New Member - Nitai & JJ

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nitai

Member Since 2022
tl;dr -- My male cat diagnosed 2.5 months ago and his BG yet to be regulated. Meanwhile we're staying on high carbs (~40%) 'Hills z/d food sensitivities' dry food since we afraid his allergies will erupt again and will force us to use steroids-based treatment. Yesterday he started to show some worrisome sympthoms.

Cat's ID:
JJ, 9 Y/O, MALE, 6.2 kg, averege BG is about 340 mg/dl, recieving 4.5 units of Lantus.

Hello!, I'm Nitai, and my cat JJ was diagnosed last October after he demonstrated sympthoms of weight loss (dropped 3 kg) and excessive thirst.

Starting with 2 Units of Lantus and now arriving to 4.5, you may see a slight improovment in hig BG numbers, most notably affter the 25th of last Decenber, when we switched to syringes rather than pens to administer insulin, as our vet adviced us.

Though after reading some of the other members' expiriences and bg numbers I'm a beat less worry that he's yet to be regulated, I'd love some guidness and advice on what else can I do beside raise the dose every 2-3 weeks.

Unfortunately, his diet for the last 3-4 years consists of only high carbs (~40%) 'Hills z/d food sensitivities' dry food. We swithced from a generic dry food to this hypoallergenic due to allergic outbrakes resulting in excceive scratching, that were eliminated only with steroid and cone intervention. Consulting with our vet we decided to not switch his food right now, since the last thing we want now is another allergoc reaction... Do you think it's the right decision?

The last allergic outbreak took place in September. I don't know wether the steroid treatment he recieved then may have contributed to the appearance of diabetes.

Our method of treatment resembles the SLGS method I've been reading about here: Wer'e doing a BG curve after a week or two of administering a certain insulin dosage, and according to the (till now) unsatisfying resultes we raise the dose a bit - at first at 1 units intervals and now at 0.5.

A woorisome developent I should mention before I wrap this post up, is that for tha first time since he got diagnosed, it looks like he doesn't feel that well: He threw up yesterday morning and this morning, demonstrated somewat apathic beavior or at least he is behaving as though he lost some of his strength, acting less vibrent then he usually is (e.g not jumping on the fornitures trying to grab our food, not mewoing as loudly or as much, and less enthusiastic about eating the treats we give him along with the insulin shots) and maybe (I'm not sure!) took some havy breaths for at least 2 minutes while I was sitting alongside him a few hours ago. Vet said to update him if the heavy breath returns or if continuing to feel weak.

So this is JJ's situation, Would love to read your thoughts!
Here some smumerised Questions:
1. What should I make of the last days developent?
2. Should we go after changing his diet, or leave it be for now?

Thanks a lot, Nitai.
 
Hello and welcome. First question, are you home testing him for ketones? You can do this with something like Ketostix, that are put in the urine stream. A post on how to do this is here: Tips to catch and test a urine sample With a diabetic cat, lethargy, inappetance, and not a good insulin dose can be worrying. More details in this post: Ketones, Ketoacidosis, and Diabetic Cats: A Primer on Ketones I'm not saying that's it, just trying to eliminate it as a reason for him seeming off.

Is there any chance JJ would eat the wet food version of Z/D? While not ideal, it's better than the dry food version in terms of carbs. Longer term, I would look at trying different proteins to see if that helped. What food was he eating before hand? Chicken, fish, and beef are common allergens. I've seen a kitty switch to something like lamb and have her itchiness controlled. And the bonus is that you can usually find low carb versions of different proteins. But I'd start with trying a switch to wet food z/d if his skin can tolerate it and he'll eat it. Having said that, there are times a cat has to eat a certain food for other medical reasons, and we just work the insulin dose around that.

As for regulation, typically a cat eating dry food does follow SLGS here, but increase every week and not hold the dose longer than that. We also strongly suggest testing before each shot, to make sure it's safe to shoot, and getting a few more random spot checks to see how he's doing on a dose.
 
Hi and welcome! have you tried Zyrtec for the itchiness?
I have a kitty who gets episodes of itchy skin and a runny eye and I have found giving a 1/2 (5mg) of a 10 mg Zyrtec tablet settles it down usually over a few days. At one point she had the Zyrtec daily for months to keep it under control.

I feed her a raw diet which I make myself. Through a process of elimination I have found she is allergic to chicken and pork so I don’t feed those meats. She eats kangaroo, lamb and beef.
 
Thanks for your answers!
Some updates:
1. JJ is feeling better again today, I think that the lethargy episode is past us for the time being.
2. We're trying feeding him only the canned version of z/d hills today. I started tracking his BG levels at 16:30 local time (took off the dry-food bowl at 11:30 am) and the results quite phenomenal:
16:30 - 142
17:30 - 210

I'm not quite sure what make of it, as the carb content of the canned version isn't *that* lower from the dried one.

I think that for the next few days I'll try feeding him about 80 grams (translates to ~ 90 calories) of canned food during the days, and bring back the dry food for the nights. That way I will be able to control feeding times (he really likes the canned version so I'm affraid he will eat too much too fast), and also be able to monitor his BG whilst eating the canned food.
What do you think?

As for Zytrec, we didn't try it, but I think the vet did say something about it in the past... will check with him!
 
Just and update, feel free to share your thoughts:

A
We reached our best curve so far, after we made 3 changes a week ago (not ideal that we did all changes at once, won't happend again):
1. Increased dose from 4 U to 4.5.
2. moved to wet version of Hill's z/d.
3. moved from free feeding to 3 meals a day.

upload_2022-1-18_14-17-18.png


Vet recommended to not make further changes til another curve will be taken a week from now, since we made all changes at once, and should let kitty's body to get use to them.

B
Sometimes during last week BG pre-shot values were <250. First few times we skipped the shot, later on we waited 2 hrs and mesured BG again, and since it went up to safe levels we gave the shot. Read the thumb rules for low preshot values in the SLGS guide. Waiting for Vet to say what he thinks best way to act. But beside that, I'm not sure what to do with the next shot. If we shot regular amount 2 hours later then usual, is it ok to shot again 10 hrs later instead 12? (off course, only if BG nubers are safe)
 

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nitai said:
But beside that, I'm not sure what to do with the next shot. If we shot regular amount 2 hours later then usual, is it ok to shot again 10 hrs later instead 12? (off course, only if BG nubers are safe)
Click to expand...

No – it can act like a double dose.

To get back to your preferred shot times, you can do one of two things:

1. Shoot 15 minutes early each shot until you are back on track

Example:
9:45 pm
9:30 am.
9:15 pm
9:00 am
8:45 pm
8:30 am
8:15 pm
8:00 am

or
2. Shoot 30 minutes early on one of the daily shots (not both).

Whatever way you look at it, it will take a couple of days to get back to your preferred shot time.

I'll leave it other, more experienced, members look at your curves.
 
Hi again.
So for a few weeks now kitty is fed with wet food only, available in a bowl 24/7. We open between 3-4 cans a day, putting 1/4-1/2 can every time last batch was eaten. Problem is that the fresh and appetizing just-came-out-from can wet food quickly turns unappetizing grey goo. Kitty seems to prefer not to eat it if not fresh even if he's hungry. (though He's brother will eat it in any condition whatsoever).

Any tips for how to keep already served wet food fresh?
 
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