New Diabetes Diagnosis after DKA

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Autum

Autum

Member Since 2022
Hello everyone!

My cat Tom was hospitalized for four days due to DKA. She was misdiagnosed by our local vet and was very ill. She is home now, and despite working in endocrinology myself, I am very nervous about the whole thing. She is currently wearing a libre sensor, which are pretty great and I get them free from work. Her BG remains pretty high right now 304-400. The vet said it may take a couple weeks to start to normalize. She is on 2 units twice daily of prozinc.

How long did it take for you guys to see a normalized blood glucose level after initial high readings?

Thanks!!!!
 
Hi and welcome to the forum. I’m so sorry your kitty has been so ill.
After DKA it’s really important that you are feeding Tom one and a half times as many calories as he would normally eat. So I would suggest giving a good Preshot meal and then offer snacks of low carb food every couple of hours.
Is she managing to eat OK? A lot is post DKA kitties are nauseated. If you think she is nauseated and not eating enough food, I would ask the vet for an antinausea medication such as cerenia or ondansetron. Ondansetron is better for nausea. The vet will need to write you a script for the ondansetron and you buy it from the human pharmacy.
It’s really important she eats , so feed her whatever she will eat if she is refusing what you offer.

It is also really important you are testing for ketones daily in the urine. You can buy a bottle of Ketostix from Walmart or a pharmacy and follow the directions on the bottle. You will need to collect a urine sample from Tom each time.

I see you have a libre sensor insitue at the moment. You might like to look at buying a human meter for when the sensor runs out. It is also not reliable when the cat drops into low numbers I have found. You can buy a ReliOn Premier human meter from Walmart for $9. You will also need a box of test strips for $17.88 and a box of lancets to prick the ear size 26 or 28 gauge. And some cotton rounds to hold behind the ear when you test.

Also I would add a teaspoon of warm water to all the snacks if Tom will eat it like that, to add extra fluids.

I would also recommend you set up a spreadsheet to put in the blood glucose data once you are home testing and a signature which will tell us all about Tom.
I will send you a link with the information how to do this. If you have any trouble with it just let me know and I will get @Bandit's Mom to help you with it.

I am going to tag @FrostD as she uses Prozinc. If you could get the spreadsheet set and add as much data from the sensor as possible that will help us help you. We will be able to help you with dosing and getting Tom into better numbers with that information.
Bron
 
Bron and Sheba (GA) said:
Hi and welcome to the forum. I’m so sorry your kitty has been so ill.
After DKA it’s really important that you are feeding Tom one and a half times as many calories as he would normally eat. So I would suggest giving a good Preshot meal and then offer snacks of low carb food every couple of hours.
Is she managing to eat OK? A lot is post DKA kitties are nauseated. If you think she is nauseated and not eating enough food, I would ask the vet for an antinausea medication such as cerenia or ondansetron. Ondansetron is better for nausea. The vet will need to write you a script for the ondansetron and you buy it from the human pharmacy.
It’s really important she eats , so feed her whatever she will eat if she is refusing what you offer.

It is also really important you are testing for ketones daily in the urine. You can buy a bottle of Ketostix from Walmart or a pharmacy and follow the directions on the bottle. You will need to collect a urine sample from Tom each time.

I see you have a libre sensor insitue at the moment. You might like to look at buying a human meter for when the sensor runs out. It is also not reliable when the cat drops into low numbers I have found. You can buy a ReliOn Premier human meter from Walmart for $9. You will also need a box of test strips for $17.88 and a box of lancets to prick the ear size 26 or 28 gauge. And some cotton rounds to hold behind the ear when you test.

Also I would add a teaspoon of warm water to all the snacks if Tom will eat it like that, to add extra fluids.

I would also recommend you set up a spreadsheet to put in the blood glucose data once you are home testing and a signature which will tell us all about Tom.
I will send you a link with the information how to do this. If you have any trouble with it just let me know and I will get @Bandit's Mom to help you with it.

I am going to tag @FrostD as she uses Prozinc. If you could get the spreadsheet set and add as much data from the sensor as possible that will help us help you. We will be able to help you with dosing and getting Tom into better numbers with that information.
Bron
Click to expand...
Wow thanks so much for the information!! She is eating well. She stabalized really well in the hospital in regards to eating and drinking. I can also get free meters from work as well for BG testing. I am very blessed in that area. It's just all so overwhelming!
 
For now, can you share screenshots of the last 3 days Libre data?

What is current diet?

With a post DKA cat it is crucial to stay on top of insulin increases as needed (I can help with this, we have a sticky that explains but it's a bit of info overload at first). For now we want the nadir between 90-120, and will look to increase the dose by 0.25U every 3-5 days depending on numbers.

Like Bron said the Libres tend to read artificially low once you get under 100, and they're pretty bad under like 60-ish (it'll tell you LO and make you panic, but a cross check with handheld may turn out to be just fine). So we always recommend double checking any low numbers with a handheld meter.
 
Autum said:
Wow thanks so much for the information!! She is eating well. She stabalized really well in the hospital in regards to eating and drinking. I can also get free meters from work as well for BG testing. I am very blessed in that area. It's just all so overwhelming!
Click to expand...
It is overwhelming in the beginning especially when the kitty has had DKA as well. But hang in there, you have come to the best possible place for help and support.
You are lucky to be able to get free sensors and meters. Are they pet or human meters? The human meters are fine.
Please let us know when you get a ketones test result. When you get the spreadsheet up and running we encourage you to put the results of the ketone tests in to the remarks column.
 
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