Questions about Adequan and gabapentin raising blood glucose?

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Robyn and Penny

Robyn and Penny

Member Since 2013
Good morning everybody! My Penny, who has been OTJ since Halloween 2013 after being on insulin for less than 2 months is most likely going back on insulin tomorrow. I'll spare you ALL the details but she has been treated for spinal arthritis pain and judging by her numbers, it's possible the gabapentin she was taking (40mg twice per day) has stopped working. I haven't tried Tramadol because I've heard it doesn't really work well for cats and some cats have had some really strange reactions. I did try buprenex for a couple of days and her numbers did not come down, which tells me maybe it's not pain jacking her up. In the meantime, she was treated with metronidazole for severe diarrhea and that is clearing up nicely now.

My question is she has also been getting Adequan injections twice per week and just completed week 3. Since it's a polysulfated glycosaminoglycan or a "sugar" amino acid, could that have jacked up her numbers?

Her teeth have been checked by several vets, her urine via clean catch at home did not show any UTI and she's eating, pl

She has been eating, playing, etc. She is showing diabetic symptoms though.

She has tested negative for ketones. I did get her vet to call in Levemir for her and heading out to pick up right now. My main question is that if anybody has any experience with Adequan and/or gabapentin raising their cats BGs. I did read blood sugar fluctuations is a "rare" side effect of gabapentin so I'm slowly taking her down by reducing 10mg every three days, so right now she's getting 60mg twice per day (we had her up to 80mg, which is max dose for pain).

I believe her SS is in my signature, but not so sure with this new format lol
 
Hi Robyn

Penny is a lovely looking cat and you obviously take very good care of her.

I can't offer any advice I'm afraid but I would suggest you edit your title to reflect your questions about those two medications. The edit button is at the top right of your first post. Hopefully others will be able to help
 
Our rule of thumb when treating comorbid conditions in the diabetic, is that you do what you need to do to manage those conditions and adjust the insulin dose around them. In other words, if she needs the Adequan for quality of life, continue it and add insulin as needed for hyperglycemia, whether it is due to the Adequan or something else.
 
phlika29 said:
Hi Robyn

Penny is a lovely looking cat and you obviously take very good care of her.

I can't offer any advice I'm afraid but I would suggest you edit your title to reflect your questions about those two medications. The edit button is at the top right of your first post. Hopefully others will be able to help
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Thanks! I'm still learning my way around the new board and I typically post on Facebook. I am loving how easy it was to upload the avatar...this was Penny's first "selfie" taken a couple of months ago lol
 
BJM said:
Our rule of thumb when treating comorbid conditions in the diabetic, is that you do what you need to do to manage those conditions and adjust the insulin dose around them. In other words, if she needs the Adequan for quality of life, continue it and add insulin as needed for hyperglycemia, whether it is due to the Adequan or something else.
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BJ..that's what Gayle said but I hate the fact that I lost her remission. She went into remission so quickly last year and maintained it for a year that myself and her vets were very reluctant to have to restart insulin but we can't seem to get these numbers down. Not sure if it's pain...her numbers didn't go down with buprenex but when we first found the arthritis and she started the gabapentin, her numbers went back down into her greens. This was in October. They stayed down for 3 weeks and then have been climbing steadily since. So not sure if the gaba stopped working or if I just lost her remission. She is a great actress so if she's in pain, unless the vet pushes just the right way on her spine, you'd never know it.

We are also working on weight loss, which I should have been stricter with when she went into remission to begin with. Really hoping to get her back there again but I hear it's very hard to achieve a 2nd remission. I feel like we "blew it" so to speak.
 
Give yourself a break. You can't control everything, you just do the best you can with what you have.
 
No...Beachbody coach. I help people lose weight through workout programs, my own experience with maintaining my weight loss for over 20 yrs and our nutritionals. yet I've always had fat cats. Seriously lol
 
My Neko also has spinal arthritis. We are in Canada so she gets Cartrophen instead of Adequan, but it's very similar. We have a number of kitties here on Adequan with no negative impacts on blood glucose. In fact, numbers go down as pain is addressed. Neko is now on long term maintenance buprenorphine (twice a day). It makes a big difference for her quality of life. We tried gabapentin for a while (up to 50 mg twice a day), but it didn't do anything other than make her sleepy,, no impact on blood sugar, so back to just buprenorphine. Another thing she's on is fish oil (anti inflammatory) and Hyaflex. Plus she's getting regular acupuncture which seems to be helping.
 
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Mine has severe arthritis and does adequan shots and buprenorphine...... neither raise her bg.

It's not out of the question to get back to remission. It could be something such as the company changed the formula of the food you are giving or even that
the food you use isn't as good as you think. We have updated food lists.
It could be needing a dental. or aging.... or some other health issue is developing.
 
