My kitty has Cushing's

Discussion in 'Acromegaly / IAA / Cushings Cats' started by Caroline17, Jun 5, 2017.

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  1. Caroline17

    Caroline17 Member

    Joined:
    Sep 21, 2016
    Hello all,

    Ive been on a bit of a posting hiatus as Vonnegut has been having a great deal more issues. Some (if not all of this) will be x-posted to the PZI forum.

    Here is a little background if you aren't familiar with Vonn and our journey. In 2010/11 he started getting a poor hair coat and losing hair. The vets said flea allergy so they wanted me to increase his frequency on flea control. Didn't help. So they said skin fungus and we did medicated baths a couple of times a week for a couple of months. Didn't help. I backed off because my vet at the time had no answers. Fast forward to 2015/16. Vonn dropped half his body weight (20 pounds down to 10) and I started to push HARD to get answers. The vet I was using did bloodwork and his muscle enzymes came back high. They worried about his heart so we did x-ray and ultrasound with totally normal results.

    At this point, I changed vets. I needed answers so I needed a vet who would keep digging and who had better diagnostics. We came back with a diagnosis of diabetes. He was placed on a trial for an oral medication then moved over to PZI. It took awhile and we finally settled at 4.5 units twice a day. During this time he was also diagnosed with chronic pancreatitis and was started on Pnacrezyme twice a day. He started acting off so I came to the message boards, started testing his sugar again, and discovered he was dropping low. Cue juggling insulin again and actually stopping it. Then he was not right again. This cat eats EVERYTHING and he stopped eating. His sugar was pushing 400 so we started insulin again. Then he started having black stools with a great deal of fresh blood so he went back to the vet. Vet thought she felt a mass so she wanted to do x-rays. She said to me on the phone that he looks like a Cushing's cat, but he can't be because it's so rare. X-ray revealed calcification above his adrenal glands. He's Cushinoid. We will be doing a dex suppression test to confirm and starting him on meds ASAP.

    This has been going on for a long time,undiagnosed. I have an excellent team of vets now and they are really doing their research to help Vonn and me out. I can read the studies and educate myself, but I would really appreciate some real life experiences. Who else has a Cushing's kitty? What is life like for them? Can getting the Cushing's managed clear up the diabetes? What kind of life expectancy am I looking at with him? Do I need to change his food due to this disease process? Any and all information will be wonderful.

    Thank you all so much in advance,
    Caroline and Vonnegut
     
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  2. Kris & Teasel

    Kris & Teasel Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 17, 2016
    Your kitty has a lot of complex issues going on. I don't know anything about Cushing's in cats but know a bit more about it in horses. The dex suppression test is used on them as a diagnostic. The drug of choice for horses is pergolide but I have no idea if it's used in other animals.

    You obviously love Vonnegut a lot and are doing everything possible for him. :bighug::)
     
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  3. Caroline17

    Caroline17 Member

    Joined:
    Sep 21, 2016
    I'm more familiar with it in dogs and horses. It's apparently exceedingly rare in cats, so naturally my boy would have it! Apparently, the drug of choice for kitties is Trilostane. I'm not sure if that's just a repackaged version of peroglide or now. I'm just glad the cat test for Cushing's is the dex suppression. We were talking about using the gel for the type of ACHT stimulation test they use on dogs. That gel is stupid expensive!
     
  4. Wendy&Neko

    Wendy&Neko Senior Member Moderator

    Joined:
    Feb 28, 2012
    We have had a couple of Cushing's kitty's here in the last year. Only one that I know of @Tuxedo Mom (Mary Anne) with a Cushing's kitty is currently posting.

    Here is a link to a post by her: what to look for and on testing. And here is a post I put together of information I've seen on Cushings. Cushings can be caused by tumours on the pituitary, adrenals or overuse of steroids. Neko had acromegaly, also caused by a pituitary tumour, so I had done a little reading on Cushings. You'll see it's not as rare in cats as your vet might have thought.

    We did have one kitty here try trilostane. You have to be very careful with this one - insulin needs can drop rapidly. The person who used it had her kitty hypo.
     
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