From: Lynn McIntosh [faiml@uswest.net] Sent: Saturday, October 16, 1999 10:12 AM To: mjanke@miamiferret.org Subject: (Fwd) Adrenal List #16 Forwarded message: From: Self To: @SENDLIST.PML,@SENDLIST.PML Subject: Adrenal List #16 Reply-to: Lynn McIntosh Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 19:31:24 ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 31 May 1997 20:12:26 -0700 (PDT) From: Lynn Mcintosh To: Adrenal Group -- Amy Cada , Barbara Gustafson , barbg@oanet.com, beek@feist.com, Beth , "Brian L. Schmidt" , dadams@dzn.com, Dave and Pam Taynor , Deana Beek , Deb214@aol.com, Dixie Carter , Ellen Jensen , Ferretlesa@aol.com, ferreton@pond.com, ferretwise@top.monad.net, Gabby , Gary Holowicki , Helen Andersson , Jan3GDFA@aol.com, Jennifer Skeem , Jennifer_Morlanne@email.fpl.com, Joanne Gelormino , "Karen Purcell, DVM" , Lee McKee , Lorraine Tremblay , lotaweasel , "Michael F. Janke" , Pam Franklin , Pam Franklin , Patricia Curtis , Rick Beveridge , ROCHELLE@art.fss.buffalo.edu, Ster2872@aol.com, TMccabe453@aol.com, Troy Lynn Eckart , Tryntje Miller Subject: Adrenal List #16 Hi there. Welcome to the new members. This week we lost our first adrenal fur kid since the list's inception: Lydia. Lydia, may you scamper freely over the Rainbow Bridge, full of vigor and lots of soft fur. Sterling, I hope your greiving is lessening and your great memories of Lydia are taking strong root. Sterling is already facing his next medical challenge, as he posts in this list. On a lighter note, Barb has made a valiant and good effort to organize our posts into an adrenal manual grouped by subject! Go Barb!! She said she'd be happy to forward it upon request. Hugs to all Fur Kids and all paws still crossed for Kodo, Lynn 1. My sweet baby 2. Reply: My sweet baby 3. Reply: My sweet baby 4. Tate 5. Oreo & Big Foot 6. Tippie 7. Adrenal Manual 8. Vena Cava Ligation Adrenal List #16, date May 31, 1997: 1.---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 26 May 1997 14:27:39 -0400 (EDT) From: Ster2872@aol.com Subject: My sweet baby This afternoon around 1:30 my Lydia slipped away from me and found her way to the rainbow bridge. My prayers were answered and she did not suffer but died peacefully in my arms with my voice and heartbeat close to her. Thank you all for your kind words and hug your babies for us. Tears all around at my house today and the other three wuzzles have all kissed on her and I know we will all miss her attitude and antics terribly. Look for a new and bright star in the sky tonight........ Sterling 2. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 26 May 1997 19:52:49 -0600 From: Barbara Gustafson Subject: Reply: My sweet baby Sterling, I'm very sorry to hear about Lydia, it is so very hard to loose one of these dear little furkids. You must be comforted to know that she did not suffer and that you were able to be with her to help her find her way. As you recall the joyful memories she's left you, so too will she always remember the love and kindness you gave to her. You made a difference in the life of one of God's creatures for which you will be forever blessed. Love and kisses Barb, Boots, Tippie and Hobie. 3. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 26 May 1997 12:18:52 -0700 (PDT) From: Lynn Mcintosh Subject: Reply: My sweet baby Dear Sterling, I will look for a new, bright star in the sky tonight, Sterling, and will hug my babies all around today. I'm so glad you and Lydia were together when she slipped away, and it was a peaceful parting.. Bless her little heart, and yours too. Love, prayers, and warm wishes to you and your family, Lynn 4.---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 27 May 1997 23:46:34 -0400 (EDT) From: Ster2872@aol.com Subject: Tate First let me say thankyou to everyone who wrote me with condolences about Lydia. I cant tell you how much I will miss her but its really nice to know that other people emphathize. Now as the chapter ends a new problem is looming on my weasel horizon. I have a five year old male. (He has only lived with me for three of these years......he was abused, run over, and then I inherited him) He is a lot overweight, relatively lazy, has rat tail , but no adrenal problems and has enlarged spleen which I know is pretty common. He has had this condition all of his life and so its not a health concern according to my vet. My vet now tells me that he thinks that my Tate has an overactive thyroid. I am pretty well versed in ferret medicine but this is a new one for me......Have any of you heard of such a thing.?????? He tells me it can be treated with medication but after alot of ups and downs with Lysodren I am a little hesitant to introduce by babies to new medicines. What do you guys know or think? Sterling....