From:
"Sheryl81"
Date: 2009-02-05 05:50:39 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] Re: Lupron dosage, sources and storage
To: <ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com>
[Info Cheryl asked me to add to avoid confusion:
Bought 3.75 mg of Lupron, not mixed
Will mix and split into probably, 200 mcg in 50 unit syringes
We should have enough Lupron so that each of the four ferrets, can have a monthly injection, for at least 5-6 months.
-- Moderator]
Well I am about to have my own experiences with acquiring Lupron, dosing it
out and storing it. My vet charges over $250 for a 4 month depot of Lupron,
and with 4 ferrets with adrenal, that would come to a bit over $1000 every
four months. It would bankrupt me frankly, with all the other vet bills for
things that go wrong with them in old age (they are all hitting 7 this
Spring). I have done a lot of research on this and my vet and I have
decided to do an experiment. We took one of my adrenal ferrets and did a
Tennessee Panel on him. He then gave me a prescription and I ordered 3.75
mg from a pharmacy in Canada (coincidently, apparently a lot of other vets
use this place for ferrets because they knew exactly what I planned on doing
with it and even gave me tips!). I am still waiting for it to come in, it
was shipped today. It cost me a little under $400, and my vet and I
estimate it will last us about 6-7 months. When it gets here, we are going
to do the mixing ourselves (actually he is going to do it while I watch) and
separate it out into smaller doses, and use dry ice to freeze it, then I'll
bring them home packed in dry ice and put them in my freezer. While I am
there, he is going to show me how to do sub-cutaneous injections on the
ferrets so I can do the injections at home every month, saving an office and
injection fee x 4. It is recommended to give the injections intra-muscular
but he does not want me to do that by myself, as he said this can cause
permanent nerve damage if done incorrectly. I'm not ready for that yet! In
about 4 months we are going to do another Tennessee Panel on the same ferret
to make sure it is, in fact, working. He said if this works he will start
using it on the rest of his ferret patients. As it stands now, $250 dollars
a Lupron dose, even every 4 months, is a considerable cost and I can only
imagine how many ferrets, whose owners are maybe a bit more casual, don't
get treated due to the high cost factor. He also routinely uses the Lupron
from Professional Arts Pharmacy, but again we are going to try this out in
hopes it will work.
So I definitely have been following this discussion with much interest and I
wanted to point out that there are alternatives to Professional Arts
Pharmacy, and the 'human'-sized doses aren't always incredibly costly.
Thanks!
Cheryl
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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