Dr. Williams, *thanks* so much for your continued help with my Sonic's
case.  Can't tell you how much I appreciate it, especially over the
holidays.  I'm now wondering about the pred dose she was getting - this
is academic at this point since she's off the pred now, but out of
curiosity...
 
>Not to mention the high dose of prednisone that she was on.
 
She was on 1 mg/kg BID when she became diabetic.  I didn't think that was
an especially high dose, but perhaps it is?  Later in this message you
mention that oral pred given at a correct dose is not dangerous (and your
point about injectables being dangerous because of the long action and the
way you can't get it back out is *very* well-taken!).  Most sources I look
at give pred doses for insulinoma from 0.5 - 2 mg/kg once or twice a day.
With Sonic, we started at 0.5 mg/kg SID and worked up, with careful
monitoring throughout, and she had been stable on her final doses for a
couple of months before the diabetes happened.  I guess I'm curious about
what dose of pred in ferrets is considered a high dose.
 
It seems Sonic has had a fairly unusual progression of events here, but I
gotta share my regret that I didn't go for a second insulinoma surgery for
her.  With her age, arthritis, blindness, history of ulcers, and the way
she gets unusually stressed out by car rides and trips to the vet (that
started happening when she went blind, she goes absolutely nuts in the
carrier), I really thought I was doing the right thing by going for meds
after the insulinoma came back after the first surgery.  But in retrospect,
surgery probably would have been FAR easier on her than this has been,
with the diabetes and everything that has come in its wake. :-(
 
She has a small bright red scratch on the roof of her mouth, right behind
her little tiny front teeth.  I haven't seen her clawing at her mouth (ala
nausea/ulcers), but I don't think I did it with a medicine syringe, so I
guess she has been clawing at it afterall and scratched it at some point.
sigh.  I'll try squirting the spot with the carafate solution when I give
that to her, in case that will help cover it over and let it heal faster.
Other ideas welcome.
 
She's still totally fighting her food and not drinking.  Sure do hope she
comes around soon, I *hate* forcing her to eat and giving her SQ fluids...
I'm going to ask my vet about repeating the urinalysis tomorrow, to see if
we're on the right track or if perhaps the bacteria/yeast are resistant to
our meds.
 
-Pam S.
[Posted in FML issue 3279]