Background: My sweet Sonic was my first ferret, and she's about 7 now.
She's blind and arthritc and has insulinoma - the insulinoma is stable for
now, she's had surgery once and is on pred and proglycem.  She gets Bob's
Chicken Gravy three times a day and loves it and has free choice kibble
(a blend) but over the last few weeks has been going off of the dry food.
I've seen her nibble a few pieces in the last week, but just a few, and
then she quits.  She's a bit lethargic and sometimes acts like she has
tummy pain when I pick her up, press on her belly, or bend her in the
middle.
 
A barium series showed an area that *could* be an ulcer - the ultrasound
vet, who was brought in to consult on the rads, called it a filling defect.
She hasn't had black/tarry poop that I've noticed but we're thinking to
treat her for ulcers/helicobacter.  She has a low platelet count (67
thousand) but normal RBC/WBC counts - theory is that the platelets could
be being taken up by clotting activity in an ulcer.  Normal urinalysis.
Bloodwork showed mild dehydration (corrected) and elevated liver enzymes:
 
Alkaline phosphatase 130 (15-45)
ALT 665 (10-280)
Total bilirunin 1.0 (0.0-1.0) (normal)
 
Which brings me to my question.  I've learned from Dr. Williams' posts and
his web pages that ALT and AP are often elevated when ferrets go off their
food, causing them to metabolize stored fat and flooding the liver.  Sonic
has actually *gained* weight recently, about 100-150 grams of it over the
last month.  BUT when she went off dry food, she was pretty much only
eating the gravy, which meant there were daily stretches of 8-10 hours with
no food while I was at work or overnight.  Are those long fasting hours
enough to cause the elevations we're seeing here, even with an overall
trend of weight gain?  If so, is any treatment required besides just fixing
whatever made her go off of dry food in the first place?  Does anything
else occur to anyone?  My vet is fantastic and has already spent a lot of
time researching but I thought maybe someone had been in a similar case.
 
Many thanks for any help,
-Pam S.
[Posted in FML issue 3227]