From:
Sukie Crandall
Date: 2011-09-11 18:14:43 UTC
Subject: Re: [ferrethealth] HELP! Furosemide dosing for early cardiomyopthy?
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
Maybe this can help posters understand why concentration matters. You will see that marked on the container in units of
mg/ml which means milligrams per milliliter
or if it is not marked then the hospital can pull the chart and look up the numbers for you.
Due to lack of time I am revising some of my own old posts to help you. You can always search the separate FHL Archives for more info. There are links to it in the introduction to the FHL on the homepage, and in the critical addresses near the bottom of the homepage.
Think of it like chicken soups. You can make one with a high concentration of chicken which is like a thick puree, but you can also make a thin broth which has a low concentration of chicken. If the individual needed a lot of chick then the broth just would not work. On the other hand, the same amount (volume) of concentrated chicken puree might be too much chicken for one who needed a smaller dose.
Here is some information for several concentrations found for Prednisolone in recent years, if memory serves (some for Pediapred and some for generics, and there are even more when the med is compounded because then the possible range is larger).
1mg/ml
2/mg/ml
5mg/ml
7mg/ml
As you see, the last has 7 times more medicine than the first for the same volume.
The third has 5 times as much medication as the first in the same volume.
The second has 2 times as much medication as the first in the same volume.
One of the people interested in the Prednisolone dosing conversation is giving the 2mg/ml concentration. Here is how some common amounts quoted work out in relation to that concentration.
I hate putting these things down in actual arithmetic form because the font can change spacing, so my apologies to the moderator if this winds up being a mess. I did it because if it does not wind up a mess then it might help people visualize why concentration is essential information to take into account.
ml mg
__ X ___
ml
winds up with the ml designation crossed out because the designation is on top and bottom so it leaves you with the mg amount which is exactly what you need to know how much medication is given since mg is the WEIGHT of medicine itself.
0.20 ml x 2 mg/ml means that each dose gives 0.4 mg of med at that concentration
0.2 is the dose volume
2 mg/ml is the medication's strength, its concentration, which in this example has 2 mg in every ml
0.2 2 0.4
___ X ___ = ___
1 1 1
while
0.25 ml (volume) x 2 mg/ml (concentration) means that each dose gives 0.5 mg of the med (half an mg)
0.25 2 0.5
____ X __ = ____
1 1 1
0.5 ml (dose volume) x 2 mg/ml (concentration) means that each dose gives 1 full milligram of the med
0.5 2 1.0
___ X __ = ___
1 1 1
So, a ferret who is getting 0.25 ml of the 2 mg/ml prednisolone TWICE a day will be getting one milligram of prednisolone EACH DAY. One getting 0.2 mls of 2mg/ml
If the ferret were on the 1 mg/ml concentration the ferret would be getting only half that much medication even though the ml levels would be the same because there is only half as much med in mg per ml.
You can see how the amounts of actual medication itself increase for the same volume if the medication is more concentrated in the fluid (a higher mg level for each ml).
Now you know why just giving the volume (ml or cc which means cubic centimeter) is not sufficient UNLESS a medication comes in only one concentration and has not been compounded to a special concentration, either.
The ferret's body weight also matters for dosing many meds, which is why the vet texts tell how much in milligrams to give for each kilogram of the ferret's weight.
When we have had ferrets on Furosemide we were always extra careful that the ferret got plenty to drink.
BTW, in the Files section of the FHL website you will find a listing of compounding pharmacies recommended by FHL members. Many ship, but lots of people find there are good ones rather locally.
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/
http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html
all ferret topics:
http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/archives/ferret-search.html
"All hail the procrastinators for they shall rule the world tomorrow."
(2010, Steve Crandall)
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