I had no idea that so many people had had ferrets with insulinoma who
went into seizures while eating. It makes sense, though. A ferret who
is close to seizing get dizzy and eats to try to correct that. If the
insulinoma (or more aggressive forms of pancreatic illnesses like
carcinoma based in the pancreas or lymphoma based in the pancreas,
either of which sometimes have their first symptom being death from
drastic blood glucose drops) is either so advanced that it is hard to
control, or is poorly controlled then the eating won't be sufficient
at least some of the time to stop a seizure from happening.

And this leads into a possible discussion into who people treat these
illnesses, so that those who have never encountered them yet know how
to tackle them. Others can tell about surgery, meds, medication timing,
change over time during the illness, testing, and more, but I lack
time, so I will mention just some unusual things:
1. If a ferret is one who likes to eat only a few meals a day we have
Diazoxide to be an especially important med to include in the
treatment.
2. When insulinoma is very advanced and the vet can not operate but
meds can not be increased, then providing access to sugar water at all
times can sometimes -- not always -- give some extra safe and quality
time. We have found that is also essential with ones we have had who
instead of insulinoma had carcinoma (the most aggressive when the
pancreas is the location) or lymphoma (also far more aggressive than
insulinoma) in the pancreas.
3. Some ferrets with insulinoma that is not able to be well controlled
are best with frequent soft meals added, like a/d mixed with heated
water.

Anyway, I was shocked by how many people wrote to me about them
personally encountering that seizure while eating scenario, but when a
person thinks about it, how the ferrets WILL try to eat when they get
dizzy but that eating might not be sufficient it makes complete sense
that this would be a rather common situation.

Sukie (not a vet)

Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
http://www.miamiferret.org/
http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html
all ferret topics:
http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/archives/ferret-search.html

"All hail the procrastinators for they shall rule the world tomorrow."
(2010, Steve Crandall)
On change for its own sake: "You can go really fast if you just jump
off the cliff." (2010, Steve Crandall)

[Posted in FML 7146]