Amy and Pedro
Active Member
Good morning Lantus Land,
We have been very busy up in the frozen North just moving snow around but look in on you all often.
Thought we would check in with an update as lots has happened for him. He is now part of a research study on Cushing cats and Trilostane. You ought to see him puff up about that! If there are folks out there with Cushing cats that are contemplating using trilostane I would be happy to chat about what we have experienced. I found the initail phase as traumatic as learning how to deal with diabetes but you couldn't do a test yourself to see if levels were OK. If the cat appeared to be crashing you had no way to test except get to the Vet's ASAP. But like diabetes- you learn to adjust. Just don't have a support group out there!
He went OTJ for the second time at the end of January. Thanks to all I've learned from everyone here I had the confidence to make adjustments and then here we are. A consult with Dr. Lisa about the diet issue and gradual diet adjustment did the rest. Who knows if it will last given all he has going on but hey- one day at a time. I think if he weren't on the pred (5mg in the AM) he would stay lower. He tends to run mid 80's to 90's in the morning before he gets his pred. Mid day he hits mid 100's and then begins to drop back down to the greens as we get in to the evening numbers.
Between his Cushings, Pancreatitis, and now stress peeing, Pedro has been doing his best to keep us on our toes. ( He did get a new pal in November, Badger, an Aust. Shepherd. He loves the dog.)
We just had our 4 month vet check up for his ACTC push test (for Cushings to see how he is doing on Trilostane), FPL as he has been >50 for the past nine months, and other blood work to look at everything else under the sun. He also started peeing all over the house right after we started some remodeling that was only going to take 3 weeks and is now in its 8th week. He would also howl all night - not good.
The results:
Very happy to report that his ACTH results show him staying with in "normal" limits so the Trilostan is doing it's work. All blood work came back normal except for low potassium. We are going to start him on a supplement as soon as it get here. Kidney, thyroid, liver function, cobolomin...normal. No UTI or other indicators of urinary issues. AND his FPL was only 1.5 HOOOORAY. I think this was absolutley the best news.
For meds he is getting:
Trilostane 10mg 2x/day , 5mg pred 1x/day, waiting to get the potassium supplement in the mail
And we just added Prozac for the stress peeing and to help him destress until things normalize in the house. Only two days on it and I have started him lower than the vet's dose of 1/2 pill a day. Hard to split the pills as they are oblong. I really want to quarter them but it doesn't work well so I end up shaving the 1/2 pill down to the size I want and tossing the rest. He is a little too mellow right now. Don't know if they adjust after a time?? I hope to just wean him off once the house gets back to normal. I'm thinking of borrowing some of his drugs if the contruction isn't over soon.
Since out last real report here we also had a consult with Dr. Lisa. (Back story: due to his consistant FPL results >50 the vet specialist prescribed a high carb diet and that took him out of remission (my theory). Said it would be the pancreatitis that did him in not diabetes and we could control the diabetes but not the pancreatitis...) Dr. Lisa was really helpful in discussing his diet, meds, suggested additional tests, and given all his issues, working on gradually changeing his diet to wean him off of the vet prescribed stuff. So he is now eating mostly Merricks Grammy's (chicken) Pot Pie and some homemade chicken food w/ suppplements. Dr. Lisa recommended Cowboy Cookout but he just wouldn't eat it. And we have his pancreatitis at 1.5!
Think of all the wonder folks here every day.
We have been very busy up in the frozen North just moving snow around but look in on you all often.
Thought we would check in with an update as lots has happened for him. He is now part of a research study on Cushing cats and Trilostane. You ought to see him puff up about that! If there are folks out there with Cushing cats that are contemplating using trilostane I would be happy to chat about what we have experienced. I found the initail phase as traumatic as learning how to deal with diabetes but you couldn't do a test yourself to see if levels were OK. If the cat appeared to be crashing you had no way to test except get to the Vet's ASAP. But like diabetes- you learn to adjust. Just don't have a support group out there!
He went OTJ for the second time at the end of January. Thanks to all I've learned from everyone here I had the confidence to make adjustments and then here we are. A consult with Dr. Lisa about the diet issue and gradual diet adjustment did the rest. Who knows if it will last given all he has going on but hey- one day at a time. I think if he weren't on the pred (5mg in the AM) he would stay lower. He tends to run mid 80's to 90's in the morning before he gets his pred. Mid day he hits mid 100's and then begins to drop back down to the greens as we get in to the evening numbers.
Between his Cushings, Pancreatitis, and now stress peeing, Pedro has been doing his best to keep us on our toes. ( He did get a new pal in November, Badger, an Aust. Shepherd. He loves the dog.)
We just had our 4 month vet check up for his ACTC push test (for Cushings to see how he is doing on Trilostane), FPL as he has been >50 for the past nine months, and other blood work to look at everything else under the sun. He also started peeing all over the house right after we started some remodeling that was only going to take 3 weeks and is now in its 8th week. He would also howl all night - not good.
The results:
Very happy to report that his ACTH results show him staying with in "normal" limits so the Trilostan is doing it's work. All blood work came back normal except for low potassium. We are going to start him on a supplement as soon as it get here. Kidney, thyroid, liver function, cobolomin...normal. No UTI or other indicators of urinary issues. AND his FPL was only 1.5 HOOOORAY. I think this was absolutley the best news.
For meds he is getting:
Trilostane 10mg 2x/day , 5mg pred 1x/day, waiting to get the potassium supplement in the mail
And we just added Prozac for the stress peeing and to help him destress until things normalize in the house. Only two days on it and I have started him lower than the vet's dose of 1/2 pill a day. Hard to split the pills as they are oblong. I really want to quarter them but it doesn't work well so I end up shaving the 1/2 pill down to the size I want and tossing the rest. He is a little too mellow right now. Don't know if they adjust after a time?? I hope to just wean him off once the house gets back to normal. I'm thinking of borrowing some of his drugs if the contruction isn't over soon.
Since out last real report here we also had a consult with Dr. Lisa. (Back story: due to his consistant FPL results >50 the vet specialist prescribed a high carb diet and that took him out of remission (my theory). Said it would be the pancreatitis that did him in not diabetes and we could control the diabetes but not the pancreatitis...) Dr. Lisa was really helpful in discussing his diet, meds, suggested additional tests, and given all his issues, working on gradually changeing his diet to wean him off of the vet prescribed stuff. So he is now eating mostly Merricks Grammy's (chicken) Pot Pie and some homemade chicken food w/ suppplements. Dr. Lisa recommended Cowboy Cookout but he just wouldn't eat it. And we have his pancreatitis at 1.5!
Think of all the wonder folks here every day.
