New member 20/04/21 Introduction Cushings cat

Hi everyone
This is such a wonderful website with brilliant helpful resources. I'm looking forward to learning lots.

My fur baby Nala was diagnosed with diabetes in Feb this year following a vet visit for a tooth abscess which seemed to appear overnight. She was initially prescribed Caninsulin but it did little to control her BG. The Royal Veterinary College (RVC) Diabetic Remission clinic were doing a study and were keen to enlist recently diagnosed overweight cats so I tried to enlist her. They are very knowledgeable and provided lots of advice. They wanted Nala switched to Pro zinc insulin which we did. Again, there was little response to the insulin and the vets were gradually increasing the dose currently 4.5 units twice a day.

Then Nala developed a sore on her shoulder which came out of the blue. More trips to the vets and the skin had to be sutured which was difficult because the vet reported her skin was paper thin. The sore didn't heal properly, and she was losing hair elsewhere. On the RVC advice, the vet tested for Cushings which came back positive! So she is now taking Vetoryl twice daily (9 days in) and we are praying this may help. Another area on her shoulder had to sutured in the meantime so the poor baby is now wrapped up in her surgical suit!

My vets tell me Cushings in cats is incredibly rare and they have only had one case in thirty odd years of operation. They have been liaising with the RVC for advice. But of course it does make the cat insulin resistant. And to make it worse, Nala gets really stressed travelling and at the vets and despite being ravenously hungry, she won't eat at all when she's there for the day for her curve. It does seem like one horrible thing after another for our poor Nala.

So I joined this wonderful group to try to find out as much as I can and on the off chance that someone might have experience of a diabetic Cushings cat. Sorry for a bit of a depressing introduction.

 

Hi Liz & Nala. Welcome to FDMB.

I believe we do have some members that have experience with Cushings in cats. If you will add "Cushings" to you title, that will help them notice you need some advice with it.

Other things that will help with controlling the diabetes is home testing, low carb diet and a long acting insuling. Prozinc is a very good insulin. Are you home testing? This means testing Nala's glucose levels before every shot. You can also test between shots and do your own curve. You will use a glucose meter to test a drop of blood from either the ear or paw. Many members use a human glucose meter and there are also pet meters available. The all work the same, but the human meters are less expensive to use and the test strips are more available. If you are not testing, we recommend that you learn to and we can help you with that.

What are you feeding Nala? We recommend a low carb canned or raw food diet. The majority of dry food is high in carbs and make it very difficult to get glucose levels under control.

 

Hi Lisa and Witn

It would be great to hear from anyone who has a Cushings cat. It does seem so rare and a nightmare to manage! We're all praying the Vetoryl (Trilostane) will work.

Nala has been on a low carb diet for months, well before she was diagnosed with Diabetes as I was trying anything to get her to lose weight. She has Royal Canin wet diabetic sachets (vet recommendation) - 2 x 85gram a day split into four feeds and a small handful of RC diabetic dry food last thing at night.

And yes, I was going to start testing her as I have an Alphatrak but she is so traumatised at me having to put her in a carrier and take her to the vets what seems like every other day, I was waiting to try and get her confidence in me again. Right now, she won't even get on the bed with me! My hubby injects her but he won't do the bloods. The RVC wanted me to do it as part of their programme (which she now can't go on) and sent me a video but my vet doesn't seem that keen! I can't believe the curves the vet does are a true reflection given that she is so stressed when she is there and won't eat. But I will get to do it myself. So any help would be very much appreciated. I will also try the urine testing I read a post about using cling film in the litter tray. I also have a little bit of that special glucose litter which the RVC sent me when Nala was going to be part of their trial.
Thanks again for the advice.

 

Hi Liz & Nala. Welcome to the FDMB.
I typed Cushings in the Search box and clicked for it to search all forums. There are a lot of recent posts with Cushings in them.
There is also a forum here called Acromegaly / IAA / Cushings Cats that might be informative for you.

 

Thank you Dyana that's really helpful.

 

I added a link to your post in a post on that thread so the members on there can help you.

 

Thank you Lisa and Witn

 

Hi Liz and Nala and welcome to the forum. I’m sorry you have this diagnosis.

@THH & Snowcrash (GA) kitty had Cushings but I don’t know if she still comes online.
We did have someone here whose kitty had Cushings and she was quite knowledgeable about it but I can’t think of her name. I’ll tag @Wendy&Neko as she may remember her or someone else.

