From:
"Sukie Crandall"
Date: 2004-09-17 19:37:28 UTC
Subject: RE: Pred Tx
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
On dosing, from the Archives
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/SG10725
BEGIN QUOTE
From: sukiec@optonline.net
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <1428817.1095449848311.JavaMail.root@thallium.smartgroups.com>
We had a one pound ferret who worked all the way up to
getting 5 mg of Prednisolone a day (spaced over 3 doses
per day) and got a lot of extra time with her meds. Granted,
that is a very unusually high dose, but remember that she
worked her way up to it so had a lot of doses far larger
than your vet mentioned in between. She also had
Diazoxide and for her last 3 months also dietary sugars
added. Her alternative was to die so it was kind of a
no-brainer for all of us.
In _Essentials of Ferrets, a Guide for Practitioners_ from
AAHA Press by Dr. Karen Purcell this drug is listed (pg 33):
>Prednisone, prednisolone
>0.1 - 2.5 mg/kg q 12 - 24 hours PO
Diazoxide dosing is listed (page 29) as
>5 - 30 mg/kg q 12 h PO
I recall Dr. Katherine Quesenberry mentionig in a pers. com.
to a vet of her's who is a mutual friend that the dosing of a
drug (2 drugs?) in the original edition of _Ferrets, Rabbits,
and Rodents, Clinical Medicine and Surgery_ wound up
mis-printed but I can NOT recall if it was Pred, Lasix, or both.
In the later edition of that text Diazoxide is listed (page 443) as
>10-20 mg/kg PO q12h
and Prednisone/prenisolone (page 444) as
>0.5-2.0 mg/kg PO q 12-24h
So, the amounts are substantially higher than what you were
quoted.
(A killiogram is about 2.2 kilograms.)
Typo there. A kilo is about 2.2 pounds.
Also, the range for ferrets is at times exceeded when a ferret's
insulinoma worsens *IF* the ferret tolerates it. (We have actually
had a small female on a dose that added up to 5 mg/day total
when it was either that or a mercy shot. In her case we also
used the trick of adding always having available sugar when
control became a real problem but we are able to monitor. The
combo got her three extra months.)
The thing about the timing is that the action of the preds is about
9 hours from what I've been told, so on an 8 hour schedule there is
that hour of overlap each time but no time with poor coverage. In
what you suggest there would be two hours of overlap twice and one
time with an hour of poor coverage. I don't know how much is in the
body in the last two hours -- if the dose then in the body would get
a tad high. Ask your vet, or if you get the med through a pharmacist
ask that expert on meds.
***** Ah, while the pop server we have for sending mail has been
hung Regina has answered that, so be sure to see her post!*****
We have found that the generic diazoxide works as well as Proglycem.
It does not work for all ferrets, though, and even the generic can get
expensive in larger amounts so use a compounding pharmacy and
have a small amount compounded to have about a 2 week trial.
Compounding pharmacies that help w ferrets can be found in a list in
the FHL Files section.
To learn about compounding pharmacies and what they do:
http://newsblaze.com/story/2007051415130100001.sp/topstory.html
http://www.pcab.org/
http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=A&A=546&S=1
http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body_compounding_pharmacies.html
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/FHL2598
Sukie (not a vet)
Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html
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