Hello everyone.

I'd like some advice about insulinoma. Years ago one of my ferrets
(Sammy) had a nodulectomy and it didn't really seem to do anything for
him. After that we managed his insulinoma for about a year with diet
and medication before trying another surgery, this time a partial
pancreatectomy. This was much more successful. In fact it brought his
blood glucose completely back to normal and it stayed normal for the
remaining 1.5 years of his life.

I realize the results aren't always so dramatic but it sure gave me a
high opinion of partial pancreatectomy to treat insulinoma. Later we
tried the same surgery for Pandora and Tommy. This time my vet said he
couldn't see any nodules on the pancreas. I thought that was odd, I
could see one ferret presenting the disease in an unusual manner, but
both? Anyway, he removed part of both their pancreas where it seemed
'thicker' (I don't know if he meant the consistency or diameter or
what). But neither of them showed much improvement.

Tommy passed away Sept 30th of congestive heart failure. I had been
able to manage his insulinoma mostly with diet. But Pandora isn't
inclined to accept the food that helped Tommy (canned medi-cal recovery
formula; she doesn't seem to like any similar foods I've tried either).
Her insulinoma is getting worse. We've started her on prednisone,
slowly at first but when that didn't get results we bumped up the
dosage and finally brought her BG up to 80. But less than a week later
she's showing signs again (and her BG was down around 40 when she was
showing these signs before; she's getting a recheck today).

I've read on the FML that some vets have had great success with surgery
for insulinoma, even repeated surgeries when symptoms return. I
wondered why we had such poor results with Tommy and Pandora. Is there
some trick or technique to the surgery that my vet needs to know? I
prefer surgery because it's the only treatment that tries to fix the
problem, not just control it.

Any advice would be appreciated.

--
John Rosloot, Caregiver to Pandora
With loving memories of my Budly-Boy
my precious little Cassie-angel,
my Silly Snuggly Sammy
my Big Buster Boy,
and my beautiful Tommy
http://www2.cs.uregina.ca/~rosloot/ferrets
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[Posted in FML 6166]