Hi, my cat's name is Marley and we live in San Diego. This is my first diabetes cat. As of 10/9/04 we are still in the diagnosis stage.

At first I thought all the water drinking was just from the heat spell we had, as it rarely gets that hot here. He was loosing some weight but he really needed to because he had gained more than usual at the beginning of the year. Then suddenly he looked really thin and I was alarmed.

Marley is complicated because he is definitely hyperthyroid (just found that out too) and he previously had crystals. The first blood and urine panel showed hyperthyroid (high T4 I think), high glucose in blood and urine, and slightly high white blood cells.

He also must be an indoor/outdoor cat and LOVES to hunt. He has already been on a Hill's c/d diet for crystals so I don't let him eat his victims if I know about them.

First plan was to take Tapazole for the thyroid, an antibiotic for the high white count and Glipizide to lower the glucose. Marley reacted very badly to the Glipizide.

He stopped the binge eating, but then he also stopped having bowel movements. So back to the Vet we went.

Now he is on a very low dose of 2 units PZI one time per day and urine monitoring with KetoDiaStix. I have been given instructions on how to slowly increase or decrease the dose and frequency.

A second blood panel was drawn to see if the thyroid meds are helping the situation at all. Next will be the all day blood drawing and glucose curve.

My Vet was very surprised to hear that so many of the people on this site are doing home testing and really encouraged me to try it.

So I will keep checking in for support. Thanks for having this site to support us all.

Alexis