Chaos, my 3 year old female albino, was diagnosed with stress induced
diabetes last November when her 2 cagemates passed away.  Her BG at the
highest was 680.
 
I emailed Dr. Kemmerer about her since this is so rare.  Out of all the
ferrets Dr. Kemmerer treats in a year (over 1000), she said she only sees
about 5 cases of diabetic ferrets, and that it is difficult, if not
impossible to control.  I was giving Chaos 10 units twice a day of human
based insulin.  We could not get her BG below 450.
 
The most important thing you have to remember is you have to cut all
sugar out of the ferret's diet.  Alot of the ferret food and commercially
available treats have sugar in them, anything that ends in ose is sugar.
There are also certain foods, when broken down in the body produces sugar,
example popcorn.  I fed Chaos totally ferret for seniors, and once in a
while gave her a small piece of cucumber for a treat.
 
Alicia (are you out there?  Thank you, thank you!), from Ferretwise helped
me out by giving me the name and number of a woman she knows whose ferret
is being treated SUCCESSFULLY with a pork based insulin.  I am sure if you
email her, she will get back to you.
 
Anyway, back to Chaos...in December, I was introduced to people who run
the Brevard Ferret Lovers Rescue in Florida, (my life will never be the
same), :)  I adopted a cagemate for Chaos.  My vet now believes that doing
this has caused Chaos' stress induced diabetes to disappear completely!
The vet says she has seen this happen in cats.
 
I now have a houseful of ferrets, Chaos, JD, Kelsey & Ruckus, besides
fostering Rocket (I miss you baby) when we are in Florida for the winter.
 
I hope this helps,
Laurie
[Posted in FML issue 2665]