Warren - 5/29/2000 - 7/1/2016 rest in peace my furry friend

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Love the KT salute story.

Seems I jinxed Warren. He pooped on the floor in the kitchen overnight and the wife is back in putting him to sleep mode. Told he she needs to give the Prozac some time to work. His numbers were also high last night (compared to recent readings), but I was also running 75 minutes late.
 
That's good. :) I started Saoirse on Zobaline a few days ago. It gave her a definite boost. Fingers and paws crossed it will help Warren, too. I worry a lot about ye.
:bighug:


Mogs
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robr said:
I desperately need help. I will refer you to a couple of threads and then summarize where am at:

Intro forum:
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/meet-warren-again.136271/#post-1424641

Lantus forum:
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/5-4-warren-amps-518.137335/

Warren was diagnosed with diabetes a bit over a year ago. He was on Vetsulin for a couple of months and went into remission for almost a year. When he started having problems again, I had a full lab workup done, urinalysis, blood, physical, etc and my vet said the only health issue Warren has is his diabetes. In Warren's 15 years, he has NEVER had issues with behavior... problems using the litter box, etc.

I put him back on Vetsulin but it did not last more than 8 or 9 hours. After perhaps a month of Vetsulin, I switched him to Lantus (a month ago). In that month I have not been able to regulate him. 1 unit pushes his blood sugar too low (40s) and the Lantus can last as long as 16 hours. 0.75 (approx, no way to measure exactly) doesn't seem to be enough. You can examine the spreadsheet, I have probably 150 data points over the month and a couple of curves.

He has been peeing on the kitchen rug, so I placed a litter box about 5' away in the bathroom. When he is locked in the bathroom, he uses it 100% of the time. When I let him out, he uses the rug too often. My wife has sentenced him to living in the bathroom and wants me to have him put to sleep. She will not tolerate any more peeing outside the litter box. The ultimatum is coming and I feel like I'm just about out of things to try.

I believe the peeing problem is related to his diabetes being unregulated. His levels looked reasonably stable the past 48 hours (200s-300s - not great numbers but first time I've seen him out of 400s and 500s for this long of a stretch), I was hoping we were finally starting to stabilize, then he peed on the floor and I checked and he had bounced (556. First time he'd been over 400 in 48 hours).

My wife feels his peeing is behavioral since he has an option of a litter box 5' away from where he is going.

Warren does not seem stressed in any way. He's happy, purring, playful, sitting in laps, he's his normal self.

I need a plan I can communicate to my wife and be able to tell her 'if x,y,z doesn't work, I will have him put to sleep'. I don't know if he'd do better with Lenevir, that's one option, but from what I've read it seems when Lantus doesn't work, it's because it's not bringing down the glucose levels, which is not what I'm experiencing. I'm not in a position to throw a lot more $$ at shots in the dark, again my wife feels I have spent enough $$ already on an "old cat" (an awesome old cat) but I can probably get away with a few hundred. I just lost my Mom in March and really hate the idea of saying goodbye to another close friend when there may be a straightforward solution. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks everybody.
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Wow. Your wife sounds like a real compassionate sweetheart lol You just lost your MOM for crying out loud. Couldn't she be a little more understanding. (sorry..I had to lol) I am no expert but I would say its not behavioral..probably not feeling well and can't help it. Poor kitty. Uti? I wish you all the best. I understand this can cause problems ..in every way. No one will tell me when to put any of my pets to asleep
 
Another poop on the kitchen floor today :(. Damn damn damn. He does it on the hard wood floor in front of the back door (which is our main entrance we use for the house). Wife didn't notice it yesterday and ran over it with the door which makes it very hard to clean off the bottom of the door, I guess that would contribute to my crankiness as well. He's been on prozac for 8 days, I told my wife 3-4 weeks for the effects to start working, so as long as the accidents aren't happening every day, Warren and I have a bit of time. The no carb treats arrive today and hopefully the prozac helps once it kicks in. I got nothing else, his numbers are still looking good other than perhaps a 36 hour spike a couple days back (but still consistently under 400 for almost 2 weeks). I can't think of anything else I could be doing over the next few weeks. He's getting weekly B-12 now too.
 
