M&DrD
Member Since 2022
hi all,
First of all I want to thank you for this incredible resource and community -- I have been reading and researching here since 2018, when Dr Doom was initially diagnosed with diabetes. I'll give you some history and bring you up to speed on where we're at today.
She is a beautiful brown tabby and is roughly 18? My partner and I got her from the Humane Society as a kitten in 2003 or 2004, it's a bit hazy since it was so long ago. She's virtually always been overweight, and eating food is her fave thing to do -- we've tried to at least make sure she was eating decent food in the last ten years, but before that we were students and didn't really have the means, or knowledge :/ We've learned a lot in the past nearly twenty years.
We also have another cat, Megatron (we thought giving cute fluffy kitties evil supervillain names was hilarious), who is a year or two younger than Dr D. Both cats now have kidney disease, Dr D is in late Stage 3 and Megatron is in late Stage 2, I think. We've learned a lot from Tanya's site as well: https://www.felinecrf.org/
So in 2018, we started to notice Dr Doom drinking a LOT more water, and that her legs had become rough looking and were slipping out from under her. Occasionally she missed a few jumps, and we were worried. We took her to the vet and Dr Doom was diagnosed with diabetes. At the time her numbers were super, super high. Like in the 800s or higher (40s mmol/L (I'm in Canada but will convert to US numbers as requested)). The vet put her on a special diet and Caninsulin, and she did very well on it (going into remission in 2019). We dove into this site and learned a lot, including how to do at home glucose testing (with the AlphaTrak), which was rocky at first but is now so easy and quick, just like you all said it would be. We also gave her Zobaline, which helped with her diabetic neuropathy a TON. This site was a godsend in a really uncertain time, so thank you very much <3
We moved in 2019, which was probably pretty stressful for the cats, but almost immediately we saw that they are so much happier in the new place, there's more room for them and they don't get in each others' way as much
Dr Doom's diabetes came back a little, but we got it back under control. Her diabetes was managed well for a while, and we only checked her blood glucose once every other week -- and it was so good for almost a year, that we didn't need to give her any more Caninsulin (this is when the vet said it was in remission). We were so proud of our beautiful little trouper! Our new vet clinic is great, the whole team really cares about the animals they treat and we feel they are pretty supportive (actually they just called to check in today, even though I hadn't gotten in touch yet -- more on that later).
Dr Doom was diagnosed with kidney disease in August 2020, when she basically stopped eating much and we had to bring her in to the vet for a comprehensive check up. I think her diabetes started to come back a little then too, maybe from the stress? But her numbers were not high enough to be too much of a concern. Since then she's been eating her new renal food and doing ok, but occasionally her diabetes has been flaring up -- we have zero clue what causes this.
In February 2021, she had severe constipation and we had to take her to the emergency vet (who prescribed Restoralax and subcutaneous fluids every other day), and they told us after doing a test that she had had elevated blood sugar for at least a week as well. They gave her a new insulin, glargine. We started testing every week and found it to be slightly elevated occasionally. Elevations increased in frequency, so we tested more often. We gave her 0.5 units of insulin as directed by the vet when it was over 300 -- this was very sporadic. Many days it was in the 220-280 range both times, some days lower. Over the past year her appetite has waxed and waned due to the kidney disease, and we periodically give her Cerenia and cyproheptadine, but overall we felt like we were juggling everything ok, we had developed strategies and we felt reasonably comfortable with everything.
About a month ago, right before the holidays, Dr Doom suddenly stopped eating much, was weak and stumbling, and her BG was elevated to roughly 400 consistently, so we brought her in to the vet. They kept her there for 3-4 days assessing and testing, did a new BG curve, and thought the anorexia problem might be due to her teeth, which were terrible -- she didn't really crunch food in her life, just swallowing it whole, so her teeth had a lot of tarter/etc. We all decided to go forward with the dental surgery (which we had been trying to do for her for many years, but they wanted to get the diabetes managed first, and then there were concerns about her age, and then the kidney disease too, and the pandemic delayed the surgery as well) and they removed many teeth, but it turned out she also had a bone infection, which they said could have caused her BG to be elevated.
