From:
Danee
Date: 2005-06-08 21:48:00 UTC
Subject: Re:Epogen Question - Teegre
To: "Ferret Health List" <ferrethealth@smartgroups.com>
Message-ID: <42A76790.3010601@aol.com>
sindahise@yahoo.com wrote on 6/8/2005, 5:22 PM:
> (1)Could the bone marrow have never responded to the Epogen and
> somehow Teegre has managed to "hold out" for this long just because
> she isn't actively destroying blood anymore? She hasn't had a blood
> transfusion now in almost 3-4 weeks.
I have not used Epogen with any of my ferrets, but did use Procrit with
my Hershey with great success. Procrit is another brand name of drug
containing Epoetin alfa.
When we were giving the Procrit I am not sure what the concentration
was, but I know we were giving 0.04 cc. Procrit come in several
dilutions containing between 2000 and 10,000 units per ml of solution.
I do know we were using one of the lower concentration solutions. If it
was the 2,000 unit solution, then we were giving him 80 units. At 3000
units per ml, it would have been 120 units, and at 4000 units it would
have been 160 units. Hershey weighed 3 pounds.
After just 2 injections, given 3 days apart, Hershey's PVC shot from 23
to 54. We cut back to once a week, and eventually once every other
week, and maintained his pvc around 45.
I was told when I urged my vet to try the Procrit that Epoetin alfa
drugs are frequently successful at stimulating red cell production when
the problem is either early kidney failure, or because of something like
chemotherapy, but is usually not useful in treating anemia caused by
over production of estrogen. So, it may be that Epogen will not help in
this case.
>
> (2)Could an adrenal (her right) that was seen by a very good surgeon,
> pronounced perfectly clean 3 weeks ago be suddenly so bad now that it
> would again have shut down her bone marrow? (This is the inference she
> is giving me.)
Often adrenal glands can look OK but still be compromised. Just looking
with the naked eye is not sufficient to know whether or not the gland
has a problem. So, it is possible the gland was not really clean when
the previous surgery was done.
--
Danee
International Ferret Congress Health Issues Coordinator
http://ferretcongress.org
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