MinnerPip
Member since 2024
Minner says HELLO !!! It’s been a couple months (?) and I can’t find my last post b/c I think it was in the .org site, not here. When I chk my content it goes all the way back to April as the last post and I know I posted more recently than that. Anyway ……
To summarize her dosing this year … she hit high of 7.75u in January. Then by June (1 yr anniversary of diabetes diagnosis), we had come all the way down & settled into a dose around 4.5u. Was thinking this was reflection of those pesky antibodies starting to peter out around the year mark.
Well … then we started having higher numbers and having to more frequently feed lower and lower carb foods (0 and 1% fancy feast pate) to maintain. Then yellows started popping up. I started increasing in small amounts, trying to fine tune, but throughout August it was so frustrating and by September I decided we should see the vet and check for infection/inflammation/dental. Keeping in mind that (knock on wood) Minner’s outward behavior was unchanged. The dental suspicion came from learnings on this website and remembering comments from Wendy that its one of the first culprits when insulin requirements start rising. Oh, and I also thought Minner’s breath may have been a bit smelly. I had never noticed much of a breath odor with her before.
So in when go to the vet, on her 6th birthday. This is her same vet who delivered her via c-section. And sure enough, he felt she needed dental cleaning, a lot of inflammation and potential infection on right side. No evidence of need to do extractions. I reduced her insulin dose slightly the night before the dental and gave slightly higher low carb food with goal to keep her in mid-high blue. Injected her with ondansetron and gave 16mg cerenia tab about 8 hours b4 dental. Once he got in there he discovered her 407 tooth (lower right pre molar) was cracked, crown very jagged. He said it had to be painful. He smoothed it down to root and stitched her gum over it. He said pulling it and root not the right path b/c the roots had basically melded with bone at this point and drilling all that out is messy and leaves a big hole and not necessary … her body will do the rest. The same tooth on other side (307) had similar condition but not as advanced, so he did same thing there since it would be needed within a year. She got convenia injection as antibiotic. All bloodwork and urine looked good.
The first 24 hours after the dental was super stressful b/c she was so “stoned-like” from the anesthesia (ketamine). She wouldnt eat at first and I was terrified about giving her insulin w/o ability to manage with food, so I decided to do half dose and she was ok. Thankfully she got back to regular eating shortly after that. I tried to get back to her pre-dental dose of 5.75, but it seemed to drive a food frenzy so we’re on cycle 6 of 5.5u and I’m starting to think we could tweak down again …. But holding a little longer for now. I’ve always feared the 50s and have so far been prone to take reductions before we get all the way to lime. In fact she saw her first lime ever since I last posted and I want to keep it that way, no more limes please. She also is slightly over 16 pounds now so the weight battle continues. The pursuit of the right balance of insulin and associated food to manage the curve is a never ending one. We have found that she will eat weruva polynesian bbq which is 6% and lower calories. Also weruva “too cool” at 2% is lower calorie than her fancy feast foods (pates and chunky have 80/90 calories per can).
In other news … I’m about to switch from Lantus vial to the pens. I’ve never used the pens. I want to try this b/c I want to explore whether keeping the insulin at room temp after opening it and not using it after 28 days makes any difference with Minner. With 5 pens in a pack I think each one will last about a month so this is about equal financially to using a refrigerated vial for 5 months. We’ll see.
I’m also curious if anyone here brushes their cats teeth. Or uses any kind of dental treat or cleaning product. I’m considering these things in case they could help delay the need for future cleanings.
Look forward to catching up here! And getting closer to retirement, hanging in for a few more months!
To summarize her dosing this year … she hit high of 7.75u in January. Then by June (1 yr anniversary of diabetes diagnosis), we had come all the way down & settled into a dose around 4.5u. Was thinking this was reflection of those pesky antibodies starting to peter out around the year mark.
Well … then we started having higher numbers and having to more frequently feed lower and lower carb foods (0 and 1% fancy feast pate) to maintain. Then yellows started popping up. I started increasing in small amounts, trying to fine tune, but throughout August it was so frustrating and by September I decided we should see the vet and check for infection/inflammation/dental. Keeping in mind that (knock on wood) Minner’s outward behavior was unchanged. The dental suspicion came from learnings on this website and remembering comments from Wendy that its one of the first culprits when insulin requirements start rising. Oh, and I also thought Minner’s breath may have been a bit smelly. I had never noticed much of a breath odor with her before.
So in when go to the vet, on her 6th birthday. This is her same vet who delivered her via c-section. And sure enough, he felt she needed dental cleaning, a lot of inflammation and potential infection on right side. No evidence of need to do extractions. I reduced her insulin dose slightly the night before the dental and gave slightly higher low carb food with goal to keep her in mid-high blue. Injected her with ondansetron and gave 16mg cerenia tab about 8 hours b4 dental. Once he got in there he discovered her 407 tooth (lower right pre molar) was cracked, crown very jagged. He said it had to be painful. He smoothed it down to root and stitched her gum over it. He said pulling it and root not the right path b/c the roots had basically melded with bone at this point and drilling all that out is messy and leaves a big hole and not necessary … her body will do the rest. The same tooth on other side (307) had similar condition but not as advanced, so he did same thing there since it would be needed within a year. She got convenia injection as antibiotic. All bloodwork and urine looked good.
The first 24 hours after the dental was super stressful b/c she was so “stoned-like” from the anesthesia (ketamine). She wouldnt eat at first and I was terrified about giving her insulin w/o ability to manage with food, so I decided to do half dose and she was ok. Thankfully she got back to regular eating shortly after that. I tried to get back to her pre-dental dose of 5.75, but it seemed to drive a food frenzy so we’re on cycle 6 of 5.5u and I’m starting to think we could tweak down again …. But holding a little longer for now. I’ve always feared the 50s and have so far been prone to take reductions before we get all the way to lime. In fact she saw her first lime ever since I last posted and I want to keep it that way, no more limes please. She also is slightly over 16 pounds now so the weight battle continues. The pursuit of the right balance of insulin and associated food to manage the curve is a never ending one. We have found that she will eat weruva polynesian bbq which is 6% and lower calories. Also weruva “too cool” at 2% is lower calorie than her fancy feast foods (pates and chunky have 80/90 calories per can).
In other news … I’m about to switch from Lantus vial to the pens. I’ve never used the pens. I want to try this b/c I want to explore whether keeping the insulin at room temp after opening it and not using it after 28 days makes any difference with Minner. With 5 pens in a pack I think each one will last about a month so this is about equal financially to using a refrigerated vial for 5 months. We’ll see.
I’m also curious if anyone here brushes their cats teeth. Or uses any kind of dental treat or cleaning product. I’m considering these things in case they could help delay the need for future cleanings.
Look forward to catching up here! And getting closer to retirement, hanging in for a few more months!
