>We have a ferret named Zini who had Insylinamia surgery in January. >The vet has gone in once since then and can't find any thing else wrong >that would be causing his seziers. He has been on honey water for 5 >months and the segiers have been getting wores. No we've decided to >try something different. We started giving him PHENOLBARBITOL to see >if it can help with the segiers as, Thursday was one of the wores he's >ever had. (Zini is ADV negative,as is the rest of my ferrets.). So >far so good, no seziers!! Although insulinoma is the most common cause of seizures in ferrets it is not the only cause. Seizures are a neurological symptom based in the brain so they can be caused by a number of things that affect brain function in mammals. Epilepsy is one and that also is one disease for which phenobarbital is used. There are also forms of brain malignancies or other brain based diseases/disorders which are possible and can cause seizures. Beside the more commonly discussed two infections that can cause a range of neurological symptoms (Canine Distemper and Rabies) there are a decent number more that can set up shop in ways that can cause seizures. There is a whole section of Fox's vet text _Biology and Diseases of the Ferret_ devoted to the neurological signs which sometimes occur along or in conjunction with other symptoms of ADV (Aleutian Disease virus), and besides seizures it can cause unexplained extreme weakness or paralysis (which in turn also have other possible causes from insulinoma, to lympho in the psinal cord, to...). It's in a marvelous neuro chapter in there. Did you know that Toxoplasmosis will reproduce in the brain? I just ran into that tidbit the other day but do not know how it expresses itself then. Ferrets can get Transmissible Mink Encephalopathy, a prion spongiform disease of the brain, but the chances of running into that are about as rare as winning the big lottery and past cases were typically caused by the feeding of infected meat and typically encountered on some fur farms. It is the mustelid version of CJD. There have been three cases of either TME and CJD, or sometimes just ferrets and CJD in the same households but with some households sharing the same food sources between the humans and ferrets and humans preparing the ferret foods that is not a great surprise, and in each of those cases the ferreting had actually ended 2 to 20 years before the people broke with symptoms. These days with so much more known about prion disease (scrapie, Mad Cow, the encephalopathies which have been found in deer or elk in some areas, etc.) we know to commonly look to the food with such prion diseases... The chances of this being what you are seeing in your home in this area are more rare than being hit by lightning at this time. Meningitis has occurred in ferrets and I guess that I hear about maybe an average of a case a year of that; with some years having none mentioned (which interestingly is fewer than the number of canine distemper cases people send me notes about so use that as a totally non-scientific possible rate or discussion comparison). A few such cases have made it to the FHL and here over, too, I think the years for discussion. At least one such case was at first considered to possibly be DIM but then it showed more about itself. There are other possible diseases based there. Of those, I think that it pays to test for ADV/hypergammaglubulinemea since it is certainly far from unknown in this area, so it is good that testing was recently done. Other things which disrupt the oxygen flow to the brain can cause seizures, so also think in terms of oxygen acquisition and transport, heart arrhythmias, thromboses (which are typically secondary to heart disease, kidney disease, lympho, etc.) and so on when unexplained neurological signs are seen. So, it could well pay to check things like heart health. When insulinoma, the most common cause of seizures, is present: try using Diazoxide as well as Prednisolone at some point. It's the generic name of Proglycem and is easier to find and cheaper while working as well. Not all ferrets respond to Diazoxide; some respond well but some don't respond at all. If you are using Prednisone try Prednisolone; since it skips the liver processing step it is sometimes more effective if the liver is at all compromised. Some do better longer by having the Pred divided to three times a day instead of two since the action life of Pred is about 9 hours, according to a previous pers. com. with a vet. Some unusual ones have needed Dex instead of Pred, or have tolerated injected Pred and not minded it, but not tolerated oral Pred. Some end stage ferrets get extra quality time by always having something sugary easily available when the meds max out; the most extra good time we personally have gotten for a ferret with that approach is 3 months, but it doesn't work for some at all. Honestly, if the ferret does not have an ulcer problem and the vet thinks there is the final stage of insulinoma it pays to ignore the dose max with Pred and try doses that are higher in combination with oral sugars. We have given as high as 5 mgs of Prednisolone in a day to a small female in that situation with a decent chunk of extra quality time resulting -- hey, it was that or saying goodbye, so... With insulinoma there is too much insulin produced. In some ferrets when trying to figure out if that is what is causing the seizures it can pay to test not only blood glucose levels but also blood insulin levels. That is not often the case, but if the diagnosis of insulinoma is questioned then it makes sense and is certainly do- able. The high insulin levels cause blood glucose (blood sugar) levels to drop too low, and that in turn is what causes the brain neurological symptom of seizures. In general when a ferret has insulinoma ours have done best with some surgery, but the tumors tend to usually be like little grains of sand that need to be popped out so unless a vet operates with a microscope and has a marvelous sense of touch it is incredibly easy to miss many of them. Even then and when the surgery is early the recurrence rate is 40%. That is strongly considered to be because whatever is causing the insulinoma is still present. In study by Doctors Charlie Weiss and Bruce Williams medication along gives by far the shortest survival rate ON AVERAGE, whereas partial pancreatomy gives the longest, and a simply lumpectomy inbetween. That said, there have been individuals who have had some on meds go for as long as those with the larger surgery, there have been those who had the larger surgery who turned out to have the insulinoma by vital pancreatic structures who therefore could nto have all removed, there have been rare ones who develop A/V Heart Node Block secondary to insulinoma. BTW, insulinoma has a very low rate of metastasis which is having the same growth show up in a DISTANT location in the body ( Metastasis is one of the three needed things to be accurately called "cancer".), but it has a very high rate of popping up again in the pancreas itself. On the other hand, sometimes what is in the pancreas acts like insulinoma because it is affecting the insulin producing cells, but is actually lymphoma/lymphosarcoma, or carcinoma. These are more virulent and they are malignancies. They are also harder to treat very often. A number of times when a ferret has both the symptoms or insulinoma and adrenal disease, or growths in multiple places it is one of those two responsible for everything seen. With Prednisolone a decent bit of quality time can often be gotten for ferrets with lympho, but with a metastasized carcinoma the chances of getting even a few months are very low, though the Prednisolone may add some time. Each of these two if based in the pancreas will at times show no symptoms until causing onset of a sudden and life threatening grande mal seizure set. We have had to do mouth to muzzle gentle cheek puff artificial respiration to get two like this to the vet in 24 years with ferrets in the family. One had lymphoma and required sugars to be always present as well as having Prednisolone and Diazoxide. (This was perhaps two decades back -- when the med was so rare that at first our vet had to arrange to buy human hospital left overs when a patient's weight left a bottle only partly used because the med was not sold yet through pharmacies, though that soon changed.) The more recent one, about a year and half ago, had carcinoma there which is a lot harder and much faster. -- Sukie (not a vet) Ferret Health List http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/ferrethealth FHL Archives http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org International Ferret Congress http://www.ferretcongress.org [Posted in FML issue 4956]