To Tara Wheeler
 
>My new ferret, S.F. Mulder is still mellow.  He wears out way before my
>other ferrret, T.S. Teru.  My vet drew a blood sample and sent it up to
>Michigan for testing for insulanoma. Has anyone else had this test?
 
        I guess my question would be:  what test is it?  Is it a test for
insulin? That would be my choice for borderline hypoglycemia, which Mulder's
levels (in the 60s) are.
 
> He sleeps far deeper than Teru and sometimes has to be picked up and
>played with to get him to wake up.
 
        Unfortunately, this still doesn't mean he has insulinoma.
>
>My vet reccomended Nutrical as a way to get his blood sugar up (Mulder quit
>having anything to do with Karo syrup after the first week) and he'll eat
>this as fast as I can get it out of the tube.  Has anybody out there got
>any other high sugar treat ideas?  And if Mulder doesn't have insulnoma,
>won't all this sugar damage his pancreas?
 
        Many vets say that a high sugar diet may result in diabetes due to
chronic exhaustion of the islets of the pancreas, which have to manufacture
the insulin to combat the excess sugar in the diet.  Honestly, I'm not sure
- sounds a bit fishy to me.
>
>If he does have insulanoma, what can I do other than surgery?
 
        The best thing to do would be surgery.  Medical treatment, including
prednisone to raise the blood sugar out of the hypoglycemia range, and
proglycem, is expensive, often ineffective, and only puts off surgery for a
little while.  Non-surgical treatment should be reserved only for ferrets
who are poor surgical risks due to age or other concomitant diseases.
 
Bruce Williams, DVM, DACVP
Dept. of Vet Path, AFIP
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Chief Pathologist, AccuPath
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[Posted in FML issue 1281]