From:
<caitlyn@mizuhoradio.com>
Date: 2004-01-18 18:35:24 UTC
Subject: Re: [ferrethealth] RE: possible newly diagnosed insulinoma
To: <ferrethealth@smartgroups.com>
Message-ID: <22312.155.226.255.42.1074450924.squirrel@www.mizuhoradio.com>
Hi, everyone,
I want to summarize our experience with insulinoma and what our vet has
done. We have four ferrets with this disease: Ker Avon, Lady Ayeka, Podo,
and Kodo. The first two are five and a half, the last two are nine. Age at
diagnosis was Ker Avon: three and a half, Lady Ayeka: three and a half,
Podo: seven and a half, Kodo: eight.
Our vet is one who likes to try prednisone (usually pediapred) at first. If
the ferret resonds well to a low dose he doesn't do surgery right away. If
there ferret does not respond well to a low dose or once that dose becomes
ineffective he opts for surgery provided the ferret is a good surgical
candidate. Here is how each case has gone so far:
1. Ker Avon did not seem to respond to the prednisone and actually had a
crash after it was started and increased. We opted for surgery. He's gone
21 months since then with normal blood glucose, no medication, and no
recurrence of symptoms. He has another serious problem now but it is
definitely not related to insulinoma.
2. Lady Ayeka was started at 1ml of pediapred (1mg/ml concentration) and
gradually backed off all the way down to 0.03ml once a day, a truly tiny
does. Less than that and her blood glucose dropped. Now, two years later,
she is up to 0.08ml once per day and is bouncy, playful, and very high
energy. No surgery has been done yet and none is immediately contemplated.
3. Podo required 3.0ml twice a day to get his blood glucose back to normal
and that caused chronic diarrhea. Despite his age we opted for surgery. He
went 10 months with no symptoms and no medication. Since then he's been on
a gradually increasing dosage of pediapred, currently 1.5ml twice a day. He
reamins incredibly active and playful at age nine more than 18 months after
surgery.
4. Kodo still had low blood sugar (46) after dosage was increased to 3.5ml
twice a day. Despite his age and concerns about how well he'd get through
surgery our vet thought it was his best chance even at age eight. He went
only four months until he needed medication again. He's been on a gradually
increasing dosage of pediapred, currently 3.0ml twice a day. He reamins
reasonably active and happy at age nine 17 months after surgery.
As you can see, every case was different and our vet makes a judgement based
on how well the ferret responds to medication and how good a surgical
candidate the ferret is. He really didn't want to do surgery on Podo or
Kodo but decided that we had little choice at the time. In each case the
results have been good when surgery was done, but how good has really
varied. Ayeka is my poster child for a non-surgical approach for some
ferrets.
Under no case were ferrets with insulinoma given anything sugary except to
bring them out of a crash/seizure, and that was only done once each for Kodo
and Avon, both before surgery. We feed a high quality protein (Bob
Church's Chicken Gravy, see: http://www.trifl.org/gravy.html) twice a day
with free access to kibble.
I hope this doesn't muddy the waters any. I just wanted to show a range of
options and what has worked for us.
All the best,
Caity and the amazing eight