Welcome back Dodie! I'm not real sure if the numbers of adreanal cases have gone up in the past few years, or if we've just learned to spot the symptoms better but... We don't waste time & money on testing for adrenal diesease anymore. We do an ultrasound to check for anything that might cause surgery complications (like enlarged spleen, heart problems, etc) and to hopefully get an idea of the size of the adreanals. Sometimes the adrenals show up, sometimes they don't, sometimes the image is misleading as to size. We have several great vets, all have about the same luck with ultrasounds. (In other words, don't use ultrasound to diagnose adrenal diesease.) We diagnose adrenal diesease solely on the clinical symptoms: loss of hair on back of neck, and/or tail, and/or tops of toes, and/or backs of ears OR fur that's become coarse, OR excessive itchyness, OR change to agressive behaviour. DON'T wait to see if hair that fell out & regrew is going to fall out again... you're very likely going to be 6 months too late! The reason we do this is actually two-fold. First, there have been a couple of times that we diagnosed the diesease and said "There's no big hurry, we can wait a few weeks for the expense to fit into the budget a little better." Then, 6 weeks later, the "small" tumor on the ultrasound, is now large and attached to the vena cava, or has caused prostrate or urinary problems. Second, almost every ferret we have over the age of 4 has now had adrenal surgery. 10 out of 15 over the age of 3 (of our 20 personal ferrets) have had adrenal surgery... plus 4 others that died last year from adrenal complicated illnesses. Plus our 18 month old Sniffles had bilateral adrenal tumors. These are just our personal ferrets... I'd have to drag out a calculator to add up the shelter ferrets' adrenal surgeries. The way this math is running... count on an adrenal surgery by age 4... & count yourself lucky if it isn't sooner. All but one of my ferrets were rescues... some were from independent breeders, some Marshall Farms, some late neuters. Yes, there ARE other reasons for hair loss... but the above described hair losses are invariably adrenal caused. Just do the surgery & have done with while the ferret is healthy. Waiting is pointless. Don't wait till it becomes inoperable. It's a horrible way to die. Debi Christy Ferrets First Foster Home [Posted in FML issue 3327]