Message Number: SG6532 | New FHL Archives SearchFrom: sukie crandall
Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 15:08:51 -0500
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com, caitlyn@mizuhoradio.com
Subject: Re: [ferrethealth] RE: Minnie''''s Insulinoma
Message-id: <DFFC527A-0FCB-11D8-8415-000A95CD182C@optonline.net>
>Our vet also does meds before surgery but only so long as the dosage
remains
>really small. By the time one of ours would need the dosage you
describe (
>and I'm assuming you mean .mg and not .ml since you were asked in
>milligrams) he would have done surgery unless the ferret was a poor
surgical
>candidate.
No, she clarified at one point that this was just the syringe
measurement so it is only in ml measurement, meaning that it is
impossible to know how much medication is being given since neither the
final mg amount is known nor is the concentration. When giving an ml
(or cc) measurement for meds which can come in multiple concentrations
-- and Prednisolone does, having used several -- it is essential to
give the mg/ml (mg per ml) numbers or to tell the final mg level. ml
tells nothing in such situations.
Also, the amount was not large. She forgot to put a zero before the
"." so anyone with poor eyesight or who was reading rapidly could very
easily accidently mistake it for two instead of two tenths. That is
another important reminder: when you are taking about a fraction of an
ml or mg which is below one measurement DO put a zero before the
decimal point so that folks can see what you mean. Instead of writing
".2" for two tenths be sure to write "0.2". This is a common
scientific and medical practice used to reduce errors and it is so
important that it even appears in the FHL rules (number 2 at
http://www.smartgroups.com/vault/ferrethealth/fhl_rules.txt as does
the point about mg measurements).
Send comments to Pam at pjdutche@email.unc.edu. Please note that this address is only useful for questions about the FHL archive. Questions about ferret health, or those intended for the FHL, should be sent to the Ferret Health List.