& fat happy Tater boo 5.---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 27 May 1997 18:04:51 -0700 From: pfranklin@panlabs.com Subject: Oreo & Big Foot It has been a trying couple of weeks. On taking Big Foot to the vet to get him examined (Dr. Riggs thinks he might be having adrenal problems too) he had a seizure in the car. So he was rushed to the back and treated and blood drawn. The test results showed that he did indeed have insulinoma (he had never been officially tested until now) but there wasn't enough blood to do the adrenal panel test. Rather than stress him further, I will be bringing him back in a few days. He also has very large lymph nodes and an enlarged spleen. I also have a sick parakeet, it looks like she has kidney disease. She is on antibiotics but due to her age - she's at least 10 years old - I will probably be putting her down this week since she doesn't seem to be getting any better. On the other side, it turns out that instead of having two male canaries I have a mated pair! They now have one egg in the nest so in a couple of weeks hopefully I will have some new babies! Now on to Oreo. Okay, here is what I've learned about adrenal disease in the last couple of weeks. Some of this may be common knowledge but it was all new to me. The diseased adrenal tissue/tumor can be 1) malignant (bad, spreading type of cancer) or benign (non spreading) and 2) hypoplasia (arrested development) or hyperplasia (abnormal or unusual increase) and any combination of 1 and 2. Oreo has benign hyperplasia which may explain why any microscopic amount keeps growing back, although every vet I've talked to says this is very unusual after two surgeries. Unfortunately, chemo is not done on the benign type of adrenal cancer so for Oreo that has been ruled out as an option for treatment. NOTE: if you ever find yourself in the same spot I'm, make sure you know what the histology report is on your ferret's adrenal tissue. I would hate to see a less informed vet put a ferret through chemo when it isn't going to do any good. My vet consulted with her contacts, I put call in to Dr. Bruce Williams and Dr. Weiss. Dr. Weiss returned my call and we talked at length about lysodren and ligating the vena cava. He says that there is a lot of mis-information circulating about ligating the vena cava and that I have permission to repeat what he told me here on our group and on the FML. Ligating the vena cava can only be done successfully when there is a large mass on or wrapped around the vena cava. This way, the blood supply has already started to route through the other vessels and ligating the vena cava will not greatly compromise blood flow. To do so in any other case will be too great of shock to the body and the ferret will not survive. He told me that you will know within the first 24 hours if the ferret will survive the procedure. I told him that there is a ferret on our list who has survived this procedure and he says the ferret should have no problems (Good news for Rogue!). Here again, this would not be a treatment option for Oreo. Not only is her tissue growth small (after having most of it removed in the 2 previous surgeries) but this is not usually done for benign growth either. Surgery is really Oreo's best option but since her tissue seems to regenerate in about three months time there is no way she can sustain surgery every three months. So the only other option for her is lysodren. Dr. Weiss says he sees only a 30% success rate with lysodren in the ferrets he treats (and he has a paper coming out soon on a study with 94 ferrets with adrenal disease) and (if you can believe it) when I mentioned mixing with oil instead of water he had not heard of this either. (Troy Lynn where did you get the good sense to question this when the vets hadn't?) He did say though that some drugs can break down within 24 hours when mixed with water and that I would need to check with a pharmacist. One other he said to me that my vet also confirmed that was new to me; when there is confirmed adrenal activity again after a bilateral adrenalectomy, flourinef (which is what the adrenals naturally produce) and