Noa's Caretaker
Member Since 2024
Hello. So, i think Noa's hunger isn't normal, or directly a consequence of her diabetes. I'm well aware unregulated diabetic cats have a very large appetite, but if you check Noa's SS (and forgive me for the chaos i've been navigating through, changing diet, dosing methods, indoor-outdoor access policies all at once) It's been a while since her BGs have been rampant or consistently above 300mg/dl.
She doesn't pee or drink water in excess, she's slowly gaining back her weight, but she is still so hungry all the time. I really hoped as i got her blood glucose under control that this last symptom would also dissapear, but at this point i'm pretty sure it's not going to change.
How hungry you ask?
She regularly shoves her head into the kitchen sink to try and lick crumbs of food
She licks grease stains around the kitchen stoves
She raids the trash bin even if it's empty
She will steal food right as you're cooking if you so much as turn your back for a second
She will steal and eat tomato slices. Never in her life she has ever even shown interest in tomatoes.
Sometimes she will sniff something edible through a plastic bag, like bread slices or cheese, and will bite on it and not let go like an actual bulldog
She will invade dog territory to try and raid their owners' trash bin and their food plates, which has already gotten her butt cheek bitten on by a poodle.
As soon as any human figure alligns themselves towards the kitchen, she has already teleported over the counter, begging for food and very noisily so.
It doesn't matter if she's at 66mg/dl and just had lunch. She's hungry.
Dry kibble? still hungry. Wet food? still hungry. Homemade food? still hungry.
She will eat 12 hours worth of food and look at you as if you just fed her a grain of rice.
The only time in these last 3 months in which she wasn't ready to devour a whole chicken was in the 2 or so days in which the clumsy and sudden change of diet made her very sick, but rest assured the gremlin is back in full strength.
Her T4 values returned slighlty below the lower end, Endocrine vet made no special mention of it, so i think that safely rules out hyperthyroidism.
Her IGF-1 values returned 381ng/ml, so unless the endocrine vet says something about it a month from now, i think i can rule out acromegaly.
Nutritionist vet qualified her as wasted, with minimal muscle mass, but she's actually on the uptrend after the dramatic weight loss diabetes pulled on her, so i don't really think she's calorically deficient or underfed.
Ultrasounds did reveal both enlarged adrenal glands, but the endocrine vet didn't particularly worry about it and said it's likely due to stress from diabetes (not hard to imagine, her first weeks were terrible.)
So right now Cushing's disease could still be on the table? or could it all be psychological? She used to free-feed on dry kibble. So maybe she's just still having a hard time not having food available 24/7 after all these months? Maybe her appetite will normalize when she reaches a proper body weight? Don't get me wrong, coordinating her meals and her insulin shots is tremendously easy, but still it really sucks she has to live hungry all the time, near no interest in playing or cuddling or exploring or adventuring...
She doesn't pee or drink water in excess, she's slowly gaining back her weight, but she is still so hungry all the time. I really hoped as i got her blood glucose under control that this last symptom would also dissapear, but at this point i'm pretty sure it's not going to change.
How hungry you ask?
She regularly shoves her head into the kitchen sink to try and lick crumbs of food
She licks grease stains around the kitchen stoves
She raids the trash bin even if it's empty
She will steal food right as you're cooking if you so much as turn your back for a second
She will steal and eat tomato slices. Never in her life she has ever even shown interest in tomatoes.
Sometimes she will sniff something edible through a plastic bag, like bread slices or cheese, and will bite on it and not let go like an actual bulldog
She will invade dog territory to try and raid their owners' trash bin and their food plates, which has already gotten her butt cheek bitten on by a poodle.
As soon as any human figure alligns themselves towards the kitchen, she has already teleported over the counter, begging for food and very noisily so.
It doesn't matter if she's at 66mg/dl and just had lunch. She's hungry.
Dry kibble? still hungry. Wet food? still hungry. Homemade food? still hungry.
She will eat 12 hours worth of food and look at you as if you just fed her a grain of rice.
The only time in these last 3 months in which she wasn't ready to devour a whole chicken was in the 2 or so days in which the clumsy and sudden change of diet made her very sick, but rest assured the gremlin is back in full strength.
Her T4 values returned slighlty below the lower end, Endocrine vet made no special mention of it, so i think that safely rules out hyperthyroidism.
Her IGF-1 values returned 381ng/ml, so unless the endocrine vet says something about it a month from now, i think i can rule out acromegaly.
Nutritionist vet qualified her as wasted, with minimal muscle mass, but she's actually on the uptrend after the dramatic weight loss diabetes pulled on her, so i don't really think she's calorically deficient or underfed.
Ultrasounds did reveal both enlarged adrenal glands, but the endocrine vet didn't particularly worry about it and said it's likely due to stress from diabetes (not hard to imagine, her first weeks were terrible.)
So right now Cushing's disease could still be on the table? or could it all be psychological? She used to free-feed on dry kibble. So maybe she's just still having a hard time not having food available 24/7 after all these months? Maybe her appetite will normalize when she reaches a proper body weight? Don't get me wrong, coordinating her meals and her insulin shots is tremendously easy, but still it really sucks she has to live hungry all the time, near no interest in playing or cuddling or exploring or adventuring...
