From:
sukiec@optonline.net
Date: 2003-08-05 17:13:46 UTC
Subject: Re: [ferrethealth] Millie''s new fur
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <1680519.1060103626207.JavaMail.root@thallium.smartgroups.com>
Ashling has no adrenals: she was our one case so far in 21 years of early adrenal onset (at age 3 -- after a time of not providing a lot of true darkness but i don't know if that was involved). Anyway, she lost all the fur from the lower part of her trunk in the space of about a week. Just blam! When they went into her both glands needed to come out, but both were encapsulated and able to be removed fully and cleanly without problems.
Three and half years later she is still incredibly athletic though now she carries the tv remote which is 1/4 of her weight up 4' in the closet to stash it rather than up 8 feet and with her reduced activity level she needs haf as much Florinef and Pred daily as before.
Anyway - to the topic under discussion: Ashling had no fur regrow for 1 and 1/2 after her surgery. Then one day during the regrowth phase of a normal shed season for everyone else she was growing fur -- not as much as before, but fur, none-the-less. Her follicles were damaged, though, so her coat is thin and whenever she is under any stress, including emotional stress she losses fur again and regrows it when once stress is done. By now we know that pattern well, since we had other ferrets who passed away and she responded this way each time.
In her case it is not regrown adrenal tissue; she still doesn't have any (a concern before we knew what was happening). It appears to all extensive purposes that she just has damaged follicles so this is how they act.