If he has favorite spots, what I did with jane when she was peeing was I bought some of that plastic carpet protector. It is thick plastic and has little plastic "spikes" on the bottom side. I cut small squares of it and placed it spikey-side up over places she usually went to detract her from going there. They have it on rolls at most big-box stores, and you can buy it by the foot. If they do have an accident on it, you can rinse it off. This stuff: http://convention.issa.com/show08/D.../629/85061322-d824-4f31-8e9c-40a3e1a9923f.jpg
 
Thanks Meya, but wouldn't that just encourage them to go somewhere else that's not the litter box? Offering up something easy to clean to my wife is basically telling her that she will need to live with this problem and work around it. Unfortunately that won't fly. The only solution that's going to keep Warren alive is 99% litter box usage in such a way that won't disrupt our small home (ie, adding additional litterboxes or permanently removing rugs and such).

Warren has come so far since we all started this journey together, I think he's doing amazing and I am really hoping the prozac gets him to that 99%, but there's only so much he and I can do. He's an old guy, things just don't work the same when you get old, just ask my back :)
 
robr said:
Another poop on the kitchen floor today :(. Damn damn damn. He does it on the hard wood floor in front of the back door (which is our main entrance we use for the house).
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Rob, can you tell us more about Warren's nature. Is he an emotionally very sensitive cat? Also, is he an indoor-outdoor cat, or indoor only? Just to double-check, is Warren your only cat? Finally, are there any other neighbourhood cats that lurk around outside your house? If yes, how does Warren react when he sees/encounters them?


Mogs
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On regulation, is there any way that you can get some more mid-cycle tests for Warren, Rob? I've just had gander at his spreadsheet and I'm wondering whether those two recent pinks might be a bounce. If you could get a +2 or +3 on each AM and PM cycle that would be really helpful in terms of working out what the 0.6IU dose is doing mid-cycle.


Mogs
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Warren is a very confident cat and is generally the guy in charge. He is not aggressive at all, but the younger cats generally defer to him. All my cats are indoor only, they all have a great disposition and get along. We've adopted cats in the past where we found if we didn't have a good group dynamic, we've rehomed them, so it took a few cats and some time to come up with the balance we'd have the past several years.
We have four cats (ages 4, 4, 7 and 15).

We did have a problem a few months back with a neighborhood cat that would come up to our back door (where warren poops) and hang out on the back deck (and that cat would poop in our driveway every night).
I spoke with the owner and she kept her cat inside for a couple of weeks. She did start letting him out again but I have not seen him since.
Thinking about it, there are some other neighborhood cats that occasionally come by, there really is no way to stop that from happening. I live in a rental duplex and the woman on the other side has two indoor/outdoor cats that have easy access to our yard/deck.

I think you may be on to something here Critter, I'm just not sure how it can be addressed short of perhaps covering the lower part of the glass back door so Warren can't see outside. Even still, he can see out the windows in other areas of the house.... but only the back door would allow him to get face to face with another cat.
 
Thanks for that information, Rob. It's really valuable.

Here's something to consider. I have to keep my (younger) civvie completely separate now from Saoirse because she knows that Saoirse's poorly and she tries to attack her. From my reading, this is apparently not uncommon cat behaviour. I wonder whether Warren may be feeling vulnerable to other cats (both outside and at home)? The elimination of faeces at a doorway could be a territorial marking behaviour. (Cats can leave faeces deposits to mark territory boundaries.) The neighbourhood cat who pooped in the driveway was possibly 'sending a message' to Warren. (A kitty mafioso? :nailbiting:)

With regard to visibility of visiting cats, maybe try covering the bottom part of the back door with a black refuse sack (secure in place with masking tape) as a temporary measure to see if that may halt the pooping in that location? I have read about other cats with 'visitor anxiety' being helped when visual barriers are deployed.


