal therapy in humans can have unexpected and far-reaching cancer effects. But, since adrenal tumors and insulinoma are believed to be the two most common ferret diseases, only a repeatable clinical study could _determine_ if the steroidal treatment of insulinoma influenced the onset of adrenal disease.
BTW: Our Sherlock gets dropped off tomorrow for a few glucose tests throughout the day ; he is our first suspected insulinoma of my 6-crossed and 2-living ferrets (one of the past ones died of it, but diagnosis was too late). Our Samantha is scheduled for adrenal surgery on the 24th of this month. All but my first 3 fuzz-butts were older adoptees.
> My vet suspects that longterm usage of pred has caused his adrenal glands to
> decrease in their function, causing a pred-induced adrenal gland disease. Is
> this accurate? Could something else be going on with Pip?