With regard to Lupron my understanding is this: thing about adrenal
disease is that as often as not, it's not actually a disease of the
adrenal, but of upstream control of the adrenal.  When that is the case,
surgery may temporarily alleviate symptoms, but they will probably
return, because the actual problem was not addressed.  So, if the
symptoms of adrenal problems aren't too severe yet, trying Lupron first
could save your ferret the trouble and you the expense of the surgery.
If the ferret doesn't respond to Lupron, then I'd guess it -is- truly
an adrenal problem, and surgery might be needed.
 
My friend John (he's a post-doc at Yale now) wrote an article about how
Lupron works.  It explains the guts of the science but in a way that
non-molecular biologists can understand.  Here's the link:
 
http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/lupron.htm
 
Jen
[Posted in FML issue 3891]