60 days and we could be in remission?!!

[DavidsMom]

David's numbers have been blue for a solid week! We haven't been shooting him. I just spoke to the vet - he said this is his first cat that has gone into remission. He even slept in this morning (David - not the vet!) so he wasn't starving as usual. BG was 130 when he finally made it out to the kitchen. And after a late breakfast (of fancy feast of course) he was running through the house playing. Haven't seen that in a while
I asked the vet what number to watch for before I should consider shooting him again. I thought 250 - he said 300. I asked about the dose - he said for a 19 lb cat, the beginning dosage would still be 4 units. Ugh thought that could come down. But hopefully it won't matter - hopefully hes really headed to remission.

Thoughts? Input? Have many of you had cats come back out of remission? Ideas on what could have caused it? Things to watch for? How long were they in remission?

Thank you so much!
Barb and David

 

[Yong & Maury GA]

Honestly without a lot of data my biggest guess is he may have hypo'd into remission. Kitties don't usually go from 4-4.5U to remission . There have been kitties that come out of remission and it's usually due to some sort of infection. Dental is a big one. Good luck to you all though! And should you need help, you know where to come

 

[Djamila]

Hi Barb! That's so exciting that your kitty is doing so well! Great job getting him onto low-carb food! We generally say that a non-diabetic cat is getting numbers between 50-80 most of the time, and occasionally up to 120. I understand why you aren't wanting to give insulin on those blue numbers though since he hasn't even been on insulin for very long. I would recommend that since his numbers are still a bit high, you keep monitoring him going forward. Hopefully the change in diet and the insulin support he got are enough to get his numbers to keep dropping into those lower ranges. If they do start to climb over 200 though, I would recommend checking in here and we can help with giving some small doses that might bring him down a bit more. If you look at some of the spreadsheets around here, you can see that some of us give quite small doses and we can help support you in that should the need arise. I would really not recommend that you wait until you see something over 300. That is much higher than a healthy cat should be.

As for going in and out of remission, my cat went into remission after three weeks on insulin. He was in remission for over a year. He came out of remission because I started feeding him a raw food thinking that was a healthy, low carb option because of clever marketing on the label. Turned out the raw food was 23% carbs. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that before the damage was done. So please continue to be very vigilant about food choices.

Infections are another frequent cause for kitties coming out of remission: dental, UTI, URI, etc. So keep an eye on those teeth, and if anything seems suspicious in terms of other health issues, head to the vet.

I'm really hopeful with you that David's numbers keep coming down! Take care and let us know if there's anything we can do to help!

 

[JanetNJ]

Your vet doses cats as if they are dogs. He has no idea what he's doing. It's no wonder this is his first remission.

 

[Marlena]

I'm afraid that I totally agree with Janet.
Your vet hasn't got a clue about feline diabetes.
If you have a chance speak with your vet and discuss this as you might be able to save some poor kitty's life as dosing cats like dogs is asking for trouble.
I do think that David hypo'd into possible remission.
I hope that this is what it is.
Keeping fingers crossed for you.

 

[TempestsMum]

I am afraid I agree with Janet, Yong and Marlena here, that's a massive dose to give a kitty.. hoping you get the remission
When Tempest went into lower numbers I did shoot a few tiny doses to help things along, definitely worth doing, but get some advice on here before doing so. Here's to greens!

 

[JanetNJ]

If your readings are a being done with a human meter your cat may need a tiny biThe of insulin support. Normal on a human meter is 50-120... Your cat is getting readings in the 180's. I'm thinking he may need just a tiny 0.25-0.5 dose when over 130 to get him into the lower 100's and high double digits.