by Helen Stephens
Read about Taz our amazing Agromegalic Cat
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Taz is a lovely 13 year old male cat. He came in to see us a few years ago as his
owner had noticed him starting to drink a lot more. We took some blood and found out Taz was
diabetic. We started Taz on insulin and
saw him back for regular appointments to monitor how he was doing. After several months of treatment Taz still
wasn’t as stable as we would have liked.
We did some more tests and found that Taz had a condition called
Acromegaly. This is a growth hormone disorder caused by a tumour in Taz’s
brain. It is a very rare condition and was the reason
that Taz was not responding well to the insulin. It also made him very big
weighing in at around 10kg. We referred Taz to have radiotherapy on the tumour
in his brain. After a few weeks his
insulin dosage began to drop and he was much happier. Taz continued to do well on insulin for
another two years, which is very good for this condition. Recently his diabetes started to become a
problem again so we feared his brain tumour had come back. We thought about another course of
radiotherapy but this would not be as successful a second time. The decision was made to send Taz to the Royal Veterinary
College to have the
tumour in his brain removed. We were all
a bit nervous about it as it was such a big operation. The tumour in his brain was removed through
the roof of his mouth. Two weeks after
the operation Taz was allowed to go home and he was doing brilliantly. His diabetes is now cured so he does not need
daily injections.
This was a very rare and challenging case to deal with. Taz’s owners have shown great commitment in
getting him better and now he looks forward to a happy future.