Herbal Treatment 
for Insulinomas

[NOTICE] We aren’t veterinarians. The treatments listed in this article are based on our personal experiences running a ferret rescue and working with our veterinarian. Always consult your veterinarian before beginning a new treatment regimen or performing emergency medical treatment.

About Insulinomas

If you’ve been involved in the ferret community for any amount of time you’re probably very familiar with insulinomas. The symptoms caused by this all-too-common ailment include lethargy, “drunken” staggers, and episodes of staring off into space as if in a trance. In later stages the ferret may experience seizures, and will eventually die.

The symptoms are due to low blood sugar, caused by tumors on the pancreas. Conventional wisdom suggests the only treatments include surgery and steroid therapy, including prednisone (pred) or dexamethasone (dex).

[CAUTION] The symptoms of high blood sugar are nearly identical to those for low blood sugar. Have the ailment diagnosed first, before beginning any type of treatment.

Of course, as anyone who’s ever used steroid treatments knows, in many cases the treatment is worse than the disease. The ferret’s tolerance quickly builds to these drugs, and even with these treatments the prognosis isn’t good: Most ferrets with insulinomas are expected to die within a year to a year and a half.

Devil’s Club Supreme:
An Herbal Treatment

But now there’s an herbal treatment available that may offer new hope for ferrets with insulinomas. An extract called Devil’s Club Supreme has shown remarkable promise in a number of ferrets.

And we’re not just talking a few extra months: In some cases the affected ferrets lived two and three years, finally dying of an unrelated ailment at ages of 8 to 11 years.

Devil’s Club Supreme has shown surprisingly good results in treating the symptoms of insulinomas.

Treating a Ferret

Here’s how we treat a ferret with Devil’s Club Supreme:

We make up a soupy mixture of 50% Hill’s A/D and 50% water. Or, if your ferret won’t eat the A/D, we’ll make a soup from chicken baby food, or even Nutrical and water. The object is to make up a soup that the ferret will eat completely when we give it to him or her.

If you’re nervous about your ferret becoming hooked on A/D and not eating anything else, or can’t get your ferret to eat anything other than his regular food, you can make up a soup from that food. Soak some of his food in water overnight, and then mash it up with water into a soup or gruel about the consistency of oatmeal. Then use that to give your ferret the Devil’s Club.

We put a small amount of the soup in a custard cup, and warm the mixture slightly in the microwave oven. Then we add 5 drops of Devil’s Club Supreme. We stir it up, and give it to the ferret, making sure he eats it all himself, without any help from his buddies.

That’s all there is to it: We do that every 12 hours, and in most cases the ferret’s blood sugar balances out within the first week or so.

Monitoring Your Ferret’s Blood Sugar

Just like a person with diabetes, you may need to monitor your ferret’s blood sugar. You can get a blood glucose monitor from your local K-Mart or WalMart; they sometimes go on sale for only a few dollars. Where they get you are the test strips, which can be fairly expensive.

A ferret’s fasting blood glucose level should be between about 90 and 120. Lower than 70 indicates an insulinoma problem.

A glucometer can be a worthwhile investment for monitoring your ferret’s blood sugar levels.

Emergency Treatments

Even using Devil’s Club religiously, you may run into emergency situations with an insulinomic ferret. Here’s what we keep on hand for emergencies:

• A tube of cake decorating icing (white or blue; never red!)
• A bag of fluids with 5% dextrose
• Proglycem
• 1/2 cc syringes with 28 gauge needles
• Injectable Dexamethasone
• Injectable Valium

We start by applying some of the icing directly to the ferret’s gums. This helps increase the sugar in the ferret’s system, and increases his blood sugar level. The reason we don’t like to use red icing is it can make the ferret look as though he’s bleeding from the mouth, which freaks us out!

Here are the emergency medications we keep on hand to deal with an insulinoma attack (fluids not shown).

Next we give the ferret fluids; about 50 cc. The fluids must contain dextrose to help increase the ferret’s blood sugar.

Then the ferret receives an injection of 0.1 cc of dexamethasone. This will help raise the blood sugar fairly quickly.

If the ferret won’t come out of the episode, we’ll give him 10–20 mg of Proglycem. The dropper that comes with the Problycem is calibrated in divisions of 10 mg.

In most cases this protocol will bring the ferret around. Once he starts coming around, we offer him a bowl of the A/D and water — even if it isn’t time for the Devil’s Club.

In extremely severe cases the ferret may start to seizure. In that case we give the ferret a 0.1 cc injection of dexamethasone, followed by a 0.1 cc injection of valium. The valium should stop the seizures and allow the ferret to sleep. When he wakes up he’ll be hungry, so make sure you have some of the soup around.

Sometimes 0.1 cc of valium isn’t enough to stop the ferret’s seizures. If so, we’ll increase the dose to as much as a total of 0.5 cc, 0.1 cc at a time.

[CAUTION] Ferrets can start to seizure if they develop a fever or if their blood sugar gets too high. Once you get the seizures under control, always check the ferret’s temperature and blood sugar. Check with your vet for the proper treatment for fever or high blood sugar.

Finding Devil’s Club Supreme

You may be able to find Devil’s Club Supreme at a health food store or vitamin supply house near you. Or, if you can’t find it locally, you can order Devil's Club Supreme here, through the New Rainbow Bridge. Click here to go to the listing on the Nutritional Supplements page.

For personal questions about your ferret you can send an email to Diane at diane@newrainbowbridge.com, or you can call her at 215-357-3699 or 215-396-1585.