So they put her on some antibiotics and buprenorphine as well, and sent her home on Dec 18. Over about two weeks she recovered well from the surgery and that infection. BG still elevated but they said if it is still elevated to around 400 consistently both in the morning and evening, we can give her 1 unit in the morning and 0.5 at night, which we did a couple of times. Every time we gave her insulin, we checked again after about an hour and logged her BG. Out of practice, we didn't really realize we probably should have been checking it later than that to get a better idea of her levels.
Jan 2 of this year, she was great. Happy, sitting with us and purring, eating well, walking around lots, and generally looking great. But then, Jan 3, she was weak and stumbling again and not really eating (drinking a ton though). We weren't totally sure what the issue was, so we did what we normally do and tested her BG, gave her Cerenia and cyproheptadine, and got out every single type of canned and dry food we had to offer to her, in all possible combinations, but she still wasn't very interested. We resorted to Fancy Feast, and she would eat a little, and maybe a DM kibble or two here and there. We were really concerned...we thought the worst. The vet squeezed us in for a flurry of tests on Wednesday Jan 5 to check all her numbers, and discovered when taking some urine that it was cloudy, which after another test it was discovered was due to ANOTHER infection.
They gave us different antibiotics (which she will be on for 3 weeks), more buprenorphine, and said to increase the frequency of her subQ fluids until the end of the weekend -- and overall didn't seem too concerned, which was encouraging. They expected her to seem much better by this coming Monday (Jan 10). Since then she has indeed been making small improvements every day: slightly less weak, slightly less stumbly, grooming a little again (she stops when she's not feeling well), purring, eating better. If we offer her food every hour, she will eat some of it, which eases our worries a lot, and she will get up on her own to eat some occasionally as well. But, her BG is still a little elevated, between 400-500 every day at least once, and feels less in control now. After consulting with the vet, they said if it's above or near 400 we can give her 1 unit in the morning and the evening, but to monitor/recheck her BG to make sure she doesn't get hypoglycemic.
Last night her BG was 385, so we decided to give her 1 unit at about 7:30. Her numbers had been so high we were not worried at all. We checked two hours later and it was 220. We checked again when we were going to go to bed, at 11pm, and it had fallen to 180. We hadn't seen it this low in a while (probably because we didn't time our checks correctly), and got very worried. We tested again in an hour, it had fallen to 140. I'll be honest, we started to panic a little. We got her to eat a little and checked again at half hour intervals, watching it fall to 122, then 105. The idea that it was in freefall was terribly scary (though that is not what was happening in reality, it was hard to shake) -- we had had a lot of brushes with the possibility of her dying due to all the recent problems she's had...I think our nerves are a bit frayed at this point. We know that she is an old kitty and we may not have much time left with her, but we're still trying to delay that inevitability as long as we can keep her quality of life high!
So, we kept encouraging her to eat, and gave her a little honey just as a precaution, while carefully monitoring for symptoms of hypoglycemia -- she did NOT have any obvious ones, no vomiting, shaking, seizures, nothing weird, but she is pretty lethargic due to the infection, the buprenorphine etc. So we couldn't be sure, and it was really scary. We were ready to go to the emergency vet if necessary. We stayed up with her until about 3:30, checking every half hour until her numbers started to go up again consistently: we saw 120, then 110, then 122, then 180, then 200. So we felt confident at that point that it was past peak insulin effect and we could relax a bit. But it was a roller coaster I'd rather not be on again. I suspect we will err on the side of caution after this, and only give her 0.5 units at night when her BG is over 400, since we can't monitor her much. We need to learn more and do better...
Anyway so that's where we are today. kind of a mess but trying to keep it together. I made this account last night to post a panicked help thread, but I tried (only somewhat successfully) to stay calm and read more instead. I read https://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/dont-panic-or-how-to-handle-low-numbers.210109/ and
https://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/letter-from-your-kitty-to-you-during-this-time.131186/ and they helped.
Today I decided to post this so if we need help later, at least I'll have some info down. Thank you again for this community and resource -- even just knowing that there are others going through similar things and helping each other gives me a lot of hope. Honestly I know we're so lucky -- we have two great cat friends and can afford to take them to the vet right now (I do wish we'd bought pet insurance though, sigh), and in general we're doing ok. We're hopeful we have a good chunk of time left with Dr Doom(and Megatron!) and can help make her life as wonderful as possible <3
ps I'm so sorry, I didn't meant to write a book! I hope that is ok. In future posts I will keep it short and sweet!
