I have a 6 year old big,heavy albino named Bear who has had insolinoma
for 3 years!  He had 3 surgeries 3 years ago, 2 for huge hairballs and
one adrenal gland plus removal of tumors on his pancreas.  He was
diagnosed with insolinoma 3 years ago.  I have been making my own home
made "chicken soup" or so called chicken gravy for him and the rest of my
ferrets and swear this has kept him alive and kicking for this long!  He
was not on meds until the beginning of this year when he crashed and had
a seizure because I was too lazy to make the chicken soup and he went
without it for a day or two!  Off to the vets he went and he's been on
prednisone, proglycem, after blood tests.  The proglycem even at a strong
dose, did not do much for him.  He previously had problems being on pred,
so we had to go to proglycem.  He is now on pred 1/4 tablet 3 x daily
mixed with 3/4 ml water and 1/4ml ferretone, plus his other meds.( if you
add ferretone to the meds, they will usually be more than happy to take
it)  He is not a good surgical candidate, he is overweight, has a light
heart problem and I will NOT risk his life when he is doing great the way
he is.  He does have hind leg weakness, but that is compounded because he
is heavy.We are stuck in a catch 22.  He eats a lot, which is good but
not good for his weight, nor hind legs.  I think, just MY OPINION, that
medical managment is just fine, especially if he/she is not a good
surgical candidate!  Why risk their life?  I find feeding them a high
protein diet like Bob Church's chicken gravy or your own recipe on that
idea along with their usual kibble left in the cage and meds works fine
for my boy so far.  His BG was only 54 before we added the 3rd pred dose,
but it's been low for a long, long time and he's been fine for a long
time, so far.  He will be getting his blood count done again in 14 days.
 
Good luck and I hope you keep him.  I'm not constantly looking over Bear.
Eleanor
[Posted in FML issue 3905]