From: Lynn McIntosh [faiml@uswest.net] Sent: Sunday, February 22, 1998 8:03 AM To: faiml; mjanke@miamiferret.org Subject: FAIML #75; February 10, 1998 Ferret Adrenal/Insulinoma Mailing List (FAIML); February 10, 1998 Hi there. There have been a lot of pressing medical conditions lately, and a many are represented in this list. Things have been very busy so I've delayed sending out all the lists, though I've got all your requests. If anyone else would like all the lists sent out please let me know soon. I will probably send them one at a time so that they arrive in the correct order. Still, it shouldn't take me too long. I'm glad to hear of all the ferrets on our list getting such good and loving care, and wish this kind of love an care can one day extend to all fuzzies. Fuzzy hugs, as always. Lynn Mc. About FAIML: FAIML is a mailing digest list for support and information about adrenal and insulinomic disease. To post, write "post" somewhere in your subject line (the more specific you can be in your subjects, the better it will be for tracking archives in the future). For all other reasons, just hit the reply button - this includes subscription questions/comments and personal messages! CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS, please write "anoymous" in your subject line if you don't want your address or last name published. I strongly advise that each and every member read, and reread, Pamela Greene's Disease FAQs on Insulin and Adrenal Disease. I will be happy to forward them upon request. They were last updated on January 20, 1998. 1. Sabrina needs Help! 2. Sabrina needs Help! 3. Sabrina needs Help! 4. Ulcer (was: Re: Sabrina needs Help!) 5. Sabrina's Update 2/10/98 6. Re: FAIML: re: symptoms of ulcers, correlation with adrenal? Friday surgeries: Bandit & Princess (not doing well) 7. Cardiomyopathy and Adrenal surgery 8. Jasla 9. Fw: Adrenal treatment with predisone (marked urgent) 10. Adrenal treatment with predisone 11. re: symptoms of ulcers, correlation with adrenal? 12. Re: adrenal disease documented in other countries; Smokey 1. Subject: RE: Sabrina needs Help! From: "Picou, Brenda" Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 15:14:37 -0600 MODERATOR'S NOTE: This was posted to group members separately on Feb.9. Update on Sabina - not good - need suggestions Sabrina's sugery went great, when she got home the first two days she ate dry cat (IAMS) food, with no problem, third day not eating much, fourth day quite eating, fifth day tried to feed her apple and chicken baby food blend in with cat food - would not eat. Her condition was very weak nothing but skin and bones, only would sleep. Made Duck Soup, that morning, she ate 2 - 3 teaspoon every 2 hours was eating great energy picked up - end of the day after her 5:00 pm feeding she started gaging and pawing at her mouth as if something was stuck in her mouth (which i could not understand because the duck soup is well blended that it had no chunks) when i gave her .07cc of prelone it got worst. Called vet, and brought her in vet's office monday morning. He ran test again for glucose (blood & urine) and it came out fine with no signs of glucose problems. He is also confused now. She will now not eat at all and continues to gag and paw at her mouth and makes funny noise in her throat. Vet is keeping her over night to monitor her when he trys to feed her. She can not continue to lose weight, she no more weight to lose! We are in need of suggestions, please help! Brenda, Sabrina Casper MaiTazz (beloved RAZZ) 2. Subject: RE: Sabina needs Help! Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 07:08:27 -0600 (CST) From: amycada@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (Amy Cada) I hope Sabrina is doing ok. I would suggest Carafate (Sucralfate) liquid, 1/2-1 ml 1 hour before or 2 hours after eating. It is an ulcer-patch; surgery and other stressors are very good sources of stomach irritation or ulcers, causing pain; pawing at the mouth is a common sign. My vet usually recommends carafate after every surgery to prevent her problem. You might also pick up a few cans of Hill's A/D, a semi-liquid post-surgery high energy food that you can get from your vet's. Alternatively, I mix a can of Boost or Sustacal (vanilla) with a large can of Iam's canned kitten food--no water added unless necessary or if not drinking in order to give the greatest concentration of calories. Good luck!!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Amy M.E. Cada amycada@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu Behavioral Neuroscience, UT Austin Asta- NA, FD, agility, tennis ball, flyball, and bath addict scottie; Wylie-court jester wire fox; Gryphon, toothbrush loving scottie Their 2 geriatric ferret friends; Foster & Zowie ferrets @ the RB ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 3. Subject: Re: Sabina needs Help! Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 11:11:59 -0500 From: "Mary L. McCarty" Brenda, If the right and left glands are gone, I believe you have to have Sabrina on not only prednisone (prelone), but on flenfurinef (can't remember the correct spelling) also. Mouse (my adrenal rescue) had the left gland removed completely and about half of the right gland, but I don't even have her on pred (prelone) because she is doing so well. I initially had her on .2 cc's of prelone twice a day, but stopped less than a week after surgery. Not sure if this is because she still has half of her right adrenal or not. Please look into the additional medication, I am sure that someone on the list knows what I am referring to..... Mary and the gang of 8.... 4. Subject: Ulcer (was: Re: Sabina needs Help!) From: "Troy Lynn Eckart" Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 10:50:28 -0600 Brenda - May I suggest to have Sabrina treated for ulcers. Also - peach syrup from a can of peaches in heavy syrup will calm the tummy quickly. Old pediatrician remedy for nausea in babies. Works wonderful for ferrets too. Pred is very hard on the stomach so that may be causing some of the problem. Our Princess that just had surgery on Friday was fine before surgery but now we are treating her for an ulcer. She is doing better. The recommended treatment for ulcers is: Biaxin 50 mg/kg once daily Amoxi 20 mg/kg twice daily Pepto Bismal .5 to .75 cc 2-4 times daily (every 6 hours) Carafate - liquid suspension is easier to give - 4 times daily (every 6 hours and must be given at least 1 hour before or 2 hours after other meds or food) Feed duck soup or similar recipe every 3-4 hours - 10-20 cc's. Aim for 60 - 90 cc's per pound per day. (Sustacal, Boost, Ensure, Resource are all acceptable. Heavy whipping cream mixed with baby food or SD A/D at 2:1 works well too. ) This treatment should be continued for not less than 2 weeks. If symptoms re-occur after 2 weeks continue treatement without Biaxin for 2 additional weeks. Treatment may need to be continued up to 6 weeks. This protocol is a combination of recommendations by Dr. Dutton, Dr. Weiss, Dr. Williams, and my own experience. Ferrets stress so easily they commonly have ulcer complications after surgery. Best to treat the symptoms. Hugs. tle 5. Subject: Sabrina's Update 2/10/98 From: "Picou, Brenda" Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 18:25:53 -0600 Hi everyone, Sabrina came home this evening. My vet said he got her to eat Jevity (Ensure product) He said he didn't think Sabrina is suffering from ulcers, but maybe a upset tummy from prelone. He did not recommend any thing for her tummy, which concerns me because I always had faith in my vet but now I am not sure. Matthew (my hubby) said the vet should know what he is doing. My biggest concern is keeping Sabrina comfortable and her tummy full and not hurting. When she got home today i mixed Jevity and A/D and offered it to her, she ate a teaspoon, she gag only once. I am thinking about tring the peach syrup and if that doesn't help I will call my vet and tell him I am going to try pepto bismol or ask him to give me some carafate. Her stool is not black tar, there is no blood, it is soft but formed well (soft is due to the liquid food). She does not grind her teeth and her urine is fine. But she does shake a lot as if she is freezing. We are tring to keep her warm as possible. I want to Thank everyone for all of their love and concern for Sabrina, wish you all could see her and know her - she is a real sweet heart, she can really steal your heart. Although, she is bald, little, skinny and boney - she is beautiful to me. I am sure you all feel the same way with your little critters (fuzzies). They are the best pets, my fuzzies make me so happy and I am going to do my best to make them happy. It is so wonderful to have ferret friends like you all, I hope one day I will be able to help someone too ( I am learning a lot from everyone). I will keep everyone posted on Sabrina's condition. Thanks again and lots of love to you all and your fuzzies. 6. Subject: Re: FAIML: re: symptoms of ulcers, correlation with adrenal? Friday surgeries: Bandit & Princess (not doing well) From: "Troy Lynn Eckart" Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 13:45:03 -0600 The ulcer treatment can be needed for as long as 6 weeks running. It is when we stop the treatment before the ulcer heals, even though outward symptoms indicate otherwise, that we see continuing problems - at least in my group and from what I've read or heard. I don't use flagyl because it causes mouth sores, leaves a metal taste in your mouth and can cause nausea itself. This is my choice. I took flagyl for 10 days myself and I can relate to what the ferrets go through with it. They are already nauseated and then they get mouth sores and have a constant metalic taste in their mouth so they don't want to eat which really sets the ulcer off with the stomach acid having complete control to continue to burn through. Not all ECE diarrhea is green. I saw every color imaginable, including a beautiful pastel blue, and it was only because I took 64 through it that I did see some green. Not everyone had it. The bacteria overgrowth is difficult to detect. You can test 10 samples that are clean and then you finally get one that shows the bacteria. The bacteria is excreted intermittently so it is the luck of the draw so to speak. From my point of view, which