From:
"Jeff"
Date: 2008-04-22 15:46:02 UTC
Subject: Re: [ferrethealth] proper food for insulinoma with kidney problem
To: <ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com>
Here are some links that you really should read thoroughly to get a better understanding of insulinoma and how to manage it. It is a progressive disease that will only get worse but that can be helped by a good diet, meds, and often by surgery.
It's important that your ferret be able to eat often, at least every 4 hours, and more easily digestible food should be the main part of his diet. Hills a/d, Gerber 2nd stage chicken or turkey baby food, Uncle Jim's Duk Soup mix, etc.
Also, you might want to discuss with your vet using Prednisolone instead of the Azium. I believe it's usually more effective, and it's a lot cheaper.
Your best place to start for info is this article by Dr. Bruce Williams:
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/PDF/insulinoma.pdf
And then here, from Mike Janke's site:
http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/treatment.htm
And here is a quote from a study by Dr. Williams that concludes that the most effective treatment for insulinoma is surgery to get rid of visible nodules AND part of the pancreas, if your ferret is a good candidate for surgery:
BEGIN QUOTE
J Am Anim Hosp Assoc. 1998 Nov-Dec;34(6):471-5. Links
Insulinoma in the ferret: clinical findings and treatment
comparison of 66 cases.
Weiss CA,
Williams BH,
Scott MV.
Potomac Animal Hospital, Maryland 20854, USA.
The clinical signs and surgical findings were reported for 66
ferrets with insulinomas confirmed histologically. All of the
ferrets were treated with one of three modalities, and
disease-free intervals and survival times were gathered to
determine the most effective treatment. The three treatment
groups included 10 ferrets treated medically, 27 ferrets treated
with pancreatic nodulectomy, and 29 ferrets treated with
pancreatic nodulectomy combined with a partial pancreatectomy.
The mean disease-free intervals for each group were 22, 234,
and 365 days, respectively. The mean survival times for each
group were 186, 456, and 668 days, respectively. Based upon
the data, recommendations were made for treating insulinoma
in the ferret.
PMID: 9826281 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
END QUOTE
There is also much other info online, but these were, in my opinion, the best places to start.
Jeff
In Memory of Neo
Caring for Trinny, Morphy, Baby Girl, and Luna
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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