From:
"Sukie Crandall"
Date: 2008-01-24 19:39:41 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] Re: Hair loss on tail
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
We have a ferret who gets symptoms that are suggestive of
adrenal disease but in his case the chances of adrenal disease
are very low. You see, when he was young he had bilateral
hydronephrosis (secondary to cystine stones -- he is one of
the individuals who genetically can not deal with high protein
levels beyond 35%) and a bladder diverticulum, resulting in the
inflammation of the kidneys so irritating and inflaming his adrenals
which abut them that his adrenals were removed prophylactically
and biopsied (which confirmed no disease at that time) because
the adrenals simply were so inflamed that they were at risk.
BUT, and here is the first "but", he needed an emergency vascular
clamp during the surgery so there is the offhand chance that a
little adrenal tissue escaped. If so, the amount that generates
essential adrenal products is very low because he DOES need his
daily Fludrocort and Prednisolone to survive and not go Addisonian.
BUT, and here is the second "but", he is a very allergic individual
including to some seasonal pollens and gets what behaves like
human eczema complete with secondary bacterial infection. So,
every time he does that we do the TN Panel test which isn't perfect
but is very useful for confusing ferrets:
http://www.vet.utk.edu/diagnostic/endocrinology/
There was a past post on how to avoid increased middleman cost
when getting the TN Panel done but I am not hitting on the right
term to find it so read the U TN site to find out how DIRECT
mail with the specimens from vets are handled and pass those
on to the vet since it really keeps the price down a lot. compared
to using at least one of the middlemen.
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