From:
sukiec@optonline.net
Date: 2003-11-02 23:49:50 UTC
Subject: RE: Minnie''''''''s Insulinoma
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <1748718.1067816990990.JavaMail.root@indium.smartgroups.com>
Anna, it that 0.2 ml or o.s milligrams?
Ml is the volume measurement (how high it goes in a syringe) but mg is the important number because that tells how much medicine is actually there.
Here's how to think of it: imagine that you wanted to have stuff around to make chickent soups at will so you cooked down a very dense concentrate from a boiled chicken -- just boiled it and boiled it till you had the thick concentrate then used an ice tray and froze equal size cubes of it away for later use. Now you could make anything from very thin broth to a very rich soup, depending on how many cubes you used. They use up the same room in the cooking pot but one is more water and less chicken than the other.
Well, medicine is like that. Some of it is like a thin broth because the fluid doesn;t have much medicine in it, but some of it is like that very rich soup because there is a lot of medicine in it.
Unless things have chenged Predipred comes in two concentrations, one twice as strong as the other one, and the generic comes in at least one more concentration. Also, a compounding pharmacy can make things even more concentrated.
So, you see, giving the volume mark on the syringe is like saying that you had a bowl of chicken soup. None of us can tell exactly how much medication is in that volume because you didn't tell us how many cubes of the chicken concentrate you put in.
Look on the bottle of Pediapred. Does it say 1 mg per ml 1 mg/ 1 ml, or does it say something else? You could also ask the vet or pharmacist (if it was a prescription) what the concentration is. If it is the generic I forget the concentration but I think that someone here mentioned finding from a pharmacist that a given ferret's generic version was something more concentrated like something in the range of 3 to 5 mg per ml. We have encountered two concentrations in non-generic Pediapred: 1mg/ml and 2 mg/ml.
Unless your ferret is very tiny in that case (*IF* this is what you are giving) you'd be likely to be giving a very low dose of either 0.2mg or 0.4 mg. If it is the generic or a compounded version then the dose could be much higher.
You did not say how much your ferret weighs.
I really think that when a ferret who is known to haev insulinoma begins to show signs again that you can't wait a week and half from the start of symptoms to see the vet. If that is a problem have you thought about calling the veterinary hospital. What you do is you call and you say that you would like a call back about your ferret (giving your name, your ferret's name, and your phone number) at the vet's convenience, but you mention what times you can't be reached. Then the vet will call back and the vet may be able give a change in dose which will safer for the ferret to start right away, and then refine it after the appointment in a week.