Hello All,
Archie was diagnosed with hyperthyroid on 9/2/2023, diabetes on 4/16/2024, and Acromegaly on 12/16/2025.
Archie is doing remarkably well right now, so I just want to say Hi and to post a bit of his story so far in the hope that it will help others. Sorry that this post ended up so long. To paraphrase Blaise Pascal, I would have written a shorter post had I had more time.
Archie was a stray who turned up at our door one day 10 years ago. We estimate that he was about 2 years old at the time (he was full size, but still acted like a kitten). We took him to a vet to have him scanned for a chip. The vet contacted his owner and left a message that he had been found, but his owner never returned the call. We also contacted the local animal shelter with his chip number, and they confirmed that he had "been through the system before" (and that his name was Archie). They also contacted his owner, but the owner did not return their call either. I looked up his owner, and found out that Archie had wondered over 5 miles by the time he got to our house. The owner didn't return my calls either. By this time, we had grown attached to him, so we adopted him. He is an indoor only cat, and doesn't show any desire to be outdoors again (I guess he learned his lesson when he was stray).
He is a tabby American Shorthair, and has always been very big (a fit 14 lbs), so the Acromegaly wasn't obvious at all.
He was diagnosed with hyperthyroid in June 2023 and put on methimazole which keeps his T4 very stable (between 1.2 and 2 ug/dL depending on the date of test). I read that nobody knows what exactly causes hyperthyroid, but there is a thought that it might be environmental. He is now our 4th cat (out of 4) who became hyperthyroid, so either we are very unlucky or there is something in our environment we need to get rid of). He was also diagnosed with a slight (2 out of 5) heart murmur.
He was originally diagnosed with diabetes by his regular vet at his semi-annual checkup in April 2024. Fortunately, the vet put him on Bexacat. I'm happy I did not find this forum at the time because all of the negative posts on Bexacat would have put us off on the idea, but it has turned out very well for him. Fructosamine has been within the reference interval and multiple glucose curves at the vet all showed that it was controlling his glucose very well. I bought a home glucose meter and a ketone meter recently, but still need to become comfortable using them.
The Bexacat makes him drink a lot of water (and pee a lot), but by last summer, I thought it had become excessive (750 mL / day). I asked the vet about how much he drank and peed, and they suggested Costco for litter. He was also starting to vomit regularly (but only water; never food), and had developed persistent diarrhea. His weight had fallen from a stable 14 lbs to 12 lbs while his apatite increased. I took him to the vet to have him checked out for these symptoms, and when all of his tests came back fine, the vet said to give him probiotics to see if that helped. It didn't and we persisted with the vet. We were eventually referred to an internal medicine specialist at the local veterinary specialty hospital. The internist was also perplexed, and contacted her mentor from vet school for an opinion. The mentor suggested an IGF-1 test, and it came back > 1200. They immediately suggested radiation, but since they were relocating, they were not offering it for the next several months, so they referred us to Texas A&M Veterinary small animal hospital. We finally got an appointment in mid February and went on a family road trip to College Station Texas (which was its own adventure for Archie, who it turns out, gets car sick).
We were fully expecting them to do radiation therapy on the tumor. The wonderful vets at Texas A&M ran just about every test there was (except they did not do a CT scan), and they said that they had never seen a cat like Archie who clearly had Acromegaly (visual signs plus multiple elevated IGF-1 tests), but who's T4 and blood glucose were so well controlled. An ultrasound of his heart was unremarkable, but the heart murmur was still present (still 2 out of 5). The vet thought that he might actually be in diabetic remission, but recommended that we keep him on Bexacat because it would help protect the heart and if he did have a relapse, they might have to switch him to insulin. Because he was doing so well, they proscribed Cabergoline (10mcg/Kg once per day) instead of radiation, and had us change him from a dry food diet to a canned diet (we use Fancy Feast Senior) so that we could add pumpkin. They said that usually they get Acromegaly referrals when insulin stops controlling blood glucose, but because we had Archie on Bexacat and sought treatment because of other symptoms, that we may have caught the Acromegaly relatively early. This almost immediately stopped the vomiting, diarrhea, and his drinking reduced to 400 mL per day. I suspect the combination of a firm stool, no vomiting, and the increased water content of the wet canned food caused the reduction in water intake more than the Cabergoline, but because we made both changes at the same time, we can't be sure. His apatite has returned to normal (which is that he loves all food, but isn't pestering us nearly as much for it all day long), and he has gained back the 2 lbs. he lost.
I took him to his local vet in May for his rabies vaccine, and to discuss the Texas A&M results with her. She said that he looked great, and that remarkably, she couldn't hear his heart murmur any more.
We took him back to Texas A&M for a 3-month follow-up (this time with no food immediately before the trip), and his test results came back normal except that his IGF-1 is still > 1200. I asked if there is any way to tell how much above 1200 so that we could see if the Cabergoline is helping, but they said unfortunately no. They decided to double his dose and we are to bring him back after 3 more months to check again. They also said there was no sign of his heart murmur.
So, in short, Archie is doing great. I know this won't last forever, but for now, we have hope.