 

You might ask your vet about applying a Freestyle Libre continuous glucose monitor. They're for humans but gaining in popularity in the veterinary community too. They're not perfect by any means though. At best, they only work for 14 days and lots of cats seem to be able to knock them off, but since she's already wearing a surgical suit, she may keep it on longer. With the Cushings, I'm not sure if they'd want to use the glue to help keep it on but it might be worth discussing with your vet and/or the RVC.

The benefit is you can just scan it with a special reader (or your phone if it's got the Libre application)

The RC foods are really not the best either. The kibble is actually over 20% carbs and although the canned is better, it's still over the 10% we suggest and there's absolutely nothing special in any of it that treats diabetes.

This link with information about foods and supplies in the UK should be helpful. There's a food chart with foods under 10% as well as lots of great information on other supplies.

 

We've had a couple of knowledgeable people with Cushings cats, but they aren't on much anymore. @Ana & Frosty (GA) and @Tuxedo Mom Frosty's dose never got much above 3 units, so not all are insulin resistant. People used tthink acromegaly was rare too, until RVC did research that showed otherwise. I've heard other researchers say it's less rare than previously thought.

RVC would be a great resource for Cushings. If the Cushings is caused by a pituitary tumour, they do the hypophysectomy or pituitary removal surgery. @Wendy & Eric had that done there successfully. Eric wasn't even diabetic.

 

Thank you Bron and Sheba

 

Thank you so much for the info. I did check analysis of RC diabetic wet food pouches and carbs were 2.60% and the RVC were happy with it so that's why I stuck with it. I'm no great fan of 'vet' diets. And she actually seems to like it which is a bonus as she can be so fussy. It can be a pain to get hold of for sure and it's not cheap. The link doesn't seem to be working but I have previously downloaded a list of suitable diabetic foods available in supermarkets with carb content and no sugars but from a diabetic cat site. It might be the same one.

The monitor sounds great though my sister who was a type 1 diabetic was not very impressed when she trialled one and stuck tothe prick her finger normal method. Yes Nala's skin is very fragile at the moment but the hope is that the Vertoryl may address that if it works. She's been on it for 10 days and both the vet and I think there is some improvement, so fingers crossed. The surgical vest is to protect the stiches which are due to be removed next week and they'll see how it is healing. So maybe the monitor might be option in the future but to be honest I just have to get on with doing it even if she hates me!
Thank you again for the info.

 

Snowcrash unfortunately was so frail by the time the Cushing's was suspected that he wasn't even well enough for the testing to formally diagnose it. So I don't have a lot of experience with treating it, unfortunately. He did produce an ALARMING amount of urine daily, more than double what his urinary output was when he was first diagnosed diabetic. He also had progressive hypertension and internal bleeding for his last 10 months. Poor dude was a medical trainwreck.

A friend of mine is fostering a Cushing's cat right now and has gotten a lot of good advice and support from a facebook group. If you're on facebook, I can ask her the name of the group and post it here

(as an aside, sorry for not being on here much recently! Having some intense stuff happening with my sister that's been taking a lot of my energy recently.)

 

@THH & Snowcrash (GA) thanks so much for responding to the tag and sharing your information

 

Thank you so much for responding. Poor Snowcrash, sounds like he had a difficult time. Yes I am on Facebook so I'd appreciate the name though I seem to have joined numerous groups lately what with reactive rescue dog, cruciate ligament dog and diabetic cat and now Cushing cat! Not been the best start to 2021.

 

Here's the facebook group my friend has found helpful for her Cushing's foster: https://www.facebook.com/groups/acromegaly/?ref=share
I hope you find it as helpful as she has!

Yes, Snowcrash had a rough last year. Luckily he was a great patient and was very loved and loved all of us a lot too... so despite everything, he had a lot of happiness too. My profile picture is him with Emily.

 

Thank you I saw that group but didn't think it would be relevant as acromegaly but I'll def have a look now.
Snowcrash looks very handsome. I see where the 'Snow' comes from.

 

Purrdy was a Cushings cat. He was losing fur but never got to the skin tearing stage as he was taken out by an eye tumour. His spreadsheet link is in the top of Vyktor’s 2015/2016 spreadsheet if you want to take a peek. With aggressive treatment for the diabetes we did manage to keep him pretty well regulated but he still peed a lot more than you’d expect.