? Cancer and Steriods--Remission Cat

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FranklinsMom

FranklinsMom

Member Since 2017
Hey everyone. My Franklin has been in remission for almost four years. I noticed he his activity has decreased recently so I took him into the vet last week. He has a lot of fluid on his lungs. The vet put him on Benazepril. He also put him on Furosemide to reduce the fluid on his lungs.

We did a recheck yesterday and the fluid on one lung has reduced a bit but not as much as we hoped on the other one. The vet extracted some fluid to test and was hopeful because the fluid wasn't full of blood as he was concerned about. He said if there was a lot of blood it would be cancer.

Well, the test results came back today and there are malignant neoplastic cells in there so he does have cancer. The vet says it might be four to eight weeks or if we can get him the fluid off maybe six months.

He wants to put him on prednisolone (5mg a day). I asked about the chance of him getting diabetes again and he said the cancer treatment prevails at this point...if anything happens with the glucose levels, it would take too long to figure out what dose to give him and so we won't be treating him with insulin...it sounds like.

I happen to have the prednisolone on hand because my Ellie got IMHA and at the same appointment we had good news that after weaning her off the steroids from when she started on them in late March or early April, we finally get to stop giving it to her. That was a rough go then. I had one night I thought she wasn't going to make it. And on June 28 I put down my Tennessee, a cat I took in when a neighbor abandoned him. He had some respiratory thing that we couldn't fix but I suspect he had lymphoma. He was at least 12 years old but actual age is unknown. Ellie and Franklin are true brother and sister, born at a shelter and are 11 1/2 years old. So it's been a tough few months.

Because of reading about steroids and diabetes when Franklin was first diagnosed I thought I would check in here for opinions before I start him on them.

I have to be at work in less than an hour so I will not be online until later tonight. Thank you for any opinions about the steroids and thanks to all here who helped me when he was first diagnosed with diabetes. It was with your help and the information on this site that let me get him into remission as he has been for about four years now.
 
Sorry to hear the update. :bighug::bighug: If a cat needs a medication that raises the BG, in order to have a better life, then we give that medication and deal with any possible resulting diabetes with insulin or an increased dose. We have a few kitties here that need prednisolone for various reasons (asthma, cancer). It is possible to figure out how much insulin they need if you are home testing.

As a side note, prednisolone doesn't always cause diabetes, though it's more likely in a cat in remission. I've had non diabetics on 5 and even 10 mg a day of pred that still had normal BG numbers.
 
Okay, thanks very much. I will begin the steroids shortly. I do home test him so I can monitor him. He's not keen on the pills. I've been trying to disguise them in "meatballs" of Fancy Feast. This worked wonderfully for his sister but him not so much. We are doing the towel burrito.

Didn't think about Ellie getting diabetes from the steroids. Maybe I'll try testing her sometime. She probably wouldn't do well with that. Franklin has learned to tolerate it very well over the years.

Thanks again. Glad to finally be home from work and process this sad news. We are going to hang out on the screen porch, his favorite place. I will be giving him as much of that as I can in the next few weeks. I just got a new part-time job and am in training. I get to be 100% remote for that job starting the week of Labor Day. I hope he will hang around for a bit and still be here then.

Thanks again @Wendy&Neko and everyone else.
 
Ditto what Wendy said.

For clarification, are you using prednisolone under the guidance of the vet? (or are you repurposing the other cat’s meds without the vet’s knowledge)

I’m so sorry about the cancer diagnosis. Hopefully the pred will help and give you some more precious quality time. Hugs for you and scritches for Franklin.
 
I am doing this under the guidance of a vet. I happen to have some in the house. For the first time in years, Ellie and Franklin went to the vet together on Monday. The good news is that she scored a 40 on her Packed Cell Volume (PCV) test, after being on half a 5 mg steroid every other day for the past three weeks. (She started out at I think 10 mg a day in late March or April.) So the vet said we are taking her completely off steroids and testing her PCV again in four weeks. I guess that is the light in all this that she is doing so well.

I gave Franklin his first steroid a few minutes ago and then counted how many I had left. I will give him the last one the day before we see the vet again. So we will see how things are and perhaps stock up again then.

Yes, as we always do, I am hoping for more time. Thank you for the hugs and scritches.
 
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