? 2/7 Benny, AMPS 115 - vet today

Erin & Scott

Erin & Scott

Member Since 2019
Yesterday's thread

We're off to the vet this morning (if the roads aren't too icy!). I'm looking forward to the next stage of this journey - i.e., getting the bad tooth and gunky ears taken care of. We're hoping that resolving those will be enough of a boost to get Benny off of the juice - he's been doing remarkably well even with those other issues going on.
 
Home from the vet - and holy buckets it's getting icy out there!! The highway is fine, but it's coming down freezing rain so getting to and from the car, and then back into the house when we got home, was downright scary! But we're home now and settled in, and here we will stay!

The vet was very happy with Benny's progress as far as his overall health and our management of his BG and insulin dosage. On the downside, Benny - much to our surprise - has gained virtually NO weight since he was last seen. I couldn't believe it, I was so sure he had - he's feeling much rounder than he had - but the scale doesn't lie. It's not like he hasn't been eating - he's finally settled down a bit after weeks of sucking down his food like it was his last meal, but he's still putting away about 7 oz. of LC wet food a day. They wanted him up to 9 lbs before they take out the tooth, but he's still only at 7.5.

So we'll wait, but they did give him a course of antibiotics - we've not yet had to give him pills, so we'll see how that goes. If all else fails, we may have to give it to him in a tsp. of high-carb food, but we'll try it in is regular food first. And we also got ear drops for him - steroidal, anti-fungal - so between those and the oral antibiotics, at least we'll get the ears cleaned up.

She was quite interested in his spreadsheet and how his numbers were tracking - and she noted (as we have) that although he drops to his nadir a few hours after his AM shot, he tends to peak at +12. She suggested that since his AMPS numbers were fairly low, we might reduce the PM dosage very slightly, or even try skipping it altogether. I'm still mulling this over; I was thinking that it seemed more logical to reduce his AM shot slightly, because that's when he runs the lowest, but I still don't have as thorough an understanding of dosage and BG curves as some here, so I would certainly welcome others' thoughts on this. I would like to find away to level out that late-afternoon/early-evening bounce, but I'm not sure how best to do that.
 
Erin & Scott said:
but the scale doesn't lie.
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Just going to put in my 2 cents - yes they can! Especially at that 7.5#'s. Weight can vary from scale to scale at the vet offices (I have seen it with my own eyes). At one point the vet said that Gizmo had lost 1# in 3 months - I said that couldn't be right because according the baby scale at home he hadn't (I weighed him weekly) - the vet tech went and got another scale from another room and it was more in line with what the scale at home showed his weight (with in a few oz).

Good luck with the AB.

Erin & Scott said:
we might reduce the PM dosage very slightly, or even try skipping it altogether.
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I glanced at the SS - I wouldn't reduce or skip. Benny's numbers are looking good! :D
 
Well, I believe it was the same scale as the last time - but I wasn't convinced that the vet tech had Benny's entire weight on the scale. She was trying to get him to sit on the scale and was holding his tail out of the way - so I had some doubts there! I'm tempted to buy a scale to have at home, but I don't know that I really need it, other than to satisfy my curiosity.
 
As far as a scale, I have a baby one that I used it at home for all the cats. I got for Jones but I find I can keep up with weight issues by weighing everyone monthly and be ahead of the curve.

I have also noticed the scales at the vets can be off due to type or the kitty not sitting well.

Hope those ears clear up quickly!
 
Erin & Scott said:
we also got ear drops for him - steroidal, anti-fungal
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Didn't @Peter Moore say he believed an ear medication with steroids may have contributed to his current woes, with @Bobbie And Bubba concurring that this was a possibility?

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/...to-remission-but-cant-quite-get-there.209974/
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/2-3-zelda-7-317-pmps-278-4-253.210300/#post-2330396

Or have I got things mixed up? As often happens, especially since I don't really know anything about anything. But I'd rather be wrong than sorry. And will happily apologize for any confusion or upset.
 
