Red83
Member Since 2023
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Hey all, sorry for the delay on this update. It's been a harrowing few days and I finally feel like I can breath a little.
I think we might be out of the woods (although I have felt that before). We have progressively unearthed more and more underlying issues, starting with diabetes, culminating now in diabetes, asthma, epilepsy, tongue ulcers, and possibly pneumonia. We have been to the ER 4 times and the vet 6 times in the past month.
After a new Libre install 01/25, the monitor never worked properly so I rushed to get another installed 01/26. He stopped eating 01/25 and when he came home from the ER 01/27, he was so weak he could barely stand, and could not walk at all. I pumped him full of fluids and food day and night, and very thankfully he woke up, left off the bed, and made a mad dash for the food bowl yesterday morning when he finally began eating on his own again. Yesterday he ate 2x the protein and calories in a day than before he was sick!
I think that tongue ulcers were the primary culprit behind his not eating because the 1st time he ate again was after the Ondansetron, Mirtazapine, and Cerenia had worn off. (But it's good to have them on hand and they may have helped us anyway.)
Some lessons learned which you all might already know but were new to me:
Hey all, sorry for the delay on this update. It's been a harrowing few days and I finally feel like I can breath a little.
I think we might be out of the woods (although I have felt that before). We have progressively unearthed more and more underlying issues, starting with diabetes, culminating now in diabetes, asthma, epilepsy, tongue ulcers, and possibly pneumonia. We have been to the ER 4 times and the vet 6 times in the past month.
After a new Libre install 01/25, the monitor never worked properly so I rushed to get another installed 01/26. He stopped eating 01/25 and when he came home from the ER 01/27, he was so weak he could barely stand, and could not walk at all. I pumped him full of fluids and food day and night, and very thankfully he woke up, left off the bed, and made a mad dash for the food bowl yesterday morning when he finally began eating on his own again. Yesterday he ate 2x the protein and calories in a day than before he was sick!
I think that tongue ulcers were the primary culprit behind his not eating because the 1st time he ate again was after the Ondansetron, Mirtazapine, and Cerenia had worn off. (But it's good to have them on hand and they may have helped us anyway.)
Some lessons learned which you all might already know but were new to me:
- Ondansetron and Cerenia can be given together. They have different mechanisms of action.
- Convenia was offerred by the vet (1-2 week antibiotic one-time injection) and after reading on the internet, that was a huge gamble and probably should be avoided in the future (actually lasts 6-8wks and if something goes seriously wrong, no plan B)
- Make the vet look in his mouth if he's not eating. Maybe the ulcers could've been spotted sooner.
- When syringe feeding, it is easier to blend the food with as little water as possible (as long as it gets to milkshake consistency). Then when you are filling syringes, jam the tip of the syringe into the bottom of the container of blended food repeatedly while pulling on the syringe plunger to fill it easier.
- If your cat is non-compliant or averse to injections or home testing, ask your vet about using low doses of gabapentin and completely changing your routine to train a more positive experience. The first night I tried home testing, he was very aggitated when I touched his ears at all, but with gaba by the next day I could home test him anywhere, anytime, without him seeming to care at all.
- Your mileage may vary but my cat seems to make strong associations between places and negative events pretty easily (1 or 2 negative events), which made it really hard to feed him. So I started doing negative things (giving him meds he doesn't like) and syringe fedding in 1. locations he never sleeps/we never interact in like the hall, and/or 2. changing the location every time.
- Edit: After thorough research of apps for tracking his insulin, BG, food, meds, and other notes (with pretty charts), Diabetes:M has turned out to work really well, be free, and be able to import/export data from Libre, Apple Health, etc.
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