From:
"Sukie Crandall"
Date: 2009-01-02 17:00:09 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] Re: Is this an allergie? I need advice!
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
Steve and I have two ferrets who tend to show
adrenal symptoms for NON-adrenal reasons.
You may want to do what we just did (again)
for those two and have a TN Panel done to be
safest.
Actually, one of the times one of these two
ferrets did have an adrenal problem. The other
never has, but has had plenty of TN Panels
done.
For the TN Panel have the vet send it DIRECTLY
to the university lab because some places
will double the cost just to advance it along.
Here is the info:
http://www.vet.utk.edu/diagnostic/endocrinology/index.php
Adrenal Panel Ferret Serum Adrenal Function $65.00
http://www.vet.utk.edu/diagnostic/endocrinology/pdf/endo_tests_info_07.pdf
After the TN Panel both also had melatonin implants
and Lupron Depot because they won't hurt and if
there is an adrenal problem for either or both then
they will help while we await results that are delayed
by the holiday test checking schedule.
Telling you a bit about our two may help you. The
first is a female who did have adrenal neoplasia on
the left. She is a poor surgical candidate because
she has had her skin give out next to stitches before.
In her case she has two things going on. The first
is that we have another female who is a dirty
fighter when she wants her way. Whizbang's vulva
never went down completely flat after her left
adrenal inflamed it. It went down most of the way
but its not unusual for the vulva to remain a tad
more obvious afterward (and I suspect that is also
going to be the case after pregnancy with ferrets
because it is the case for many species on that
score). Anyway, now and then (less often now than
before) Telemna will assert herself by biting Whiz
there, and all too often it becomes infected. In
fact, it is infected again now and the script for
antibiotics has been called in. Sometimes the
bite marks are obvious, but other times they can
not be clearly seen until the vulva is very swollen.
Whizbang is 5 years old.
In addition, when it has been swollen in the past
she has had some nodes inflame, including a string
of them that are near her right adrenal.
You can see why we have to test in her case to be
sure what is going on.
So, make sure none of the other ferrets are biting
your ferret's vulva!
Our other ferret who just had the TN panel is a male
who has allergies. In his case he loses fur. If his
allergies get too bad he gets secondary skin infections
and then his skin gets red and infected. We do skin
scrapings then, and once when it was really extreme
a skin biopsy was done because it looked so much like
cutaneous lymphoma. Cutaneous lymphoma is treatable
but a person wants to get the diagnosis as fast as
possible so that too much time to treat well does not
elapse.
So, check for infection is there is an allergy.
In Hilbert's case we actually know what his worst
allergen is and now can treat prophylactically when
that plant is blooming, but he seems to have some
lesser allergies we have not been able to pin down.
(Thank goodness at least for the daily broken down
allergen levels from an area hospital that we monitor
for Hilbert. Many locations have such readings. I
think I signed up through
http://www.pollen.com/
but check in other pollen sites if that does not have
an alert sign-up for your area. We had to monitor
for several years before we realized that the worst
of Hilly's problems would happen whenever the
swamp plantain weed pollen went over a certain
level. We live next to a small wet lands reserve.
and are not terribly far from very large county and
federal wetlands preserves, all of which are teeming
with wildlife, both plant and animal.
In Hilbert's case he is prone to cystine uroliths
(one of two ferrets for whom we have to restrict
protein intake to prevent that life-threatening
problem, but that approach has been successful
for maybe 5 years now). Hilbert (6 years) had bladder
diverticulum also (a defect when a fetal feature did not
go away completely). He wound up with extreme
hydronephrosis. When his bladder had been fixed
the vet decided to remove Hilbert's adrenals
prophylactically because the rubbing by his swollen
kidneys had inflamed both adrenals. The left came
out cleanly, but Hilbert needed a vascular clamp
on the right which wound up over a bit of that
adrenal. He historically goes Addisonian so he
gets Fludrocort and Prednisolone daily but there
always is the chance that if the tissue did not die
off completely that one of these times he might
be having over-production of the hormones despite
the need for replacing the steroids. So, he gets
tested whenever symptoms happen because that
keeps him safe.
The lesson for you from Hilbert's situation is to
make sure that if the cause is allergy then there is
not a secondary skin infection.
Some ferrets just are not clear-cut cases of adrenal
disease, but even those CAN get adrenal disease, so
for them the TN Panel is a wonderful, wonderful
tool!
Sukie (not a vet)
Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html
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