Muis really isn’t well these days …
She was fine last week but I couldn’t get to see our vet on Wednesday as the vet was ill so had to reschedule my appointment to Saturday. It didn’t worry me because Muis wasn’t showing any other signs of adrenal other than hair loss.
However … on Thursday morning I picked her up and although her eyes were open, she was as floppy as a rag doll. Another low blood sugar crash! God! I thought the medicine was supposed to stop that from happening!
Out came the honey and we rubbed it on her gums and put her back in her drawer to sleep it off. I gave her her fresh chicken meat about an hour later and was relieved to see that she ate it all up. She also took her medication and her Poly-MVA without any resistance, but she wasn’t keen to have much smoothy when I served it up about 2 hours later.
She was pretty zonked out for the day but on Friday she seemed better so I felt less stressed. As any ferret owner with a sick ferret knows, the emotional strain is awful, it really is … and even after 15 years and a whole lot of sick ferrets under my belt, it doesn’t get easier 
Took her to the vet on Saturday and Fiona checked her out. She said that Muis was in pretty good condition, all things considered, and the hair loss was not so much due to a tumour on her adrenal gland but due to the cortisone in the medication. She suggested I give Muis 0.4ml of prednisone instead of 0.5ml to see if that would stall the hair loss and thought it’d be a good idea to order the Melatonin pills and see if that helps to regrow her hair.
I reduced the medication but on Sunday Muis was acting rather wobbly so I decided to put her back on her previous dose and try and deal with the hair loss with the Melatonin.
She’s not herself, that’s obvious, but she certainly isn’t so bad that I feel I should take her for her final visit to the vet. That is where the stress comes in … I don’t want her to be in pain with no quality of life, but I’m also not keen to give up on her just yet.
So I need help, please! Can anyone advise me how to give Muis her melatonin?! I read on the Internet that I should give her 1 milligram orally 7-9 hours after sunrise and if that doesn’t help, to up the dose to 3 milligrams.
My question is … how do I do that with a 3 mg pill? Do I smash the pill the pill up and put it with, say, fresh chicken or in milk or what?
I would appreciate any help with this that I can get – thank you 
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Tagged with: ferret with adrenal gland disease • ferret with insulinoma
Filed under: Adrenal Gland Disease • Insulinoma in Ferrets
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Hi Nona I don’t get around to the blog as much as I used too, but hang in there, Muis has got this far. Our four are doing really well. Kas, or King Casimir as he is now called is the size of all three girls with room to spare and he is such a cuddle, I just want to hug him to bits, he still loves ear lobe though, the girls are a bit more sedate. Best wishes to you and I hope Muis will be fine.
Hi Tracy – great to hear from you again
I am so happy that your foursome are well and blooming … do they all have their winter coats on now? Out of my 4 only Angus has his, and he looks magnificent! I’ll be writing about him shortly and will post some photos of them. By the sounds of it, he’s probably as big as your King Casimir
Do keep in touch and give your 4 a big hug from all of us on the other side of the Nullarbor!
Hi Nona,
I gave Icey her melatonin 3mg in her hot cereal, I crushed it up & added warm water to her duk soup mix, I only gave her a little cereal at first, when she was done I gave her more if she wanted it. she did sleep alot at frist I’m still giving the kids Melatonin but only 1 mg. My vet said it was a pretty safe drug to use. My guess is what ever Muis likes to eat, so crushing it up might be easier for her & you.
Oh thanks so much for the heads up, JC – very much appreciated! I don’t know what these pills will look like so I hope they won’t be too difficult to crush. I would imagine they’d be similar, if not the same, as the pills you get in the States so if you can crush them, I’m sure I’ll be able to do that too
I know Muis loves eating her fresh chook (chicken in Oz
) with her TCM sprinkled over it so if I can get her to chow down on the chook with the melatonin, that might be much easier than trying to syringe it down her throat. I always worry about liquid getting into their lungs if I ever have to use the syringe for whatever reason.
one of my frends here has a ferret-lady with insulinoma and she lost her fur almost completely cos of metilprednisolon..maybe this doesn’t look very good to strangers but we love old girl even she’s bald <3
but the idea with melatonin implant injections sounds good!
Oh Sunny – thank you SO MUCH for the advice. Yes, I told my vet about melatonin implants but they’re not available here in Oz
Just for the record, we couldn’t even get melatonin pills here until a couple of years ago. I was researching them a while ago and came up blank with finding out how to get them in Australia. We weren’t even allowed to import them from overseas, so I guess I should be happy that we now are able to get them in the country. Sheesh!
Hopefully I’ll be able to get the melatonin into Muis and cross my fingers that it’ll work to restore her hair. Our daughter suggested we cut a hole in an “Explorer” sock and put it over Muis if nothing works. I gave her a very old-fashioned look but maybe that’s what we’ll have to do to keep her warm!
With the melatonin, you should crush it up, add a bit of water to dissolve the powder, and suck it through the syringe. You can always a liquid treat to the mix in case the pill is bitter, but usually it’s just best to have the smallest amount of liquid possible, so that it is over quickly. But syringing is best, because you have to make sure the fert gets all the med.s–and on that note, have you heard of the melatonin injections? It’s a 5.4 mg implant that lasts for 4-6 months–my Pixie gets one every fall. Just an idea!