could be wrong, if you can't figure out what it is and it acts like a corona or parvo virus - it is probably some strain of ECE (there are several from what my research has shown). When it comes to ECE, aggressive supportive care and treating symptoms seems to work well. Ferrets are very stoic and may not show you they are in pain or nauseated. Carafate, in addition to Pepto and Amoxi pulled our little Rikki through a bleeding ulcer. I really thought I'd loose her but she made it and after 6 weeks of treatment she has not had any set-backs to date (about 1 year). What works for one may not work for another though. I do believe that ECE takes down the immune system and if their are any underlying ailments, they are likely to surface. We did 12 adrenal surgeries after our bout of ECE. Friday surgeries went well. Bandit is recovering well, it was his left adrenal. Princess had a left adrenal removed and she had a double bladder so that was removed too. She is slow in recovering and I'm really concerned about her. She doesn't want to eat at all. I've been mixing heavy whipping cream with our recipe 2:1 and she will lap a little of it (I'm coaxing about 20 cc's a feeding into her). She's developed a cough now so I'm worried about post-surgery pneumonia. Odd - Princess only had a swollen vulva, a full thick soft beautiful coat and her adrenal was 3-4 times the size of Bandits. Hugs to all. Tle 7. Subject: Cardiomyopathy and Adrenal surgery From: AKHeat@aol.com Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 18:16:07 EST Hello, I have a friend who asked me to try to find out about having adrenal surgery done on her female ferret who is in the 5-7 yr.( sorry I forgot to ask her age) age group and has Cardiomyopathy. She was wondering if because of the heart condition if this should even be attempted. Has anyone else dealt with this ? If so, could you send me some advice ? Thanks for any help you give me. TTFN, Lisa 8. Subject: Jasla From: anonymous Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 10:39:51 -0800 Hello fellow fuzzie adrenal fighters! I had my almost 6 year old fuzzie Jasla looked at by a well known ferret vet yesterday. Jasla is showing hairloss at the base of her tail, but that seems to be her only symptom. The vet was not convinced Jasla has adrenal disease, so we decided to get the Tennessee Adrenal Panel blood test done. It now costs $175 according to my vet, but she is hopeful the cost will eventually go down when other places are able to start offering it, and introduce some competition. They do the test the first and last weeks of the month, so my vet thinks they got Jasla's blood just in time, and we hope to know by the end of this month. This is my first trip to this vet (Dr. Dawson) since I live fairly far away from her She said she has seen ferrets up to 9 years old with hair loss that were fine, and grew it back in during the next shedding season. She has also seen ferrets as young as one year old, that were almost completely bald, and she could feel the tumor. For these cases, she says she recommends surgery, but in my case she said she couldn't feel any tumor, and she felt Jasla was borderline enough to get the Tennessee panel done. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that maybe it's just stress or something since we did introduce a new ferret recently, and we're still going through the integration process. Well, keep you fingers crossed for Jasla, and I have all the other fuzzies in my thoughts (especially for Brenda and Sabrina)! Anita 9. Subject: Fw: Adrenal treatment with predisone (marked urgent) From: "dfrazier" Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 16:49:09 -0500 -----Original Message----- From: Marge Date: Monday, February 09, 1998 9:52 AM Subject: Adrenal treatment with predisone I need the names and phone numbers of vets that are treating adrenals With predisone to give to my vet. Also, the sources of any veterinary publications: date, vol #, author. to give to her. This is urgent. I have 4 adrenal cases in the house. I will be using Dayna's protocol but to get the predisone I need this infomation to pass on. Margie 10. Subject: Adrenal treatment with predisone From: "dfrazier" dfrazier@iwinet.com Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 21:21:38 -0500 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. Hi Everybody.. If no news is good news then that's what I have for you.. all adrenal kids in protocol are fine and dandy.. and the ones in the new and not very widespread Insulinoma protocol are doing very well and none have had any additional lows in blood sugar and are full of energy and ferretiness... now... I need some help.. there is a vet that wants names and numbers of other vets using pred for adrenal ferrets so she can verify the treatment before agreeing to it.. so.. any of you who have little ones in pred therapy for adrenal disease.. please send names and numbers for your vets to Margie at... dookdook@collecter.org as soon as you can.. she has three ferrets she is caring for for others on a long term basis that are showing adrenal signs.. her vet needs the data to allow this treatment for the