From:
katharine@nettally.com
Date: 2004-11-05 19:27:38 UTC
Subject: Male with Adrenal Induced Anemia
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <8134615.1099682858946.JavaMail.root@thallium.smartgroups.com>
I was wondering if anyone has experienced a male ferret who became anemic as a result of adrenal disease. I understand that it is quite rare in males, but we think that my Manny may be going through this.
I got Manny the end of July. He had been lost for 3 days outside and was turned over to me by his owners after a Good Samaritan found him. (BTW, he is completely blind so it's a major miracle that he even survived) Manny is 5 y.o. He was showing signs of adrenal disease. When we did pre-op bloodwork on 9/21, his PCV 26.1. (He also had low blood glucose and started Pediapred for that) His PCV was re-run on 9/30, and was reviewed by a pathologist. It was at 19.8 and was classified as marked non-regenerative anemia. The pathologist said there was no evidence of regeneration and suggested a bone marrow biopsy.
After reading a bit, I got the idea that it could be adrenal related so my vet consulted with a couple of ferret specialists. One said she had heard of it but had never seen it. The other said she had seen maybe 2 cases in her career. We decided to give him a Lupron injection and see what would happen. We gave him a 1 month, 500mcg and re-tested in 3 weeks (this week). His PCV is now up to 30! (His blood glucose was up to 141 so am taking him off pred) We will re-test in a month or two. So, we are thinking it could be adrenal induced due to the positive response to Lupron.
Does anyone have any information about this? Any ideas or suggestions?
Katharine
End of ferrethealth Digest
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