From:
"Roary"
Date: 2004-02-10 18:04:03 UTC
Subject: Wondering about melatonin for adrenal disease
To: <ferrethealth@smartgroups.com>
Message-ID: <000f01c3f000$460bf1c0$26a12344@digitalcmp5a4v>
I had read recently that melatonin was thought to be of help to young
ferrets for prevention of adrenal disease. Could someone give me the details
on how that works? Can it only be young ferrets?
I thought that initially it sounded great, but then remembered what my vet
said about melatonin (which I'm giving one of my guys right now to help with
the symptoms of adrenal disease). My vet said that while it would help in
balancing the hormones and help to grow the hair back it wouldn't stop the
tumor from growing. I'm thinking that the hair loss and hormonal symptoms
are indicators of the disease and that masking the symptoms with melatonin
might not be a good thing. What if the adrenal tumor was malignant but
wasn't discovered until late because of the melatonin supplement? Is this
why it should be used on young ferrets (i.e. ferrets who are most likely not
to have any adrenal tumors)?
I'm probably missing something here, as usual, lol. Anyways, any information
on melatonin and adrenal disease would be helpful. I would like to
supplement my guys (who are all older) with melatonin if it would be
helpful. It's working great on Smokey. He's a two year old male who had rat
tail but also lost hair on his lower back. It's all growing back now, but
now how do we tell if he's adrenal? He has an enlarged spleen, but from what
I've been told that's a common thing for ferrets. I'm going to be taking him
to see a very good vet next week and I'm sure he'll have some answers, but I
was looking for other viewpoints on this.
Roary
Albuquerque, NM