From:
"CaitlynM"
Date: 2012-02-09 02:34:49 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] Re: Vanadyl Sulfate for Insulinoma
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
[Resend to clean up the weird characters to make it more readable, remove the long quote per FHL rules, and remove the personal attacks and coarse language. Moderators retain the right to edit any and all FHL messages. The message where you objected to the moderation to was discussed as a group by the moderators and owners of the FHL. Many of us were uncomfortable allowing it at all considering the lack of veterinary involvement of supervision for reasons you cite yourself.
The previous version has been deleted. It appears to have been posted due to a Yahoo! Groups glitch. We normally don't allow anything that isn't strictly "G rated" to the group without editing. Apologies to anyone who was offended. --Moderator (CMM)]
Holly, unless you are testing your ferret's glucose regularly you have no idea if this wacky treatment is doing anything either harmful or helpful. You cannot use how the ferret is acting to gauge how affected he is by insulinoma.
You need to keep in mind that insulinoma is not a steady thing; rather the glucose levels will go up and down regularly and routinely due to the illness itself. Further, a ferret's metabolism is so damn quick that a critter can eat a meal and bring his glucose up to normal and then fall over in a seizure an hour later! I've tested ferrets who were in the middle of a play session who came in reading in the 50's; a reading so low that you and I would be laying out
on the couch if we had our glucose that low (getting close to seizure territory there). I've also seen ferrets be perfectly fine and bouncing around one minute, only to stop, fall over and not be able to get up after only a few moments.
Insulinoma means there are tumors (likely more than one always) that produce insulin whenever they feel like it How much? Depends. How much trouble will that cause? Depends. How often? Depends. And each "depends" can change quite literally minute to minute. I had an extreme case where critter would start walking across the room, fall over in a seizure, have that for a minute, then resume his walk across the room. I do think, based on years and years of dealing with hundreds of critters who have had insulinoma, that you are really going out on a limb to try this unproven treatment. Without very regimented st dies that involve lots and lots and lots and lots of testing, I would never put any store in any treatment but the one we use: prednisolone plus diet management (high protein, but most importantly regularly scheduled meals in addition to whatever the ferret will eat on his/her own). I have consistently found over the years that insulinoma is an up and down disease that demands owners
help the ferret have a meal every four hours or more often, in addition to having the proper dose of pred every 12 hours.
If your ferret doesn't respond to the pred/managed diet plan, I would suspect something else is going on. It never fails: if I have a ferret fail to respond to our standard insulinoma treatment, at some point quick we're going to find something else going on - either while the ferret was alive or at necropsy.
[Not necessarily. I had one ferret who was completely non-responsive to prednisolone. Alternate medications can be used in such cases. Never say "never." --Moderator (CMM)]
Nanci
Motor City Ferrets
www.motorcityferrets.org
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