10/11 punkin amps 280 CSU presentation on acromegaly

yesterday

We had to stall this morning for a bit - punkin's first test came up at a surprising 107! perhaps it was just a bad strip. all is normal at our place this morning.

We took punkin to CSU for stereotactic radiation treatment for his acromegaly on Sept 20-21-22. The 4th year vet student who worked with him ended up doing a presentation to the CSU veterinary students about punkin's case. Here's his powerpoint presentation. I just have to say that the REALLY big picture is NOT punkin! he's big, but not THAT big!

We had to break it into 3 parts to be able to upload the attachment.

 

Love it!!! Glad Punkin is doing so well! Will you have any follow up scans to see how the tumor changes?

 

Julie,

Thanks for sharing. I'm glad Punkin is doing so well.

 

Wow....that was interesting to read! Thanks for posting it, Julie. Glad Punkin is doing so well!

 

Okay, if that one pic of the woman holding the large orange cat is punkin, either that is a VERY small woman, or punkin REALLY knows how to work angles in his other pics! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Great presentation, and I love how the vet worked in all the cool punkin pics.... and even Anya got to make an uncredited appearance!!

Hope the vet is able to turn this into a paper and/or conference presentation so others can learn as well!

 

that was wonderful!!!

 

Hi guys .. Thank you so much for sharing the presentation! I've been looking forward to it .. and I'm also glad punkin is doing so well! Have a great day guys!

 

Thanks for sharing this. Great info to keep on hand. I hope he got an A.

Definitely not Punkin, but it scares me every time i see someone proudly show pix of a cat that big!!!

 

Very interesting, thanks for posting that. I do have one question, since they asked....are all acro cats diabetic?

 

Punkin is a star!! I loved it!

It's great that the vet student is spreading the word about acro-cats, and FD too! I loved how he worked in the pictures as well, especially the kidnapping picture :lol:

 

Great presentation! Thank you for posting it. I love the first slide with a pumpkin background. :lol: :lol: Love all the pictures too. It's interesting to see how they did the treatment. You are a trooper, Punkin.
Liz

 

glad you all liked his presentation - i think acromegaly is a somewhat unknown disorder and the more people (especially vets) know about little-known medical disorders the better.

and NO, that giant cat is not punkin. he'd thank you for noticing how svelte he is in his other photos! :lol: well, some of them. i don't know who the white/black kitty is - i wondered if it was another one that had SRT. maybe someone will recognize it.

yes, all acromegalic cats are diabetic - what we would consider type 2 diabetics, meaning the diabetes is caused by something else. Basically the growth hormone that the tumor secretes distorts the cells that receive insulin making the insulin unable to work within the cell. So we keep raising the dose of insulin so enough will "leak" by to keep their BG in levels low enough to not cause organ damage.

i doubt we'll do follow up scans, primarily because of cost, but also because the way i understand it, the physical tumor could remain the same size. the radiation prevents the cells from replicating correctly, so in that way the tumor will die, but the current cells will still go through their normal lifespan. what is most important is that the secretions of the growth factor stop. that's what causes the growth of their little bodies and what makes them diabetic. that should begin soon - i'm not sure why we had an initial drop in dose, because they said to expect it to start in about a month and continue for several months after that.

we probably will do the blood test that measure the growth factor, however - i think they suggested getting that done at 3 months.

I asked Dr Lunn, who specializes in acromegaly at CSU to explain it to me in writing so i could post here, and this is her response:

 

thx for sharing the presentation :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

 

Very cool...informative, with a nice touch of humor. I saw the "kidnapping" picture when you posted it the first time...it is a classic!

 

Loved the presentation....Punkin's a STAR!!! And I love the way Dr. Lund explains things. She uses understandable language without talking down to those reading...great explanation!!!