Wendy&Neko said:
My Neko also has spinal arthritis. We are in Canada so she gets Cartrophen instead of Adequan, but it's very similar. We have a number of kitties here on Adequan with no negative impacts on blood glucose. In fact, numbers go down as pain is addressed. Neko is now on long term maintenance buprenorphine (twice a day). It makes a big difference for her quality of life. We tried gabapentin for a while (up to 50 mg twice a day), but it didn't do anything other than make her sleepy,, no impact on blood sugar, so back to just buprenorphine. Another thing she's on is fish oil (anti inflammatory) and Hyaflex. Plus she's getting regular acupuncture which seems to be helping.
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Buprenex would be $60 every 8 days here if she were to get .03ml twice per day. I don't have that kind of money but it def seems like the gabapentin isn't working. Her teeth were checked by four different vets and they look great according to them. She had a dental right after she went OTJ last year. So basically we are working on weight loss and hoping against hope the Adequan works for her! Weight loss will help more than anything. She's on Young Again Zero carb kibble and FF Classics wet but I did notice she gained 3lbs since starting the YA and Epigen 90 is 140cals less per cup, so I'm in the process of switching her to see if that helps. I know about kibble and I spent a year trying to transition and honestly, I work from home and can't get a thing done while they are begging for kibble day after day for a year! lol

I still haven't ruled out a UTI since they only tested from a clean catch I did at home and no culture was done. If her peeing doesn't slow down by the time I get her into the blues and greens again, then I'll know for sure and can ask for an AB.
 
RobynWilson said:
Virtual and in person weight loss coach BJ :)
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For everybody but my cat, apparently! lol!!
Wendy&Neko said:
My Neko also has spinal arthritis. We are in Canada so she gets Cartrophen instead of Adequan, but it's very similar. We have a number of kitties here on Adequan with no negative impacts on blood glucose. In fact, numbers go down as pain is addressed. Neko is now on long term maintenance buprenorphine (twice a day). It makes a big difference for her quality of life. We tried gabapentin for a while (up to 50 mg twice a day), but it didn't do anything other than make her sleepy,, no impact on blood sugar, so back to just buprenorphine. Another thing she's on is fish oil (anti inflammatory) and Hyaflex. Plus she's getting regular acupuncture which seems to be helping.
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I think with bupe being a controlled substance here, there would be no way for me to get it from a Canadian pharmacy. Honestly I had my ex husband die of a heroin overdose...I had a really hard time with the thought of Penny getting hooked on it but I don't even know if they can prescribe it enough here for her to be on it everyday. Opiates are a big problem in NJ and the docs are very limited with how often they can prescribe bupe. I have been taking her gabapentin dose down b/c she's had diarrhea that even metronidazole isn't clearing up. She was on 80mg twice per day and it didn't seem to be doing a thing. She starts her last week of twice per week Adequan injections tomorrow before she goes down to once per week for a month. Really hoping it starts to make a difference but I'm encouraged that it's helping your cat!
 
Wendy&Neko said:
My Neko also has spinal arthritis. We are in Canada so she gets Cartrophen instead of Adequan, but it's very similar. We have a number of kitties here on Adequan with no negative impacts on blood glucose. In fact, numbers go down as pain is addressed. Neko is now on long term maintenance buprenorphine (twice a day). It makes a big difference for her quality of life. We tried gabapentin for a while (up to 50 mg twice a day), but it didn't do anything other than make her sleepy,, no impact on blood sugar, so back to just buprenorphine. Another thing she's on is fish oil (anti inflammatory) and Hyaflex. Plus she's getting regular acupuncture which seems to be helping.
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Hey Wendy...do you feel the Hyaflex is helping? I have to order protein powder for me and they sell it at the Vitamin Shoppe, where I get my protein powder. Do you use the oral solution? Do you mix in food or give it via syringe? Is it really odorless and tasteless?
 
Have you tried using a timed feeder so they don't get too hungry?
And a bit of fish/krill oil has some natural anti_inflammatory effects. Perhaps some of that might help.
 
In Canada, bupe is also a controlled substance. I get my vet to write a prescription (she has to use a special form for it) and I take it to a compounding pharmacy. WAAAAAY cheaper and I get it in chicken flavor so it's easy to give. I pay about $100 for a three month supply. Hyaflex is a liquid and comes with a dropper so I just squirt it in her mouth. She doesn't seem to mind.
 
Wendy&Neko said:
In Canada, bupe is also a controlled substance. I get my vet to write a prescription (she has to use a special form for it) and I take it to a compounding pharmacy. WAAAAAY cheaper and I get it in chicken flavor so it's easy to give. I pay about $100 for a three month supply. Hyaflex is a liquid and comes with a dropper so I just squirt it in her mouth. She doesn't seem to mind.
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Wendy, I can't even find out a price from a compounding pharmacy unless my vet calls it in but he didn't even offer that as an option. Penny is only 6..I really would like to see what the Adequan and weight loss does before I attempt to go that route. We'll see what happens.
 
The thing is...if i saw her numbers going down with the bupe, I would consider it to keep her off insulin, but I tried a week of the bupe and her numbers just kept going up.

BJ..Penny is a social eater. This is why she won't eat all night till about 5am when she wakes one of us up to eat. She will only eat with a human present. And if we are in the same room but not on top of her, per se, she still won't eat unless we are sitting right there with her. She was bullied by the other cats at the rescue so not sure if that's why or because she was a show cat and a real foodie and they may have really restricted her eating at the rescue. I never did ask the director why she does this. I work from home so it's not a big issue unless I can't be home or have to go away. I have yet to figure out how to break her out of that. I've tried getting her started and then walking away a little more each time but she immediately stops eating.
 
I've heard of that but clueless how I would apply that to her eating. So she would be conditioned to eat when I use the clicker, but what if nobody is here to use the clicker? lol
 
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