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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2011 18:30:00 GMT -5
My ferret Wolfie was diagnosed with Insulinoma a few months ago and ever since then I give him Prednisone. I started with three times a day but as I saw him improving within the few months I gave it to him twice a day with about half the dose he was prescribed to (the vet didn't prescribe this, I did it on my own). Until just the other day he had a pretty big seizure, he was drooling/foaming at the mouth, scratching at his mouth, trying to hide, and threw up a couple times. When we tried giving him more medication he would just throw it back up never getting it, and at first the Karo syrup wasn't working either. This went on forever it felt like but realistically about thirty minutes. We tried putting Karo syrup on his gums again and within a few minutes he stopped. Although he stopped he would just lie in my lap doing nothing, I almost thought he passed away a couple times. But he came through and we let him get some sleep. A day later he still seems lethargic and not him self, he seems to be getting worse and it is breaking my heart, I don't know what to do. I don't want him to be suffering, even if he still has the tumors, I just wish he would feel happy.
So, does anyone have any advice, any at all? Do you think surgery would be a good idea? The vet said he could do it but there are always risks in that and the chances of him getting everything out may be small.. I am just heartbroken and feel like I can't do anything to help my little boy.
Thank you for reading this, I appreciate it
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Post by Sherry on May 23, 2011 18:37:39 GMT -5
Surgery does minimal for insulinoma, unfortunately. Talk to the vet, see about getting him on prednisolone, or pediapred. It's much easier on the liver. He'll need to reconfigure his dosage to hopefully keep him from crashing again. Also, when he's had the karo syrup, get a high protein meal into him about 20 minutes later, because they can crash again from the syrup that's needed to bring them out of it. It's also very important to take him into the vet whenever he has a crash, to have his blood levels checked, and possibly readjust his dosage. I'm really surprised the vet cut his medication back down so drastically the first time around! I've always been under the impression that the dosage prescribed is the one they need to stay stable.
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Post by Heather on May 23, 2011 18:46:12 GMT -5
Do not adjust pred from the prescribed amounts on an insulinomic ferret on your own. Pred is not a horrible issue for this disease, it is necessary for his life and his well being. You work very closely with your vet. If you think the pred levels are too high then talk to your vet, do not adjust the pred levels on your own. I cannot reinterate strongly enough pred will do a lot less damage to your ferret than the seizures and the fluctuating blood sugar. He needs the pred to stabalize BG. The symptoms you are seeing is a ferret who's BG is very, low. Surgery is not considered a good option any more. They cannot get all the tumours, many are too small to even be seen. ciao
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Post by miamiferret2 on May 23, 2011 18:58:34 GMT -5
Return to the previous dose. Ask for pediapred if need be. Also speak to your vet about adding proglycem (diazoxide) as this will control bg better when given with pediapred. Do not play around with the dosage without consulting with the vet first. He would most like be against lowering dosage.
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2011 19:28:21 GMT -5
I highly appreciate everyone's advice. I started back on his original dosage today and hoping that by tomorrow he may improve a little bit. I am also going to schedule a check-up with the vet soon, and talk to him more about his medication as well. Thank you for posting on here and dealing with my ridiculous decisions, it has been a very overwhelming experience and I'm going to do my best to educate myself as well as I can in this matter.
Thank you again.
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Post by Heather on May 23, 2011 19:32:45 GMT -5
Having a insulinomic ferret is scary I really wish there was a holistic way to deal with it but there isn't except maybe a better diet. Don't feel overly bad, often learning about these little ones comes through hard knocks. I think you will be surprised as to how much better your little one is once you go back to the original dose. Chin up ciao
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Post by sherik on May 23, 2011 19:40:43 GMT -5
With my experience with Roo(RIP) and Zoey(RIP), I monitored their BG all the time. I started at the higher dose that the vet said. With Zoey once she started eating raw I very slowly lowered her dose of pred, but like I said I always kept track of her BG with a blood glucose monitor that was checked against the vets monitor to see how accurate it was. Maybe you can get the vet to show you how to check his BG?