Mogs
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Warren doesn't seem to feel vulnerable in any way, he is still clearly the boss with tail held high (and even bent backwards onto his back). But I don't know why I didn't think of the outside cat before. He was pooping several months back and it stopped after I got the neighbor to keep her cat away from our home. I'm so focused on Warren's health and diabetes, it just didn't occur to me that this could be something else. I have a security camera focused down the driveway triggered by motion, it might not be sensitive enough to trigger for a moving cat but I'm going to look the footage anyway and see if perhaps it caught any early morning visitors of late.


... heh.... skunk near the trash at 4:12am so far........ doubt the skunk went up on the desk and looked in our back door though :) - another skunk at 5:36am........... Warren can't see these guys.
 
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robr said:
... with tail held high (and even bent backwards onto his back) ...
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Tara, one of my first two rescues also had a double-jointed tail! (I miss her so ... :( )
robr said:
Warren doesn't seem to feel vulnerable in any way ...
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... but cats are notorious for hiding things from us. :rolleyes:

Fingers and paws crossed that the CCTV footage will yield more clues. I don't know whether such a thing exists but how about getting a cheap bluetooth webcam to monitor the area around the back door to see what might be triggering Warren's behaviour?


Mogs
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ah ha! let me check other mornings.

This guy arrived at 7:18 and left at 7:25, he was hanging out in our back yard (and perhaps deck) for 7 minutes.
 

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I can easily move one of my indoor window cameras and point it out a window toward the deck, they don't have IR, so no night vision, but it may yield something.
 
You could try deploying some form of cat repellent around the property. There's a UK product called Silent Roar that works well. There are UK sellers that offer it on ebay.com. Not sure whether there's an equivalent product in the US. It is made up of pellets soaked in "essence of lion dung". (Not making this up! :D) I used to use it to stop neighbourhood cats from soiling in the flower beds when I had a garden, and I found it very effective. There's no detectable whiff to humans.


Mogs
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Ha! Lion urine pellets, nice. Talked to the wife, she totally agrees this is caused by outside cats. She's going to order some translucent window film to put on the bottom of the back door and bathroom window that face the back yard. The past few days I've found Warren laying on top of the toilet seat in the downstairs bathroom. This is totally new for him and very odd. But if there's a cat hanging out on the deck, there's a good view from the toilet seat if the curtains are open. This could also explain that new behavior. I feel better. Thanks Critter!
 
robr said:
She's going to order some translucent window film to put on the bottom of the back door and bathroom window that face the back yard.
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An afterthought: I'd still try blocking the view through the back door with something opaque - at least temporarily. With a translucent covering, Warren may still be able to make out the shape of the visitor. The translucent covering for the bathroom window should be ideal because it will block line of sight (assuming that there's no outer windowsill upon which a visitor might park their uninvited feline hiney).

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Mogs, that's brilliant! :)
robr, just some stupid questions that you can ignore if the problem is now resolved (and sorry if you've already answered these questions, but I haven't followed the entirety of the thread). Are you using covered or uncovered litterboxes? If they are covered, I'd remove the lids. Have you tried different types of litter? Is the litter scented or unscented?
 
Critter Mom said:
The neighbourhood cat who pooped in the driveway was possibly 'sending a message' to Warren. (A kitty mafioso? :nailbiting:)
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For all the seriousness and travails of our poor dear Warren, I must admit I am laughing a huge belly laugh at your post, Mogs!! Especially the addition of the emoji, hilarious.
I'm sorry Rob :oops:
PS I wonder what confident Warren would say about all of this espionage on his lowly behalf? :cat:
 
Critter Mom said:
An afterthought: I'd still try blocking the view through the back door with something opaque - at least temporarily. With a translucent covering, Warren may still be able to make out the shape of the visitor. The translucent covering for the bathroom window should be ideal because it will block line of sight (assuming that there's no outer windowsill upon which a visitor might park their uninvited feline hiney).