Sorry that the weight issue is delaying the dental"

Erin & Scott said:
She suggested that since his AMPS numbers were fairly low, we might reduce the PM dosage very slightly, or even try skipping it altogether.
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Due to the effects of the depot, we find it best to stick to the same dose each cycle. The depot influences several cycles after a reduction. Skipping a shot will just make him high the start of the next cycle. I would stay the course on the dose.

You want to even out his AM and PM cycles, not an easy task due to the cat factor. :cat: Are the feeding timecat_wings>os and amount the same AM and PM?
 
Tom & Thomas said:
Didn't @Peter Moore say he believed an ear medication with steroids may have contributed to his current woes, with @Bobbie And Bubba concurring that this was a possibility?

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/...to-remission-but-cant-quite-get-there.209974/
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/2-3-zelda-7-317-pmps-278-4-253.210300/#post-2330396

Or have I got things mixed up? As often happens, especially since I don't really know anything about anything. But I'd rather be wrong than sorry. And will happily apologize for any confusion or upset.
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Hmmmm . . . I have read that steroids can cause diabetes, but I had assumed that meant oral steroids. I’m skeptical that a topical steroid would have that kind of effect, but we’ll definitely be monitoring closely. At any rate, we’re only applying it once a day for 10 days, so I wouldn’t expect a huge impact. At least that’s what I’m hoping!
 
Wendy&Neko said:
Sorry that the weight issue is delaying the dental"


Due to the effects of the depot, we find it best to stick to the same dose each cycle. The depot influences several cycles after a reduction. Skipping a shot will just make him high the start of the next cycle. I would stay the course on the dose.
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This was my thought. I would like to see his daytime cycle flatten out a bit; I'm not sure why he spikes like he does late in the cycle. His AMPS is consistently much lower than his PMPS.

Wendy&Neko said:
You want to even out his AM and PM cycles, not an easy task due to the cat factor. :cat: Are the feeding timecat_wings>os and amount the same AM and PM?
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Yes, cats! He gets most of his food during the day, necessarily - we do feed a large portion at 11:30 PM, and they have 0-carb kibble available at night, but there is a difference. I'm sure it would be useful to get some tests in the middle of his PM cycle, but I just can't drag myself out of bed at 3 AM. The vet's suggestion of a PM dose reduction was mostly out of concern that he may be dropping into low numbers overnight. His daytime nadir occurs early in his cycle, and his nighttime cycle appears to run similarly, but we don't have the data to know what happens between 11:30 PM and 7:30 AM. All we are seeing is that his curve doesn't rise as high at his AMPS as it does for PMPS. I may try to get some 3:30 AM tests in this weekend when I don't have to work.
 
I don't know about Trio-otic but if it has a steroid in it, it can def influence the BG;s Recently, Bubba was on Tresaderm and it raised him significantly! I finally took him off it after a week and used Zymox, an anti steroidal enzymatic ear drop.

I agree with Wendy about the dose.
 
Thanks for tagging me. Yes please be very careful when it comes to the otics with steroids .

Claro landed Zelda in the hospital last July and finally caused her full blown diabetes. Then using Tresaderm set us back significantly. In both cases within a few days she didn't want to eat solid food and the BG was through the roof.

All cats are different. You might be fine. But please watch very carefully.
 
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Glad you got back safely.

When I had to give George some AB prior to his dental, because his mouth was sore I couldn't pill him easily, I put the ab in a small bit of soft cheese which he loved, and inhaled. Putting it in his food didn't work for us, as he could taste it, the ab he was having was very bitter.

As far as dose I wouldn't reduce or give unequal doses for the reasons Wendy stated above. He's doing great at this dose.

Because you are using a human meter, the range for a healthy cat is different to the range the vet is used to dealing with pet specific equipment, my vet always thinks Georges BG is too low (he's been in remission until just recently, steroid shot knocked him out of remission) until I remind him that I use a human meter, I am fortunate that he has done side by side comparisons with pet meters, human meters and his in house bloodtest machine, so when I remind him I use a human meter he's happy with the range.

Looks like Benny's BG came up a bit at the vets, George is the same, he should get back down to normal.
 
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