prednisone use should be tapered off and discontinued. Too much is just as harmful as not enough. So, my vet has finally agreed to try the lysodren without me having to fight for it. We will wait for 2 weeks (my decision) to start since some of the side effects of reducing the flourinef (if decreased too much too soon) and starting the lysodren are the same. If she starts vomiting and having diarrhea I want to know which thing is causing it. So keep your fingers crossed for me and Oreo (and Big Foot too). From the last post of the adrenal list I think we have all seen what will happen if this disease can't be stopped. Sterling, you have my most deepest thoughts and sympathies for you and the only comfort I can give is that I firmly believe that Lydia has gone on to a place where there is no pain or suffering but only joy and love. If we learn only one thing from her passing let it be to aggressively push for our fur babies to recover from this disease. The more informed we get the better help we can pursue for them. Sincerely, Pam Franklin 6.---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 27 May 1997 19:47:27 -0600 From: Barbara Gustafson Subject: Tippie Hi all! Well I took Tippie to the vets today. He confirmed what I already knew, she will be undergoing surgery once again for adrenal. As mentioned previously she had exploratory done in February but Dr. Ness found no tumor at that time. Her left adrenal was removed about a year ago, but symptoms only continued to get worse. It was one of the best vet visits I've experienced. I took in my manual (put together with information from the group) and we talked about everything from symptoms to ligating the vena cava. The later he had never heard of but was very interested in. At his request I've left the manual with him to read over. It also includes information from the Ferret FAQ on adrenal. I asked him about the use of Lysodren and his response was that he had tried it once on a ferret and felt he had caused the ferret to suffer more as a result of the drug than from the disease. When I explained to him about how it should be mixed, again he showed much interest and said if necessary in Tippie's case he would be willing to try again. He also mentioned a new drug that he had heard of that supposedly had fewer side effects. It's called Diprenyl. So has anyone heard of this drug being used? All in all I came away feeling very good about having him for my vet. Hug and fuzzy kisses to all. 7. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 27 May 1997 19:59:04 -0600 From: Barbara Gustafson Subject: Adrenal Manual Lynn, I forgot to mention re: the manual. I would be happy to forward it to anyone. They could contact you or myself directly at barbg@oanet.com. They should specify if the want the Word document sent to them or just copy the information to an e-mail message. Barb Gustafson (aka Boots) NOTE from LMc: Hi there Barb! Thank you again so much for taking the time and initiative to tackle organizing the list's posts by subject. Your effort is obviously a tour de force! Organizing the material by subject will allow the group to build an accessible reference bank from our collective experience as adrenal-furkid moms and dads. Though I think that getting the material ordered by subject as you have is the top priority, we should work toward supplying attributions (names and e-mail addresses) to the posts, for validity and reference. I plan to order my new PC this week so could help you with this. Again Barb, thanks so much. Also, I'm glad the manual helped in your visit with Tippie and hope it's used to help other fuzzies. I'm very interested to learn if anyone has heard of the alternative to Lysodren, Diprenyl, your vet suggested. Hugs and a Dooking Salute to Tippie (and you)... Lynn 8.---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 26 May 1997 09:48:01 -0400 From: Dave and Pam Taynor Subject: Vena Cava Ligation Hi Lynn, Our vet is in central North Carolina. As far as I know he is the first and possibly still the only in the area to do this. Although several other vets here have been researching this and may start soon. As we tell the other vets that it can be done, they are very interested in it. Which would be great, as the one vet who does it is *very* expensive. He is very good, but I would love to see some competition bring the prices down. Pam Taynor ---------------------------End of Adrenal List #16----------------------