Dottie's pooping fine. Part of her nausea is due to not drinking much..and I can remedy that with fluid. But she's had chronic stomatitis, in the past, and I'm wondering if there's still a bit of that lingering. Either that or she's slow in healing because of her diabetes..Or it could just be the stress of getting endless ear pokes and my insisting that she eat by stuffing her like a goose. No syringe, only a finger full of food at a time, with lots of pets in between. But Dottie has always been very sensitive..she stresses out very easily.
She lived with intense stress for years..all our kitties have..first a house fire next door, (the house burned down in less than an hour!)....and our house was caught up in some of the fallout from that...we had to evacuate our home, throwing the cats in crates and passing them from person to person outside...they were stored in our van while the fire department put out the fire....then heavy equipment to remove the burnt out house...lots of noise...and THEN, after everything became quiet, the State decided to tear apart the bridge overpass only 60 yards from our house...HUGE equipment making noise from dawn to late evening for that...and THEN, we have a river dike behind our house, and the bank of that dike was planted with trees...so the state came in with HEAVY EQUIPMENT AGAIN..and tore out the trees because they were causing issues with the solidarity of the dike.
All this in the space of two and a half years. Our house's floors and walls shook constantly from the rumble of heavy traffic during all good weather. It was like living in an active earthquake zone. Dust and dirt, and from the burnt out house when it was torn down..mold and that awful burnt house smell. And when it rained, the smell was terrible from next door..strangers walking up and down in front of our living room window..which is only 20 feet from the road. People banging on the door because they needed permission to go through the yard...heck
I was a mess. Our cats took a real hit.
AND to top it off, we had a young kitty, Peekaboo, who disliked Dottie, (jealous)..and made it her business to hunt her at every opportunity. In spite of all our efforts, Dottie would occasionally get bushwhacked, so I became her guardian angel, fending off the other cat. Peekaboo is gone, now..passed away..but I suspect that Dottie, as a result of all this, has a whopping case of PTSD, just like a human would if placed in the middle of a battle zone. She's only had peace in the last year..but her body is still on Red Alert, and I think this is part of what drove her into diabetes.
But things are looking up.
I have good news on the big D...for the past couple of days, I've only been giving a drop of insulin instead of her .5 u. I actually can't shoot at times, because... Her numbers have been steadily going down! Right now she's never above 185 after eating, with her fasting numbers in the 80 to 101 range with a dip below that on occasion. And each day it seems to get a teeeeny bit better. Because her mouth has been sore, she hasn't tried to snitch the dry that Gizmo was eating..and now I have Young Again out..so there's no carbs to muddle up her system. She's only been getting FF diluted with a bit of water and a little pumpkin, so this is improving her numbers drastically.
I haven't been earpoking as much, and that seems to help her stress level. I just worry that I haven't been catching a possible nausea issue..either stomatitis or just plain reflux from anxiety. I had believed her gaping was due to pain in the back of her mouth and throat...and it occurred to me yesterday that IF she was actually nauseated..I was dismissing the possibility and passing it off as mouth pain.
I picked up the Pepcid, and will give it to her before her evening meal...our wake times are skewed. I'll let you know if it helps.
Oh yeah, addendum. In addition to all of the above..Dottie had severe stomatitis and tooth resorption. Now that is gone, as well as the noise and flack from the fire and construction...so her life is suddenly nice and peaceful, except for the ear poking, injections, and not being able to hold food in her mouth long enough to swallow.
