Thanks to everyone who responded. I am going to reply in a single post
if I can:

Jeff wrote:
>A BG reading of 40 is serious stuff, but there are things besides
>insulinoma which can cause this, like carcinomas, pancreatitis, or
>lymphoma, any of which might escalate rapidly and make the ferret
>basically unresponsive to prednisolone in final stages. The other
>thing is that, in your post, you don't say whether you used prednisone
>or prednisolone. If you used prednisone, then it must be metabolized
>into prednisolone by the liver, and a compromised liver might be
>unable to do so, making the prednisone more or less useless.

Thank you - I agree - that is what we were thinking when we brought
her in. It is so hard because the vet was so "sure"....I said let's do
blood tests, she basically said, let's do one thing at a time. She came
back and said she has insulinoma, give her prednisilone, fluids, and
we'll give her a dextrose shot...

We only use prednisilone for the same reason you mentioned.

Sukie wrote:
>There does not seem to be any reason to kick yourself about the
>implant, but in the future never give a medication without the vet
>first okaying it. If the ferret had diabetes that could have been a
>fatal move. Best to avoid that error in the future.
 And
>Are you sure the feeding tube was properly placed? That is not a
>typical thing to do with a ferret, BTW

Thank you - do you know if 0.2ml of Prednisilone 15mg/5ml will kill
a ferret that is diabetic? I never really considered that - often if
a ferret is showing symptoms of low blood sugar I think of giving
Prednisilone. This may not be a question you can answer because of
course every case is different. Our vet has said to just try to give
pred to ferrets that seem like they have low blood sugar to see if
there are issues. We were told this after we brought in Blinky after
her adrenal surgery, a month later she was not eating, drinking, was
very dehydrated suddenly, and so when we brought her in the same vet
looked at us like, why didn't you give Pred? So since then we thought
it was safe to do - but I will not anymore.

We've had to use a tube a few times in ferrets with insulinoma (our
little girl Lucy had to have it done every few months when she crashed
hard and did not respond to sugars on the gums, for example). It is a
last ditch effort. We use red/orange catheters. I believe it was
properly placed - it went down with no issues, coughing, struggling or
gagging, the ferret continued breathing without a problem or change and
went the proper distance to reach the stomach for her size. She did not
want to swallow any food or meds. We only do it if there is no other
option. With the amount of food and meds we gave her she would have
immediately starting having respiratory distress if I had misplaced
the tube for sure, but I could be wrong. After we did that, and gave
her fluids again, she perked up, but it was very short lived.

And Blinky's tail: it had a purple spot where it was broken the last
few days, and then last night it turned purple below the broken spot,
but not swollen. The vet looked at it and said that we should wait
until her tail "dries up" (ew), if it even does, and he said that the
purple is from dried blood. He did not handle her or test that she had
feeling in her tail - I know she can feel her tail, and toes, because
she pulls them away from me when I touch them. Whether that means she
can actually feel pain in them, well, I am sure her feet can, but not
sure about her tail and I don't want to hurt her - but he says that it
looks like the tail is not bothering her due to the break. It is very
hard to wash her and not imagine it being painful. But I suppose if it
really hurt her a lot, she would be trying to bite me any time I went
near it, or touched her tail at all. She can still move the entire
tail. So, Blinky still has her tail, albeit a crazy purple color.

[Posted in FML 7040]