If the seizures are of sudden onset then surgery is usually the best
approach for insulinoma (if that is what you are seeing, and it is the
most common cause of seizures in ferrets by a very wide margin). If she
is a hard to control individual then look into at-home blood testing.
Pam Sessoms has a marvelous write-up on this:
http://www.unc.edu/~pjdutche/bloodsugar/.
What are her blood glucose tests looking like? Has the vet considered
using Diazoxide/Proglycem as well as Prednisone if she has insulinoma?
If her case is advanced insulinoma then also adding sugar to her diet
makes sense because in advanced cases the normal pancreatic tissue will
be replaced or atrophied from the presence of insulinoma, and the
insulinomae are not responsive to blood-glucose-level. Make sure that
she ALWAYS has high-protein food handy -- 24 hours a day -- when glucose
fluctuations are present (insulinoma or diabetes) till told otherwise by
your vet. (Take into account that there could be other causes. If there
is diabetes instead don't try the meds mentioned or the sugar; in that
case write to me privately because I am beginning to put together a
compilation of diabetes info for ferrets and can send you the rough
grouping.
Remember the great eyeglass search? Remember how worried I was because I
am legally blind without glasses, the missing pair was my spare pair with
my earlier prescription and cost a small fortune ($800), and my working
pair had the frames break which luckily wound up being able to be solved
with an on-sale pair of frames that was just slightly smaller, requiring
a touch of grinding? Remember how I almost fell because some teens who
were resting put a skate board on the sidewalk near the optometrist's?
Well, guess what showed up out of the blue yesterday where I could find
them? The case they are in is somewhat punctured but the glasses are
fine.
This isn't the longest that something has gone missing. We had an
envelope with some treasured photos folks wanted to see go missing for
years. Then one day it was just there -- right out in the middle of a
room's floor. We got to enter some of those photos into the computer
(Remember the one of me with Maddy, the grinning 50# chimp, bouncing on
my back, Bill? That was in there.) [Yup. BIG] Then we packaged them up
to show to someone who had long wanted to see them... and guess what?
Yep. the package is gone again. We know it's Ashling; we know she is
the only one who can climb to these places, and we know that if she has
something then that item is safe enough. She will treasure them and let
others know they are her's. Because she is the Alpha they won't chew up
what she treasures. Now, if only we knew more of her hiding places. She
uses the tops of closets, behind bookcases, and more common paces, but
she's got locations I expect we have not yet found. To Ashling a place
she has not been is merely a puzzle to be solved. Our cat burglar is a
ferret.
Someone asked for an update: Yes, Sevie who has a complete A/V Heart Node
Block is still alive and still bouncing. Her meds have so far given
her about 3 and 1/2 months and she is happy as are we. Her insulinoma
returned so she is on Aminophylline, Enacard, Prednisone, and Proglycem.
Normally, we would not give Pred with a heart problem but her situation
doesn't fit under "normally"... She is not a pacemaker candidate, though
if she were younger, and without added health problems that are serious
(for example, some of her insulinomae are in an inoperable location, and
she has an adrenal neoplasum actually in her Vena Cava but lacks
collateral circulation) then a new and much smaller form of pacemaker
could have been tried. No one who is directly connected to her thinks
that she would make it through surgery and recovery with her particulars.
She has no pain, has as many of her meds as possible in fishy or oily
media (both of which she loves), plays, bounces, stashes tiny toys, and
is happy. We should all be so lucky during our own final illnesses.
[Posted in FML issue 3929]
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