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Post by miamiferret2 on May 23, 2011 19:45:03 GMT -5
don't feel bad. Your heart is in the right place. I made the same mistake with chronic ulcerative colitis in one of my ferrets. I adjusted the dose of the meds myself (bc I freaked myself out after googling bad side effects of the meds) I ended up taking 3 steps back in my ferrets treatment. You should buy a blood glucose reader for home use. They sell them at walgreens and cvs. That way you can test his bg at home yourself. Take it with you to the vet and test it with same blood that your vet tests bg with. This way you can add or subtract the difference to your home readings so they are as accurate as possible. I had difficulty managing bg with pediapred alone. Not all ferrets respond well to it and as the disease progresses the bg becomes harder to manage. Proglycem worked AWESOME in conjunction with pediapred.
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2011 20:07:34 GMT -5
There is actually a sale at walgreens this week (until Saturday) for a true2go glucose monitor. It's 9.99, bit there's a mail in rebate to get your money back (probably 4-6 weeks). Just in case you need one
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2011 21:34:41 GMT -5
Thank you guys, I really needed this today, I've been depressed and crying to a point which makes me want to fall asleep wherever I am. I'll make sure to get a glucose monitor and ask the vet how to use it, I know this will help! You guys are awesome, you should take pride in all the knowledge you have in these little fuzzes!
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2011 8:44:17 GMT -5
Thank you guys, I really needed this today, I've been depressed and crying to a point which makes me want to fall asleep wherever I am. I'll make sure to get a glucose monitor and ask the vet how to use it, I know this will help! You guys are awesome, you should take pride in all the knowledge you have in these little fuzzes! having had many ferrets i the past - we find insulinoma is medically controlled by pred doses given at the correct timimg daily. We have a girl now that is on Pred x2 and diazoxide x2 and she still crashes in the evenings. we do not do surgery for insulinoma due to fast reoccurrance . So we have now added Equate diet supplement (vanilla) to her soup feedings. Just 1/ teaspoon full for now and she has not crashed for 3 days now. it gives her the extra protien she needs to get thru to the next feeding. she is fed soup every 3 hours & this works for her. it only tskes a couple minutes and she has a good life. Seizures harm the brain so we will do this treatment ro avoid them. also - if you have a walmart? order at pharmacy- glutose 45 in the tube. It is the fastest acting product to bring blood sugars back up. we keep a tube on hand at all times. not sticky and handy. also we use " Therasense" Freestyle lite" glucose meter for testing- takes smallest amount of blood & no coding. only @ 18.00 @ walmart & the strips are cheap on Ebay - just watch the dates.
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2011 10:26:29 GMT -5
Thank you Mommaferret, this helped a lot! I appreciate it.
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2011 12:17:27 GMT -5
I had another question that I should've asked days ago. Why do you take the ferrets BG at home? I was just curious, is it mainly to just monitor it or is there another reason?
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2011 13:21:03 GMT -5
Mostly just to monitor it (correct me if I'm wrong). Going to the vet EVERY time you want to take a BG would get annoying (and expensive).
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Post by miamiferret2 on May 25, 2011 13:50:59 GMT -5
always good to have a bg meter handy at home. insulinoma tumors are NOT the ONLY cause of low bg. other illnesses can cause low blood glucose in ferrets (although insulinoma is the most common cause of low blood glucose). a low bg is very dangerous regardless of what is causing it. not all ferrets have seizures with low bg. some lay their flat and stare into space and are motionless. they are not screaming or convulsing but they usually are having a silent seizure. with my Lemmy, he had insulinoma and it was very hard to control with pediapred. it just didn't work well for him. his bg was so up and down that i would take it often. when i added the diazoxide i didn't have to take his bg as often. i would take his bg once per week. but, if he was acting sluggish, "off" etc. then i would take his bg. while he was on pediapred (.5 dose twice per day which is pretty high) he would still have days where he'd lay there like a slug. i'd test his bg and sure enough it was in the 40's. when i added the diazoxide his bg was in the 90's again and it maintained steady i didn't have so many ups and downs with his bg as i did with pediapred alone. I'm in the united states so if you are in canada or somewhere else the readings for bg might be different.
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