Hello all,

My most excellent vet and I are looking for answers to a very weird
reaction to a Ferretonin implant.

Randy, my 5-6 y/o McKid was a late neuter, obviously. Last year he
began displaying sexually aggressive behavior and we used a Ferretonin
implant with perfect results. This year he began loosing fur, has the
bare bottom and thinning fur on his belly. We did another implant on
Tuesday. The reaction was almost instantaneous. Randy became extremely
hyper, destructive, he was panting but with a closed mouth, he didn't
eat and didn't sleep all Wednesday.

Yesterday I called my vet, we needed to do something, Randy has a heart
murmur and his rapid breathing and subsequent heart rate concerned both
of us. She took an xray and his heart was enlarged as well as the sac
surrounding his heart. His blood glucose was also bottoming out and
this was something completely new. She went onto VIN (Veterinarian
Information Network??) and did some research and either spoke with Dr.
Williams or read one of his papers. In any case, there were no
"documented" cases of hyperactivity being a side effect of Ferretonin
implants, but dropping BG was mentioned. The implant was coming out.

She knocked him out with gas, and took out the new implant as well as
the husk from the original one. Once he completely awoke from the gas
the change was dramatic. He still has, as of this morning, the rapid
breathing, but once the implant was removed, he slept, he ate a little
and he stopped the frantic destructive behavior. His BG at the vets was
40 or 41 and he had not eaten. When I got him home and before I fed him
anything his BG was 44. I'll check it again this afternoon because we
want to see that its recovering.

An aside to this, another male I have, 6 y/o Boomer has always been
in excellent health except for really bad teeth. Never any low BG, no
signs of adrenal disease, nothing wrong with him at all. This past
early spring we implanted him with Ferretonin just as a precaution.
Last week he developed a suddenly large but free floating disc shaped
tumor under his penis. My vet went in and removed it and as is her
standard practice, she tested his BG several times. Now he has BG
issues as well.

What is going on here? Has anyone else had anything like this happen?
I researched as well as I could to see if anyone else had reported the
hyperactivity after implant and found nothing. I have two ferrets that
I have my vet ordering the Superlorin (??) for from Australia, has
anyone reported this type of reaction with that implant??

Leslie

[Posted in FML 7089]