--Mark
Archie was diagnosed with hyperthyroid on 9/2/2023, diabetes on 4/16/2024, and Acromegaly on 12/16/2025.
Archie is doing remarkably well right now, so I just want to say Hi and to post a bit of his story so far in the hope that it will help others. Sorry that this post ended up so long. To paraphrase Blaise Pascal, I would have written a shorter post had I had more time.
Archie was a stray who turned up at our door one day 10 years ago. We estimate that he was about 2 years old at the time (he was full size, but still acted like a kitten). We took him to a vet to have him scanned for a chip. The vet contacted his owner and left a message that he had been found, but his owner never returned the call. We also contacted the local animal shelter with his chip number, and they confirmed that he had "been through the system before" (and that his name was Archie). They also contacted his owner, but the owner did not return their call either. I looked up his owner, and found out that Archie had wondered over 5 miles by the time he got to our house. The owner didn't return my calls either. By this time, we had grown attached to him, so we adopted him. He is an indoor only cat, and doesn't show any desire to be outdoors again (I guess he learned his lesson when he was stray).
He is a tabby American Shorthair, and has always been very big (a fit 14 lbs), so the Acromegaly wasn't obvious at all.
He was diagnosed with hyperthyroid in June 2023 and put on methimazole which keeps his T4 very stable (between 1.2 and 2 ug/dL depending on the date of test). I read that nobody knows what exactly causes hyperthyroid, but there is a thought that it might be environmental. He is now our 4th cat (out of 4) who became hyperthyroid, so either we are very unlucky or there is something in our environment we need to get rid of). He was also diagnosed with a slight (2 out of 5) heart murmur.
He was originally diagnosed with diabetes by his regular vet at his semi-annual checkup in April 2024. Fortunately, the vet put him on Bexacat. I'm happy I did not find this forum at the time because all of the negative posts on Bexacat would have put us off on the idea, but it has turned out very well for him. Fructosamine has been within the reference interval and multiple glucose curves at the vet all showed that it was controlling his glucose very well. I bought a home glucose meter and a ketone meter recently, but still need to become comfortable using them.
The Bexacat makes him drink a lot of water (and pee a lot), but by last summer, I thought it had become excessive (750 mL / day). I asked the vet about how much he drank and peed, and they suggested Costco for litter. He was also starting to vomit regularly (but only water; never food), and had developed persistent diarrhea. His weight had fallen from a stable 14 lbs to 12 lbs while his apatite increased. I took him to the vet to have him checked out for these symptoms, and when all of his tests came back fine, the vet said to give him probiotics to see if that helped. It didn't and we persisted with the vet. We were eventually referred to an internal medicine specialist at the local veterinary specialty hospital. The internist was also perplexed, and contacted her mentor from vet school for an opinion. The mentor suggested an IGF-1 test, and it came back > 1200. They immediately suggested radiation, but since they were relocating, they were not offering it for the next several months, so they referred us to Texas A&M Veterinary small animal hospital. We finally got an appointment in mid February and went on a family road trip to College Station Texas (which was its own adventure for Archie, who it turns out, gets car sick).
We were fully expecting them to do radiation therapy on the tumor. The wonderful vets at Texas A&M ran just about every test there was (except they did not do a CT scan), and they said that they had never seen a cat like Archie who clearly had Acromegaly (visual signs plus multiple elevated IGF-1 tests), but who's T4 and blood glucose were so well controlled. An ultrasound of his heart was unremarkable, but the heart murmur was still present (still 2 out of 5). The vet thought that he might actually be in diabetic remission, but recommended that we keep him on Bexacat because it would help protect the heart and if he did have a relapse, they might have to switch him to insulin. Because he was doing so well, they proscribed Cabergoline (10mcg/Kg once per day) instead of radiation, and had us change him from a dry food diet to a canned diet (we use Fancy Feast Senior) so that we could add pumpkin. They said that usually they get Acromegaly referrals when insulin stops controlling blood glucose, but because we had Archie on Bexacat and sought treatment because of other symptoms, that we may have caught the Acromegaly relatively early. This almost immediately stopped the vomiting, diarrhea, and his drinking reduced to 400 mL per day. I suspect the combination of a firm stool, no vomiting, and the increased water content of the wet canned food caused the reduction in water intake more than the Cabergoline, but because we made both changes at the same time, we can't be sure. His apatite has returned to normal (which is that he loves all food, but isn't pestering us nearly as much for it all day long), and he has gained back the 2 lbs. he lost.
I took him to his local vet in May for his rabies vaccine, and to discuss the Texas A&M results with her. She said that he looked great, and that remarkably, she couldn't hear his heart murmur any more.
We took him back to Texas A&M for a 3-month follow-up (this time with no food immediately before the trip), and his test results came back normal except that his IGF-1 is still > 1200. I asked if there is any way to tell how much above 1200 so that we could see if the Cabergoline is helping, but they said unfortunately no. They decided to double his dose and we are to bring him back after 3 more months to check again. They also said there was no sign of his heart murmur.
So, in short, Archie is doing great. I know this won't last forever, but for now, we have hope.
--Mark