Sick Ferret

**Queen of Poop** · 09-20-2006, 01:45 PM

Your bald ferret has adrenal gland disease. He needs to see a vet immediately. At the very least he should be having monthly lupron shots.

The black spot could be mast cell tumor, is it just one spot? Does it come and go?

**husky_lover** · 09-20-2006, 02:09 PM

I thought that's what he had after doing research on it. He has had it for a year now. My vet doesn't know much at all about ferrets. The only thing she know is what yearly shots to give. Will he live very much longer with Adrenal disease? What other signs are there with Adrenal disease? He is already 9 years old. No the bump doesn't come and go it just stays.

**Queen of Poop** · 09-20-2006, 03:12 PM

My first ferret to get adrenal disease lasted 10 months without surgery with montly lupron shots. His prostate gland grew uncontrollably (can happen with adrenal disease) and he had to be PTS because he could no longer go potty.

My second ferret to get adrenal disease had the surgery within 2 months of diagnosis and was symptom free until this summer when he started to lose all of his hair again. He's had double lupron shots (he's big so needs a double dose) for several months now, to no benefit, he's still losing hair. Apparently even though the glands were removed the tissue can grow back - crap!! Last month he got his lupron and a melatonin injection. We were to see hair growth in 4-6 weeks - nothing yet (exactly 4 weeks this Saturday).

Other signs of adrenal disease are: overly aggressive, very smelly, of course, the inability to go potty and there are a few others I forget. Neither of mine got aggressive or smelly.

Since this ferret is 9 he probably isn't a surgery candidate (it's expensive) but could surely benefit from monthly lupron shots.

As for the head bump, I'm not sure. I have a very, very good ferret vet here so if you posted a photo of it I could take it with to our next appointment and have her look at it.