Featured Pet Of the Month-JACKO

Jacko is a 13 ½ year old, male neutered cat who has been coming to River Valley for care since 2007.  He has always been a very happy and healthy cat, but in the spring of 2010, his very observant mother noticed that he had developed scabs and crusty lesions around his mouth, on his chin and in front of his ears.  He also seemed itchy all over and was generally not behaving in his usual spunky manner.

Jacko was diagnosed with an immune-mediated disease called Pemphigus Foliaceous, which is actually the most common auto-immune skin disease of cats and dogs.  This disease occurs because the body develops an “allergic reaction” to the cells that hold the deep layers of the skin together and the result is ulcers, crusts and the types of lesions Jacko was displaying. 

Treatment for Pemphigus entails giving high doses of immuno-suppressive medication to “turn off” the body’s abnormal response to the skin cells.  The most commonly prescribed medication in this class is called prednisolone, a type of steroid.  In general prednisolone is very well tolerated but some cats that have sub-clinical Diabetes Mellitus can become full-blown Diabetics when placed on this drug.  Jacko had this reaction and his mom quickly called to let us know that, even though his skin looked better, he was drinking a lot of water, losing weight and seemed depressed. 

Blood and urine tests showed that Jacko had become a Diabetic and would require insulin in addition to changing to a different type of immune-suppressive drug which would have less of an impact on his body’s sugar levels. 

Jacko’s mom was very patient and worked really hard to manage these two complicated diseases.  After much fine-tuning, Jacko’s Pemphigus is in remission and his Diabetes is under control with a very low dose of insulin.  Today he is happy and healthy and enjoys chasing the other cats in his family around the house.