Do you weigh Jester every week? Do you track how many calories he eats and how it has changed since he was diagnosed? I. Sure others have asked but did you change his food when he was dx and perhaps he’s getting less calories?
No on the weighing. I've only recently been able to get a baby scale. Up until just a few months ago, I was hopelessly unemployed and nearly out of money. Most of Jester's supplies have come from very kind people here and friends and family. Even now, I'm still recovering from years of poverty. (My car now has to be replaced and my cell phone has been crashing.)
I did try to change his food after diagnosis, but Jester has resisted getting off carbs. I've been fortunate that he's accepted medium carb food lately instead of the high-carb he used to eat. I've tried so many tricks to get him off it and have just had to give it up. Last fall, after getting him onto very low carb foods and Jester actually going into remission, he stopped eating inexplicably. The vet (a different one at the time) wasn't willing to do a lot because of my financial situation.
It took ten days, with me syringe feeding him most of that time, before he started eating normally again. And the only foods he ate with reliability was the high carb stuff again.
With all the weight loss, I'm extremely reluctant to experiment and have him start that all over again.
Call it PTSD, but it scared me to death and I just can't handle that anymore.
As to the caloric content, no. I was for a long time keeping track of how much Jester was eating on his spreadsheet, including types of food and how much of each can down to fractions. But with the new job, not much sleep because of all the ins and outs of caring for Jester, along with standard life stressors, I've been so tired that I haven't been able to keep up with it anymore. The best I can generally do is mentally take note of how many cans of food he eats in a day.
Generally speaking, it's all similar - Friskies shreds, Friskies filets, Friskies Tasty Treasures Turkey Flavor with Cheese and Turkey flavor with Bacon.
And it's all medium carb between 13 and 17.
Here is the thing about the thyroid: there’s a condition called
euthyroid sick syndrome where the tT4 looks normal due to other concurrent diseases, but in reality, the cat may be hyperthyroid and exhibit PU/PD, eating a lot, weight loss. My vet is great about drawing blood for me to send to Dr. Dodds at Hemopet to run a
full feline thyroid panel (feline thyroid panel 4).
This is the first I've heard of anything like this. TBH, I throw so much from the boards at this vet he probably gets sick of it. He's older and pretty knowledgeable overall. But he's no great expert on feline diabetes. And I doubt he's used to pet moms who, frankly, question diagnoses and how he medically treats his critter patients.
He's probably learned more about the various conditions because of Jester than in his entire career.
I'm planning to make a list for the second opinion vet to ask him/her about on Wednesday evening.
I do hope they're willing to at least save me a little money by using the info from the most recent blood tests.
I really don't know how I'm going to pay for anything more, but I can't just let Jester die this way.
Hugs and prayers 
