Hi all. I wanted some advice about my ferret Sammy. I noticed around March 1999 that he sometimes had hind leg weakness. I immediately thought insulinoma, but for various reasons we didn't make a positive diagnosis for some time (his blood sugar always read 'low normal', and his x-rays showed calcium between some of his vertebrae making us suspect that spinal impingement might be causing his leg troubles). Anyway, once we were sure it was insulinoma, Sammy went in for surgery on May 20. The vet removed 3 small nodules from his pancreas, but since they were evenly distributed and not concentrated in any particular part of the pancreas, he did not remove any additional portion of the pancreas. Sammy did not show very much improvement after surgery, and on June 28 I started him on prednisone. This immediately caused a great improvement in Sammy's condition. I also started him on Timmy's Tonic, which showed less marked results. However, I found I was having to increase the pred dosage every couple of months or even every few weeks to keep Sammy well. Around October or November I started trying supplemental feedings of a special 'duck soup' mix, since I noticed Sammy didn't eat often enough on his own (sometimes he'd sleep right through the night without eating at all, and he lost about 1/4 pound up to this point). By giving Sammy his special soup 4 times per day I was able to cut his prednisone back to 2.5mg every 36 hours. He's been stable like this for over 3 months, with only occasional attacks of weakness and drooling, and rarely any disorientation or dazed behavior, and these attacks could be cleared up in 10 to 30 minutes by rubbing honey on his gums. He has also gained back the weight he had lost. Since Saturday Sammy seems to have taken a turn for the worse. He has had 4 attacks since then, with drooling and hacking, and him seeming dazed at times, and it has taken about an hour in each case to bring him slowly back to normal with forced honey, and voluntary snacks once he felt well enough. Now, I *did* make a change to Sammy's soup recipe on Saturday; I changed it back yesterday morning in case that was the problem, but Sammy had another attack this morning. The recipe change may be related or may be coincidence. Increasing Sammy's pred dosage or frequency would probably be sufficient for now, but my experience with Sammy is that this won't help for long. The pred will probably lose effect all too quickly and keep having to be increased. Since in my experience this option seems to be least successful in the long run, I prefer to save it as a last resort. Also, Sammy had an attack on Thursday only 12 hours after his pred dosage, and another today only 1 hour after his dosage (though I'm not sure how long pred takes to get into the system; can anyone answer that?). I've read that removal of part of the pancreas often helps ferrets with insulinoma, but this is generally done early in the disease. Is there any chance that a partial pancreatomy would still be helpful for Sammy? He has been through 3 surgeries before (neutering, blockage removal, and the last for insulinoma) and he seems to tolerate surgery very well and recover quickly (the same has been true of all my ferrets in fact). Sammy's tail fur has also been thinning for several months. It's still not *very* thin, but he may have early adrenal disease as well. I don't know if that could weaken him and thus worsen his insulinoma symptoms. Bottom line: should I have a partial pancreatomy done on Sammy, and have the adrenals checked at the same time? Has anyone had success with a partial pancreatomy later in the progress of the disease? Sammy is 5 years old, by the way (turning 6 on May 17). I'd appreciate it if any responses could be sent directly to me (as well as to the List if you like), since I only skim the List these days (I've been a member since near the beginning, but it's gotten too big to read it all any more). I probably will catch any responses sent to the List, but better safe than sorry. Thanks in advance from me and Sammy for any help. -- John Rosloot, Caregiver to Cassidy and Sammy With loving memories of my dear departed Buddy Technical analyst, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Regina Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada http://www.cs.uregina.ca/~john/ferrets [log in to unmask] [Posted in FML issue 2986]