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My god woman!! YOU'RE AWESOME!
 
robr said:
Thanks Meya, but wouldn't that just encourage them to go somewhere else that's not the litter box?
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Rob, I think what Meya was talking about was turning the plastic mat upside down, so that the little rubber spikes are on the top side, so that Warren won't like the feel of them on his on paws.
 
Hi Rob,

I just had a look at Warren's spreadsheet to see how he was doing. You need to reduce his dose. That 48 you got on the last AM cycle is under the hypo line and indicates the 0.6 units is now too strong for him. I recommend that you start a new thread on the Lantus & Levemir board to get some dosing advice (but at minimum reduce his dose by 0.25 units). The yellow PMPS may be a bounce.


Mogs
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Hi guys, I came to the same conclusion myself about reducing the dose, I will start a new post in the Lantus forum. I had intended to go down to 0.5, but I will seek their advice. He has not had his shot this morning as he was 54 @ +12

Warren has peed on the floor the past two days. yesterday on my wife's sandals which she accidentally left out (we've been trying to keep shoes off the floor), today just on the hardwood floor (in a new location than he ever has before). The question I was coming to ask is would too low of a BG also be a cause for accidents? He peed A LOT. Thought a mountain lion had gone in the kitchen, but he must still be drinking a ton of water.
 
Yes low numbers cause Dakota to pee in inappropriate places....I can always tell when he went way down overnight even if his amps was in the 200's - I have to clean up pee in 1 of 3 places....by the time I realize it, he's starting another bounce... :cool:
 
Just an update.... we haven't had a great week. Reducing the dosage from 0.6 (too high), down to approx 0.35 had us back in the 300s and 400s.
Brought it back up to 0.5. Numbers in the 100s and 200, but two pee accidents today.

I know you guys want numbers at +2, I'm just so exhausted and I guess I don't understand what difference they would make. The dose can't really be adjusted much, no matter what the numbers at +2 say. But why +2 and not +7-+9 (nadir)?

I've said his before and then you guys gave me a new burst of energy, but mentally I'm about ready to throw in the towel again. I've been fighting this battle since March. I feel pretty helpless as far as controlling the urine accidents, the wife is of course not understanding about them and I don't know how much energy I have left. I do agree with her that if I can't find a way to get the urination to happen in the litterbox 99% of the time, then Warren will have to be put to sleep. I've been trying for 6 months now to make this happen. I just feel like if I could get a handle on his BG numbers, that 99+% is possible. Maybe I'm just kidding myself.

FWIW, the pooping has completely stopped since covering the windows facing the deck. So that's one positive.
 
Hi Rob,

I really feel for you. :bighug:

I'm really pleased to hear the screening helped with the poop problem.

Warren's numbers have improved so much. At small doses tiny changes make a difference but get it right and it's a world of positive difference.

When circumstances make it difficult to get tests in the very middle of the cycle, +2s are very useful because they can give an early indication of where the cycles might be heading. They sometimes catch early nadirs (sometimes happens when dose is a bit on the high side).

Rob, can you let us know exactly what B12 treatment Warren has had to date? Also, can you let us know if he jumps up onto higher surfaces OK, particularly ones where he has to make a single jump to reach them.

I've had a bit of a rough week so I can't write much right now, but I will have a look at Warren's spreadsheet and post again in the next couple of days.

Hang in there. :bighug:



Mogs


EDITED TO ADD:

Wherever possible please can you keep a log of the time Warren has any accidents in his spreadsheet remarks. (e.g. accident at PM+5; accident during AM cycle, discovered at AM+9). It could give some leads as to what is happening.
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Tomorrow will be Warren's 3rd weekly B-12 shot. He has never been a counter/table cat, but if I were to put him on a counter, he has no problem jumping off. He also jumps into laps or window sills. They checked his hips at his physical back in April.

