From:
"kazpat1@juno.com"
Date: 2005-05-04 16:22:51 UTC
Subject: Possibly insulinoma, what to do now?
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-Id: <20050504.092252.26390.83886@webmail23.lax.untd.com>
A similar thing happened to me. I had a ferret that would space out once in awhile, didn't realize it was from low blood sugars. One night he did it for about an 20 minutes and was drooling a little, then snapped out of it and was fine. I posted to this group ( thinking it was behavioral) and someone suggested insulinoma. The very next morning I checked his blood sugar fasting for about 3 or so hours, and it was normal. I figured it was fine. The following week I came in on him having a seizure, I put some karo syrup on his gums and he came out of it right away, I grabbed my glucose monitor and checked his blood sugar- it was 20 ( normal is more than 70).
I called the vet, got him on prednisone and two days later he had surgery- knock on wood, he did very well for 3 years until he had to be back on meds.
Not all will have such a good outcome, but I am a big advocate for early surgery, and for testing during symptoms if possible.
If you bring him to work with you, perhaps you can test during the starring spells. I don't know , but when eating the BARF diet it may take longer than 3 hours of fasting to drop the blood sugar. with kibble it digests fast and the raise in sugar from the carbs in the kibble is gone quicker, so 3- 4hours is enough- I don't know if that is the same with a higher protein load diet. If he is at work, you can monitor him if you fast him a tad longer- which would be safer than at home in case something happens. I would also get a full panel of blood work to check out the kidneys,chemistry, complete blood count and health check.
Good luck,
Patty K
-- fuglemat@online.no wrote: ( edited)
Last saturday, my oldest ferret (male, 5 years old) had a seizure. What do I do now? I work as an assistant at a small vet clinic, and I was planning on bringing him to work and doing a blood glucose test regularly for a while.