Crista & Ming
Member Since 2018
Hi everyone! I'm Crista and my kitty is Ming. I was previously in the PZI forum group.
To start: Ming is a complicated case. At least to me. Maybe there are some kitties out there like Ming on this group. If there are, I'm excited to meet them!
Anyway, right now, Ming is in the hospital and has been since October 13. He went in because of vomiting and suspected pancreatitis for the probably the 5th or 6th time. He was diagnosed with diabetes in March 2018 but has been in and out of the hospital many many times for pancreatitis flare ups.
He started with 1 unit of PZI in March until he was on 6 units of PZI in August. I learned how to do home testing in September and found that 6 units was TOO much and decreased him to 4 units. For a month, I adjusted his doses but didn't have much luck and then he had another pancreatitis flare up.
I brought him to the vet because he was doing his usual pre-pancreatitis thing: vomiting excessively in the first few hours, loafing in front of his water bowl, not eating, and hiding. I gave him bupe, cerenia, and his insulin shot until I could get him to the vet the next morning. I found he had vomited all over the house when I had come home from work at 9 pm.
This week, we found that Ming has micro abscesses in his pancreas and asthma. I'm not surprised by any of these diagnoses. He has been coughing here and there ever since I adopted him back in February 2015 and I've sent him to vets for x-rays and blood tests. No one seemed to think it was of any concern until now.
As for his pancreatitis, he's had them chronically and repeatedly in the last 7 months. And probably one or two episodes prior to his diabetes diagnosis. He's been in the hospital so many times that I can't really remember.
I recently started working as a vet assistant at a vet hospital so I've been privileged to be able to work closely with the vets there to get treatment with Ming.
His first week at the hospital was rocky and not fun. He went DKA on the fourth day and would continue to have ketones in his urine on and off. He'd be negative for them in the AM and then have a high amount in the PM. His BG stayed in the 20s for days. The vets were scared of him going hypo. I was not.
The doctor I'm actually most comfortable with finally went in to work (she was on her weekend) and that's when things finally started getting better. He was getting humulin to support his BG when it was too high. And he went from "trying" 2 units of PZI to finally getting 10 units for PZI in 3 days.
He got zeniquin instead of ampicilin.
I also agreed to steroids because I think 6+ times of pancreatitis in 7 months means it's time to bring out the big guns, even though they're scary, scary guns. It's probably why he needed to be on 10 units of PZI.
We saw an internal medicine specialist today and she recommended switching to Lantus. She would also like to up his pred dose from 2.5 mg a day to 3.75 mg a day.
He'll be at the hospital for the next 2-3 days to be monitored since we're switching him to Lantus. So that's why I'm here!!!
I've been reading the stickies and googling things but I thought I would introduce myself now and maybe get some input from some of you. I posted A LOT on the PZI forum so if it's helpful, I'll link the posts from my hospital visit HERE and HERE.
I'm also including a PDF of a full history of Ming that I gave to the specialist vet. I'm sorry but the numbers are in metric because we use metric here.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING ALL OF THIS!
To start: Ming is a complicated case. At least to me. Maybe there are some kitties out there like Ming on this group. If there are, I'm excited to meet them!
Anyway, right now, Ming is in the hospital and has been since October 13. He went in because of vomiting and suspected pancreatitis for the probably the 5th or 6th time. He was diagnosed with diabetes in March 2018 but has been in and out of the hospital many many times for pancreatitis flare ups.
He started with 1 unit of PZI in March until he was on 6 units of PZI in August. I learned how to do home testing in September and found that 6 units was TOO much and decreased him to 4 units. For a month, I adjusted his doses but didn't have much luck and then he had another pancreatitis flare up.
I brought him to the vet because he was doing his usual pre-pancreatitis thing: vomiting excessively in the first few hours, loafing in front of his water bowl, not eating, and hiding. I gave him bupe, cerenia, and his insulin shot until I could get him to the vet the next morning. I found he had vomited all over the house when I had come home from work at 9 pm.
This week, we found that Ming has micro abscesses in his pancreas and asthma. I'm not surprised by any of these diagnoses. He has been coughing here and there ever since I adopted him back in February 2015 and I've sent him to vets for x-rays and blood tests. No one seemed to think it was of any concern until now.
As for his pancreatitis, he's had them chronically and repeatedly in the last 7 months. And probably one or two episodes prior to his diabetes diagnosis. He's been in the hospital so many times that I can't really remember.
I recently started working as a vet assistant at a vet hospital so I've been privileged to be able to work closely with the vets there to get treatment with Ming.
His first week at the hospital was rocky and not fun. He went DKA on the fourth day and would continue to have ketones in his urine on and off. He'd be negative for them in the AM and then have a high amount in the PM. His BG stayed in the 20s for days. The vets were scared of him going hypo. I was not.
The doctor I'm actually most comfortable with finally went in to work (she was on her weekend) and that's when things finally started getting better. He was getting humulin to support his BG when it was too high. And he went from "trying" 2 units of PZI to finally getting 10 units for PZI in 3 days.
He got zeniquin instead of ampicilin.
I also agreed to steroids because I think 6+ times of pancreatitis in 7 months means it's time to bring out the big guns, even though they're scary, scary guns. It's probably why he needed to be on 10 units of PZI.
We saw an internal medicine specialist today and she recommended switching to Lantus. She would also like to up his pred dose from 2.5 mg a day to 3.75 mg a day.
He'll be at the hospital for the next 2-3 days to be monitored since we're switching him to Lantus. So that's why I'm here!!!
I've been reading the stickies and googling things but I thought I would introduce myself now and maybe get some input from some of you. I posted A LOT on the PZI forum so if it's helpful, I'll link the posts from my hospital visit HERE and HERE.
I'm also including a PDF of a full history of Ming that I gave to the specialist vet. I'm sorry but the numbers are in metric because we use metric here.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING ALL OF THIS!
You two are one very strong duo to have gone through all of this together . Amazing !!! Looking forward to watching Ming’s progress 