First of all I want to thank you for this incredible resource and community -- I have been reading and researching here since 2018, when Dr Doom was initially diagnosed with diabetes. I'll give you some history and bring you up to speed on where we're at today.
She is a beautiful brown tabby and is roughly 18? My partner and I got her from the Humane Society as a kitten in 2003 or 2004, it's a bit hazy since it was so long ago. She's virtually always been overweight, and eating food is her fave thing to do -- we've tried to at least make sure she was eating decent food in the last ten years, but before that we were students and didn't really have the means, or knowledge :/ We've learned a lot in the past nearly twenty years.
We also have another cat, Megatron (we thought giving cute fluffy kitties evil supervillain names was hilarious), who is a year or two younger than Dr D. Both cats now have kidney disease, Dr D is in late Stage 3 and Megatron is in late Stage 2, I think. We've learned a lot from Tanya's site as well: https://www.felinecrf.org/
So in 2018, we started to notice Dr Doom drinking a LOT more water, and that her legs had become rough looking and were slipping out from under her. Occasionally she missed a few jumps, and we were worried. We took her to the vet and Dr Doom was diagnosed with diabetes. At the time her numbers were super, super high. Like in the 800s or higher (40s mmol/L (I'm in Canada but will convert to US numbers as requested)). The vet put her on a special diet and Caninsulin, and she did very well on it (going into remission in 2019). We dove into this site and learned a lot, including how to do at home glucose testing (with the AlphaTrak), which was rocky at first but is now so easy and quick, just like you all said it would be. We also gave her Zobaline, which helped with her diabetic neuropathy a TON. This site was a godsend in a really uncertain time, so thank you very much <3
We moved in 2019, which was probably pretty stressful for the cats, but almost immediately we saw that they are so much happier in the new place, there's more room for them and they don't get in each others' way as much
Dr Doom's diabetes came back a little, but we got it back under control. Her diabetes was managed well for a while, and we only checked her blood glucose once every other week -- and it was so good for almost a year, that we didn't need to give her any more Caninsulin (this is when the vet said it was in remission). We were so proud of our beautiful little trouper! Our new vet clinic is great, the whole team really cares about the animals they treat and we feel they are pretty supportive (actually they just called to check in today, even though I hadn't gotten in touch yet -- more on that later).Dr Doom was diagnosed with kidney disease in August 2020, when she basically stopped eating much and we had to bring her in to the vet for a comprehensive check up. I think her diabetes started to come back a little then too, maybe from the stress? But her numbers were not high enough to be too much of a concern. Since then she's been eating her new renal food and doing ok, but occasionally her diabetes has been flaring up -- we have zero clue what causes this.
In February 2021, she had severe constipation and we had to take her to the emergency vet (who prescribed Restoralax and subcutaneous fluids every other day), and they told us after doing a test that she had had elevated blood sugar for at least a week as well. They gave her a new insulin, glargine. We started testing every week and found it to be slightly elevated occasionally. Elevations increased in frequency, so we tested more often. We gave her 0.5 units of insulin as directed by the vet when it was over 300 -- this was very sporadic. Many days it was in the 220-280 range both times, some days lower. Over the past year her appetite has waxed and waned due to the kidney disease, and we periodically give her Cerenia and cyproheptadine, but overall we felt like we were juggling everything ok, we had developed strategies and we felt reasonably comfortable with everything.
About a month ago, right before the holidays, Dr Doom suddenly stopped eating much, was weak and stumbling, and her BG was elevated to roughly 400 consistently, so we brought her in to the vet. They kept her there for 3-4 days assessing and testing, did a new BG curve, and thought the anorexia problem might be due to her teeth, which were terrible -- she didn't really crunch food in her life, just swallowing it whole, so her teeth had a lot of tarter/etc. We all decided to go forward with the dental surgery (which we had been trying to do for her for many years, but they wanted to get the diabetes managed first, and then there were concerns about her age, and then the kidney disease too, and the pandemic delayed the surgery as well) and they removed many teeth, but it turned out she also had a bone infection, which they said could have caused her BG to be elevated.
