Help With Diabetic Kitty

I'm wondering if anyone has had similar problems with their diabetic kitty, and if anyone has any advice.

My cat was diagnosed with diabetes just before Christmas 2012. He was initially put on FMB (I think that's the name of the insulin from my vet's office) 3 units twice daily and changed him to a high protein/low carb diet. He is a massive cat, not weight wise, but rather size. My vet has said he is one of the biggest in her practice. Anyway, he didn't respond to the 3 units so he was increased to 4, then again no response and increased to 5 units. After failure on 5 units, I took him for an over night glucose curve. His sugar readings were still over 500 even with insulin therapy. The vet recommended switching to lantus and assured me that this should do the trick. He started out on 2 units of lantus, again because of his abnormally large size. He seemed to be improving a bit, but wasn't to where he needs to be. He was increased to 3 units. I saw improvement for about 2 weeks then he went back to the days when he was not being treated. He drinks and urinates excessively. This has never improved, though for the 2 weeks where he was showing improvement he was making an honest effort to get to a litter box before he had an accident on the floor. Now my floors look like they have little lakes forming on them at all hours of the day and night. I took him back to the vet for a glucose curve Wednesday and his sugar is still over 500. He also had a cushing's test and that was within normal range. My vet is looking at other reasons as to why he isn't responding to insulin as there may be a secondary disease. The next set is growth hormone testing and an abdominal ultrasound. Most people are telling me to just put him to sleep, but I feel like I would only be doing that out of convenience for myself and I do not want to let him go unless he is suffering. Has anyone had a similar experience? If so, what was your treatment options and diagnosis? Any advice? I'm getting pretty desperate.

Ok don't worry, we can help. I thnk there are lots of things we can look at here to try and get him regulated, even if he is a high dose cat but let's see if we can confirm a few things first.

First, what food exactly are you feeding? Brand/ flavour , wet or dry?

Second, when your vet did the blood test, did he mention "fructosamine" after sending the blood to the lab or did he just give you the result then and there?

Lastly we need to get a better daily picture of what is going on... Are you willing to home test? Problem with vet curves is that he cat can be so stressed that the blood sugar is high and it gives you an inaccurate picture of what's going on. You will learn so much more, and cheaper by home testing.

A few other questions.. Is he on steroids? Any sign of a urinary tract infection (also can cause accidents)? How are his teeth?

Wendy

Welcome to LantusLand, the best place you never wanted to be. I'm sorry that your kitty has diabetes. How much does he weigh? What should he weigh?
Liz
ETA: it's also helpful (necessary, really) if you can set up a spreadsheet with your kitty's BG readings. Here are the instructions.

Welcome!

Perhaps you mean NPH insulin? That doesn't work well in cats as it wears off 6-8 hours after being given. If you give it every 12 hours, there will be 4-6 hours without any working insulin.

If you're already giving insulin, please hometest to keep your cat safe. Using a human glucometer, you want the glucose to stay above 50; below that becomes hypoglycemia which can kill quickly. Additionally, about 240-280 is where glucose will start spilling into the urine; staying below that is better for the body.

Urine testing can identify ketones, a by-product of fat breakdown. Too many ketones become diabetic ketoacidosis, an expensive to treat (hospitalization required), potentially fatal complication of diabetes. This is most likely to happen with an infection, plus not eating, plus not enough insulin. See my signature link Secondary Monitoring Tools for info on to do this.

Hello and Welcome. Some questions first, what is your name and that of your kitty?

I have a cat that was diagnosed with a high dose condition, actually she has two of them, one is called acromegaly which a benign tumor on the pituitary gland and the other is insulin auto antibodies (IAA). The blood test for the growth hormone, or more properly Insulin-lIke Growth Factor-1 (IGF-1) is the one that tests for acromegaly. There used to be a test for growth hormone, but it is no longer available.

But we usually don't consider testing for high dose conditions until we know that cats have safely arrived at a high dose. With Lantus, we do not increase by 1 unit at a time, we increase by .25 or .5 unit, depending on blood sugar levels. Cats that are overdose can also have high blood sugar levels. We also consider other things that have been mentioned like correct diet, whether there are other signs of infection, whether a dental is needed, etc. Finally, even if the cat is a high dose cat, as they closer to the right dose, the drinking and peeing does improve. Adding an extra litter box or two around the place helped at my place.