>As for his itching, in the past, my vet has recommended Children's
>Benedryl for itchy mast cell tumors until we could get them in for their
>surgery, since mast cell tumors produce histamine.  This worked very
>well.  I don't think itchiness from adrenal involves the release of
>histamines, though.  If you would like to try it, he had me give 1.0 ml,
>2-3 times a day."
 
Hi, Julie, and all-I'm behind on FMLs, sorry....
 
My vet recently (i.e. two weeks ago) looked up the usual dosing for
diphenhydramine (the active ingredient in children's Benadryl) for my
Marley, who has a history of having mast cells tumors and very itchy
skin, and the dosage she found in Hillyer and Quesenberry, I believe,
(or perhaps it was the drug formulary), was much lower than the
above-mentioned dosage!  What we got was 1 mg per kilogram of body weight
every 8 to 12 hours; 1 cc is what we give as a preventative dose before
vaccinations...
 
Most children's Benadryl is 12.5mg/5ml (or 2.5mg/ml) and we are giving
0.4cc (or 1 mg) twice a day for Marley, who weighs 1 kilogram.  I'd
doublecheck the dosing with your vet-it just seems like kind of a lot of
Benadryl to me, 1 cc 2 to 3 times a day-that's FAR more than Marley gets.
I could be wrong, but my vet did JUST look this up.
 
You can also give chlorpheniramine for itchy ferrets, also 1mg/kg, but
the children's Benadryl with the diphenhydramine as the antihistamine
was cheap and easy for me!
 
Just thought I'd share,
 
April AC
[Posted in FML issue 4290]