On Saturday, I had a ferret that I thought was healthy, never showed any
health problems, by Sunday evening, he went completely down hill and had
to be put down because he just plain couldn't breathe.  I noticed in his
mouth, he had some sores.
 
Last night, another thought to be healthy ferret started having
insulinomic seizures.  After giving him some Glutose, feeding him and
giving him pred, his glucose only rose to 56.  He continued to seize.  I
took him to the after hours vet, they xrayed him and found that his
kidney was extremely enlarged, a possible adrenal tumor and definately
insulinoma.  They gave him an iv drip, he seemed fine.  When I got him
home, I fed him again and put him to bed around 3 am.  By 630 am, he
was seizing again.  Oh, I forgot to mention that he had some mouth
sores also.  I fed him, pred him and gave him glutose, but he still was
seizing.  I called the vet and let them know that I was bringing him in
to releive his suffering, got in my car, started it up then he popped his
head up like nothing was wrong.  I shut off the car and decided maybe I
just needed to feed him some more.  We went into the house, I fed him via
dropper, quite a bit actually and he was willingly taking it.  I put him
in his cage, he got into his litter box and tried to go potty and then
just collapsed.  I took him in and had the vet help him to the bridge.
(with confirmation that it was time.)
 
Now, Blade is starting to go hg again.  He is on 1 ml pred twice a day
and gets a special diet of homemade chicken gravy.  His glucose was 46,
I gave him some nutrical and an extra 05 ml of pred (under docs advice)
and we could only get his up to 56.  He also has sores in his mouth.  I
checked some of the other ferrets and am finding that they also have
these sores.
 
The only thing I can think of is that one of the volunteers took the
water bottles home and put city water in them instead of filling them
at the store.  Is this logical??  Of course we are going to make a trip
to the vet as soon as they can see the affected fuzzies.  I just dont
understand why this is going on.
 
Any advice??
 
Lora Blaisdell
Michigan Ferret Rescue inc.
www.miferretrescue.org
[Posted in FML issue 5028]