ferrets.. some are not surgical candidates according to the vet. These kids need help and only we can offer them a life line by having our vets share what they are doing.. Please help if you can.. thank you.. I am very grateful.. this is such a special list and such fine ferret parents.. where else could I ask this and where else would Dr.Karen or the list members help these little fuzzys so far away... {{{WFH}}} dayna and the woozles of the MMOMM rescue/shelter 11. Subject: re: symptoms of ulcers, correlation with adrenal? Date: Thu, 05 Feb 1998 23:31:05 -0600 (CST) From: amycada@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (Amy Cada) Troy wrote: >Lynn - the grinding of the teeth may not always be seen as a symptom >in ulcers. The trying to vomit can be a symptom of nausea. You may >want to add Carafate to Wally's treatement. We use the liquid and it >.... ....vomiting. (sigh) We also found overgrowths of E-Coli and >Clostridium. ECE complications..... for life. I had all four of mine come down with some kind of mystery virus in Sept 96; grinding teeth, sometimes vomiting, sometimes diarrhea, but never ECE; no green diarrhea, ever, no growth in cultures. The MAJOR symptom was anorexia. Complete and total; I was force-feeding four ferrets 8 times a day for almost two months; at the end of that time I decided I could keep it up no longer and decided to euthanize; the vets and specialists were stumped. The next day at were all at the food bowl! Since that since, two relapsed and were eventually euthanized (6 months after recovering from first bout, spring 97). At autopsy one had massive ulceration even though he'd been through the antibiotic/acid blocker treatment for 10 days, as well as I'd gone through literally 10 entire bottles (that is, the full bottle, 414 ml!) of Carafate, rounds and rounds of amoxicillin, and enough acid blockers and flagyl to drive them wild. We tried everything; the two that didn't relapse are with me today at 7 and 7.5 years old with no relapses although the oldest now is beginning to show signs of adrenal problems; the slightly younger went through a left adrenal removal 3 years ago and is in fine shape, just a bit wobbly :). It's amazing how many treatments and tests they'll allow us to put them through, and still not find a cure! I hope we can kick ECE and other buggers soon, they complicate the lives (and kill) enough ferrets dealing with other problems; my vet is trying to find out if those that develop ECE or this other problem after exposure (or the severity of expression) correlates with likelihood to develop adrenal or insulinoma problems later on....??? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Amy M.E. Cada amycada@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu Behavioral Neuroscience, UT Austin Asta- NA, FD, agility, tennis ball, flyball, and bath addict scottie; Wylie-court jester wire fox; Gryphon, toothbrush loving scottie Their 2 geriatric ferret friends; Foster & Zowie ferrets @ the RB ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 12. Subject: Re: adrenal disease documented in other countries; Smokey From: Lynn McIntosh To: dave adams Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 18:11:53 Hi Dave. I haven't heard of anything regarding disease and other countries... maybe Sheila Cromptom or Bill Killian could find some references? Or Bob Church. I'll put this in the next list. I thought of Wally when you mentioned Smokey's cancer :(... I hope there's something that can be done. I thought of Wally because his tumor was so big the vet didn't think it was adrenal. She managed to get a tiny needle biopsy, but nothing more because the tumor was oozing blood. Two pathologists determined the tissue was probably adrenal. Lysodren has shrunken up the tumor, but with Wally's latest two illnesses (appear to be bacterial infections and amoxi cleared up), I'm pretty concerned about him. Dr. Weiss said that the adrenal growths can get huge. It sounds like Dr. McCabe is pretty sure it's not though... I was really glad to learn Wally's probably was. Fuzzy hugs to Smokey. He's got great care, now if he can just have the best of luck. Lynn On 4 Feb 98 at 8:48, dave adams wrote: > I would like to know if there is a compilation of incidents of > adrenal "disease" for the various countries. I have seen comments > about this but wonder if such a list exist and if so where? Any > info will be appreciated. > > comment on critters not good but will try to post later. Have one - > -Smokey- - with what appears to be terminal cancer of unknown > origin. Dr McCabe did a biopsy during adrenal/exploratory surgery > and closed. He could not get to the adrenals as the tumor bled very > easily. Smokey has been adrenal for a long time and seemed stable > on the Timmy tea diet. Then about two weeks ago massive hair loss > general weakness etc. Dr McCabe does not believe the tumor is > related to the adrenal problem but independent. will keep u posted > but would like the info on the various countries or someone/where to > look. > > thanks O dave adams and 20 fzbutts(Some not so fuzzy at present) ------------------End of FAIML #75-------------------------