Hi all.

I have seen this 5 times in almost 20 years. Two were presumed insect
bites, spiders believed to be the culprit, due to the proximity of
the ferrets to areas where spiders had been readily seen (not our
household). One was cutaneous lymphoma. The other two were in the last
year and a half, and we noted only a slight swelling of muzzles of two
females, at different times, who'd previously been insulinomic ferrets
on pred, who suddenly became diabetic without a change in a long
standing dose. The first one we were able to wait out and her blood
sugar values eventually returned to normal, then back to insulinomic.
The second's blood sugar values were so high she spent some time, weeks
not months, on insulin. She also eventually returned to normal, then
back to insulinoma.

In all five ferrets, when the medical issue, spider bite and diabetes
resolved, so did the swelling. The lymphoma child would go into
remissions and the swelling would go away and come back respectively.

Now when I see odd facial swelling and have no obvious reasons to
suspect bugs, first thing we do is blood glucose test.

Weird I know, but I hope it helps someone.

Brenda, Momma to the FurpeopleWeyr
FurpeopleWeyr.com

[Posted in FML 7840]