So they put her on some antibiotics and buprenorphine as well, and sent her home on Dec 18. Over about two weeks she recovered well from the surgery and that infection. BG still elevated but they said if it is still elevated to around 400 consistently both in the morning and evening, we can give her 1 unit in the morning and 0.5 at night, which we did a couple of times. Every time we gave her insulin, we checked again after about an hour and logged her BG. Out of practice, we didn't really realize we probably should have been checking it later than that to get a better idea of her levels.
Jan 2 of this year, she was great. Happy, sitting with us and purring, eating well, walking around lots, and generally looking great. But then, Jan 3, she was weak and stumbling again and not really eating (drinking a ton though). We weren't totally sure what the issue was, so we did what we normally do and tested her BG, gave her Cerenia and cyproheptadine, and got out every single type of canned and dry food we had to offer to her, in all possible combinations, but she still wasn't very interested. We resorted to Fancy Feast, and she would eat a little, and maybe a DM kibble or two here and there. We were really concerned...we thought the worst. The vet squeezed us in for a flurry of tests on Wednesday Jan 5 to check all her numbers, and discovered when taking some urine that it was cloudy, which after another test it was discovered was due to ANOTHER infection.
They gave us different antibiotics (which she will be on for 3 weeks), more buprenorphine, and said to increase the frequency of her subQ fluids until the end of the weekend -- and overall didn't seem too concerned, which was encouraging. They expected her to seem much better by this coming Monday (Jan 10). Since then she has indeed been making small improvements every day: slightly less weak, slightly less stumbly, grooming a little again (she stops when she's not feeling well), purring, eating better. If we offer her food every hour, she will eat some of it, which eases our worries a lot, and she will get up on her own to eat some occasionally as well. But, her BG is still a little elevated, between 400-500 every day at least once, and feels less in control now. After consulting with the vet, they said if it's above or near 400 we can give her 1 unit in the morning and the evening, but to monitor/recheck her BG to make sure she doesn't get hypoglycemic.
Last night her BG was 385, so we decided to give her 1 unit at about 7:30. Her numbers had been so high we were not worried at all. We checked two hours later and it was 220. We checked again when we were going to go to bed, at 11pm, and it had fallen to 180. We hadn't seen it this low in a while (probably because we didn't time our checks correctly), and got very worried. We tested again in an hour, it had fallen to 140. I'll be honest, we started to panic a little. We got her to eat a little and checked again at half hour intervals, watching it fall to 122, then 105. The idea that it was in freefall was terribly scary (though that is not what was happening in reality, it was hard to shake) -- we had had a lot of brushes with the possibility of her dying due to all the recent problems she's had...I think our nerves are a bit frayed at this point. We know that she is an old kitty and we may not have much time left with her, but we're still trying to delay that inevitability as long as we can keep her quality of life high!
So, we kept encouraging her to eat, and gave her a little honey just as a precaution, while carefully monitoring for symptoms of hypoglycemia -- she did NOT have any obvious ones, no vomiting, shaking, seizures, nothing weird, but she is pretty lethargic due to the infection, the buprenorphine etc. So we couldn't be sure, and it was really scary. We were ready to go to the emergency vet if necessary. We stayed up with her until about 3:30, checking every half hour until her numbers started to go up again consistently: we saw 120, then 110, then 122, then 180, then 200. So we felt confident at that point that it was past peak insulin effect and we could relax a bit. But it was a roller coaster I'd rather not be on again. I suspect we will err on the side of caution after this, and only give her 0.5 units at night when her BG is over 400, since we can't monitor her much. We need to learn more and do better...
Anyway so that's where we are today. kind of a mess but trying to keep it together. I made this account last night to post a panicked help thread, but I tried (only somewhat successfully) to stay calm and read more instead. I read https://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/dont-panic-or-how-to-handle-low-numbers.210109/ and
https://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/letter-from-your-kitty-to-you-during-this-time.131186/ and they helped.
Today I decided to post this so if we need help later, at least I'll have some info down. Thank you again for this community and resource -- even just knowing that there are others going through similar things and helping each other gives me a lot of hope. Honestly I know we're so lucky -- we have two great cat friends and can afford to take them to the vet right now (I do wish we'd bought pet insurance though, sigh), and in general we're doing ok. We're hopeful we have a good chunk of time left with Dr Doom(and Megatron!) and can help make her life as wonderful as possible <3
ps I'm so sorry, I didn't meant to write a book! I hope that is ok. In future posts I will keep it short and sweet!
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