Our 3-year-old ferret Pepper developed diabetes about a month ago.  Her
health crashed while my husband and I were out of town on a trip, but
fortunately our wonderful sitter (a former vet tech at our animal
hospital) picked up on the symptoms and brought her in for treatment.
She spent five very scary days at the hospital while they worked on
getting her stabilized.  Since then we've been treating her at home with
a combination of glipizide and insulin injections.  We finally have her
back on solid food and she's starting to gain back some of the weight she
lost.  For the past few days, though, she's had ketones in her urine that
we can't seem to get under control, and she's still not back to her
bouncy, pouncy self.
 
I know that diabetes in ferrets is extremely rare.  Our vet has been
treating ferrets for ten years, and Pepper is the first one he's seen
with diabetes.  So most of what we're doing is guesswork based on
treatments for cats, dogs, and guinea pigs.  I would love to know that
Pepper is not the only one out there.  If anyone else has dealt with a
diabetic ferret, please write to me.  I'm curious what treatment worked
for you in terms of medications, dosages, number of treatments per day,
diet, and so on, and whether your ferret was able to be as physically
active as they were before the diabetes.
 
Ever since Pepper got sick, she loves curling up with our older ferret
Delta who has insulinoma (hypoglycemia).  We're hoping that the two of
them will merge into a pair of perfectly healthy critters! :o)
 
Hugs to all the furkids!
 Julie
[Posted in FML issue 4335]