From:
sukiec@optonline.net
Date: 2005-01-14 21:01:51 UTC
Subject: RE: Adrenal or Rat Tail?
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <7273469.1105736511600.JavaMail.root@thallium.smartgroups.com>
With fur loss on the tail only along with blackheads most of the ones here have not had adrenal neoplasia and just had acne and usually dry skin for causes other than adrenal. A few (the minority here) have had adrenal neoplasia as the root cause.
So, it can be adrenal, but in our own personal experience it usually isn't. As a result we watch more closely for other possible signs of adrenal growth when it happens.
For fur loss elsewhere on the body the numbers here have been markedly in favor of adrenal neoplasia. One aged badly and lost fur during hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. (That was back when we could afford to do extensive necropsies on our ferrets and our vet used to train other vets to ferrets that way and she did have patholoigy of her adrenals as well as other tissues. Hers was the only unexpained case of trunk fur loss here. We had another who lost fur from long term high-dose steroid use over many years for IBD. Everyone else here who lost fur on trunk, head, or extremities other than the tail had adrenal neoplasia. (Our household lifetime adrenal neoplasia rate is about a third of them, most at older ages and most of ours have had one adrenal kisk up rather than two.
(Oh, speaking of adrenals: I recently had to look over Hilbert's records. We were never clear on the particulars of that part of his patholiogy report because the rest was more important. It turned out that Hilbert's adrenals did not have any signs of neoplasia in pathology. His adrenals' problem was entirely inflammation secondary to his bilateral hydronephrosis (which itself was due to his stones and bladder malformation). In his case, though, whatever had any chance of affecting the situation had to be tended to rapidly, and we don't mind that he is on Fludrocort and Pred rather than having adrenals because the last thing his kidneys would need after barely surviving would be any future prostate troubles.)