I do make notes as to his accident times, look at the purple shaded comments. Those are his accidents and they should all have notes about times, though not expressed in +x format.

Warren's AMPS was 54 this morning. It's so frustrating trying to get consistent doses and none of the air bubble techniques work to get out 100% of the air bubbles which is so critical when you have doses this small. Pretty sure at this point I've tried them all.
 
This may have already been discussed, don't remember the earlier parts of this thread, but have you tried Cat Attract litter? I have one (non-diabetic) cat who, for whatever reasons, just doesn't want to use a litter box, and the Cat Attract litter has really helped a lot. I get mine online, thru Chewy.com, but it's available thru other sources, as well, and I'm pretty sure you can get it at the larger pet store chains. There is also a litter additive you can get, I bought some but haven't tried it yet.

Just disregard this if it's already been discussed! :)
 
@robr - Thanks for the extra info. I was just wondering whether he might have a touch of neuropathy. I hear you on how tricky it is to measure small doses.
 
Thanks for checking. I need to update the spreadsheet, he hit some low numbers again yesterday, (high 40s), I had to skip a dose again because of that, but he was looking good this morning. No litterbox accidents since 8/30 (but every time I post something like this I jinx myself).

I started working with the micrometer yesterday to try to figure out measuring that way, but quickly realized I need a MUCH better magnifying glass. I think I'm going to order one of the head mounted 8x thingies someone else in this forum recommended.
 
Yep, the jinx is alive and well. He pooped by the back door today for the first time since we covered the back door and rear facing window so he can't see out. It's always fun when the family comes in through the back door and runs over the poop with the door. Cleaning the bottom of the door..... ewwww........... he's still having diarrhea. It's been months since I've seen a normal poop from the guy and it seems like the probiotic may cause pee accidents. I could try the probiotic a 3rd time I suppose.
 
Probably said and done but can you relocate the box? Luna does the evil deed on the ceramic floor in the bathroom about once a week but usually because we don't clean it well enough to her taste. I 'aim' the box so the poop is in a 'safe' corner and just pick it up and wipe it with a bleach wipe, nice and easy clean-up.
 
Have you tried plain mashed pumpkin for the diarrhoea. Either make your own...nothing added or buy a can of it..the plain pumpkin with no additives. Not the pie pumpkin. Try a half to a teaspoon twice a day. It helped my cat a lot. Freeze any leftovers in an ice cream tray and use as needed. You can continue it indefinitely as long as it works
Also have you had the urine tested for a UTI?
What are you cleaning the messes up with? I think some things attract cats to go there again ...but I am not sure what ones are the ones to avoid. Maybe someone else knows.

ETA........can you put something at the back door so that he can't actually poop there....eg a box or something similar. It would probably be a nuisance there but if it stopped him going there, it might be worth it. Just a thought.

Have you tried shutting him in a room with the litter box for a time? Not ideal but might help retrain him..just another thought.
 
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I'm wishing Warren and you and your family a nice weekend.

I would try to test more since he got that 47 on this dose recently.

I use Nature's Miracle Advanced Formula Just For Cats for clean up.
 
Warren has been having a lot of accidents of late, 4 in the last 8 days. I can't keep hoping I'm going to be able to fix this. I start a new job in a couple of weeks and will be leaving early in the AM and not getting home until very late and my wife isn't going to provide the medical and cleanup attention he requires. I told my wife to take Warren to the vet today and just get it done. His appointment is at 5pm. My heart is so broken. It's been a heck of a run these last 6 months and I learned a ton about diabetes. Thank you everybody, you have all been such a phenomenal support network.
 
Warren sharing his last last meal with Star. No carb dry cat treats which I'd been using to try to help him with his litterbox problems. :( :(

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