We implanted five of my ferrets in early March, and one in mid-April,
and have had a similar experience. All have either had previous
treatment for adrenal (surgery or Lupron) or were obviously adrenal.
My vet took pictures of each one immediately after doing the implants.
Our original shipment was delayed in Customs for a period of time. My
vet spoke to Peptech about the possible deterioration of the product
and they assured him this couldn't happen. They then sent him two
additional implants, which we used on the two "least improved" looking
ferrets again (two implants each).

One ferret has since died. The ones who only had slight physical
symptoms seem to have improved physically; i.e. one who had a bare
tail now has fur, two who were thinning on the rump now are showing
thickening fur. The worst, who is nearly completely naked, has shown
no physical improvement, but has shown increased activity. Another
one with a bald tail has shown no improvement at all.

While physical improvement is the best way to see whether the implants
are working, I'm more concerned about how they feel. If all the fur
fills back in and they don't show increased activity and quality of
life, the implants are not successful, IMO I don't care what they
look like as long as they feel better. However, my vet believes that
physical symptoms should turn around (swollen vulva, fur loss), and
doesn't consider the implants successful if these don't happen. He
doesn't intend to order any more until he can be assured that they
are actually "working".

The only way we know of to confirm whether they are working is to run
the UT adrenal panel on a couple of them. We plan to do this on the two
with the most obvious physical symptoms (the two we implanted a second
time). If they are still showing elevated hormonal levels, we will know
that the implants did not work. And, that will be a huge
disappointment.

Katharine
Florida

[Posted in FML 6779]