I have written before about my 6 year old male ferret Tibbie.  He has
end stage insulinoma and has been weaned of prednisolone since it wasn't
working anymore.  We have been giving him lasix shots every other day
and .5ml of furosemide 3x a day.  He's doing great, getting around better
since the pred is out of his system and back to his old self just a
little slower.  The pred also cause ulcers in both of his eyes, which are
healing very well.
 
Anyway to control his blood sugars he gets a little bit of duck soup with
1/2 tsp. karo syrup every two hours, sometimes he goes a little longer.
The diazoxide works well to block the insulin, so his blood sugar stays
up for longer.  Unfortunately it only works for about 7 or 8 hours, then
it's hard to keep his blood sugar up.  He is right now taking .45ml,
strength 25mg/.02ml suspension.  That's almost max in that strength, vet
said max was .5ml.  At a higher dose it upsets his ulcer, which we just
got under control with carafate 3x a day, now we're down to 2x a day.  He
had a seizure Friday around 7am and he had a small seizure this morning
around 10am (he hadn't eaten since 8:00).  Luckily I found him before the
seizure and gave him some karo, then he started to seize, but it only
lasted about a minute before the sugar kicked in.
 
We suspect he has heart problems, hence the fluid, possibly caused by the
diazoxide or his insulinoma.
 
My question is if I gave him .45 diazoxide 3x a day instead of 2 could
it do major damage to him?  I can't give him a lower dose I tried that,
it didn't work.  As far as long term damage at this point we're only
concerned with the present with him.  He's getting stronger, eating on
his own like a little pig again, and feeling so good.  If we can just
keep him from having the low low blood sugars, he'd be all set.
[Posted in FML issue 4719]