Stacy & Asia
Member Since 2017
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/5-24-asia-amps-103.196032/
I’ve been away from the board a couple days, everyone in my house has a horrible head cold (including me) and it’s been miserable over here. Getting a little better, but still feeling pretty awful.
Asia had a weird spike the other night, nothing to bounce from that I could discern and I hadn’t given her any sugar or high carb for a low number, she went right to reds and probably black too, randomly. Whenever that happens, I test for ketones more often than usual, but I also use Vet-9 strips instead that test for a host of other things as well, including protein and blood in the urine. Some of the parameters are unreliable on the strips (like USG) and others don’t really apply so much to cats, so what it tests for that is reliable and does apply to cats are: glucose, bilirubin, ketones, blood, pH and protein.
Asia has never had anything unexpected show up on these test strips outside of occasional trace amounts of protein, which isn’t a big deal from what I’ve read. Yesterday she had a result that was positive for trace amounts of non-hemolyzed blood.
It’s not a result that is easy to misread as this one is orange with green specks rather than a solid color (negative). It was so unusual and surprising that I tested it again to be sure, same result. I took another sample several hours later and it read Small (+) 25 ca CELLS/μL. Tested that twice as well, same results. Tested once more a few hours later and it came up negative. Results: trace @ 1900 (very hyperglycemic), Small @ 2300 (very but less hyperglycemic than the trace reading), negative @ 0200 (BG 170ish).
I plan to get more tests today, but I have to wait for pee. My understanding is blood in the urine is never “no big deal” outside of from a cystocentesis sample that could introduce the blood from the stick. Visually, I cannot see blood in her urine, it’s straw colored and not cloudy. She has had visual blood in her urine only once when she had a really bad UTI. I don’t really know what this means other than what Dr Google has turned up: UTI, kidney stones, bladder stones, cancer and some very nondescript CKD cats and diabetic cats can have blood in their urine (why? Because of a UTI or just because? I have no idea, couldn’t find additional info on that).
I emailed my vet of the findings last night asking what do we do with this information. She said bladder cancer is rare in cats, she had an X-ray on 5/10 and no stones were present (guess they take a long time to develop or couldn’t have developed since? I really don’t know). She said to keep testing and see how repeatable it is and we will try to address it further if it is. She said we could repeat u/s but may not be worth the stress to her. I completely agree that I don’t want to stress her unnecessarily, but we still don’t have a good answer for some recent goings on with her and if something is treatable, I’m not happy to wait until it gets so bad that becomes difficult/impossible to treat, and I feel like that is exactly the game we have been playing recently.
I wish I could say her response eased my mind, but it didn’t. The reason I got these strips in the first place was because she is so prone to UTIs, I thought it could give me some early warning signs as to things awry perhaps before any obvious symptoms present. She is currently being treated for UTI/kidney infection with Zeniquin and has been on this round of abs since 4/14. I’m adding water to her food as usual and I’ve since been adding even more as of the trace reading last night. I’m also giving her d mannose BID (no confirmed bacteria this go round, but she has had a confirmed E. coli UTI infection in the past and it was susceptible to Zeniquin). I don’t know if these antibiotics are wrong for this infection as no bacteria were present in the sample and vet did not culture it (but likely nothing would have grown in the culture regardless, her urine is very dilute and nothing grew when she had a kidney infection which this “UTI” may be a continuation of).
No additional symptoms, other than the weird spike, it’s been status quo. I gave her R after the spike seemed not interested on settling and now she’s back in good, euglycemic numbers again. There is blood in her raw food, obviously, but I wouldn’t think that could relate to blood showing up in her urine and besides, it has never happened before if that is even possible which I highly doubt.
I’m meticulous with testing and use a pipette to put urine on the testing strips and make sure hands and tools are free of detergents and debris, tap the strips sideways so no reagents can mix to other test areas, etc. Any thoughts on these results? Anything I can do about blood in the urine besides d mannose and increasing her water intake?
I’ve been away from the board a couple days, everyone in my house has a horrible head cold (including me) and it’s been miserable over here. Getting a little better, but still feeling pretty awful.
Asia had a weird spike the other night, nothing to bounce from that I could discern and I hadn’t given her any sugar or high carb for a low number, she went right to reds and probably black too, randomly. Whenever that happens, I test for ketones more often than usual, but I also use Vet-9 strips instead that test for a host of other things as well, including protein and blood in the urine. Some of the parameters are unreliable on the strips (like USG) and others don’t really apply so much to cats, so what it tests for that is reliable and does apply to cats are: glucose, bilirubin, ketones, blood, pH and protein.
Asia has never had anything unexpected show up on these test strips outside of occasional trace amounts of protein, which isn’t a big deal from what I’ve read. Yesterday she had a result that was positive for trace amounts of non-hemolyzed blood.
It’s not a result that is easy to misread as this one is orange with green specks rather than a solid color (negative). It was so unusual and surprising that I tested it again to be sure, same result. I took another sample several hours later and it read Small (+) 25 ca CELLS/μL. Tested that twice as well, same results. Tested once more a few hours later and it came up negative. Results: trace @ 1900 (very hyperglycemic), Small @ 2300 (very but less hyperglycemic than the trace reading), negative @ 0200 (BG 170ish). I plan to get more tests today, but I have to wait for pee. My understanding is blood in the urine is never “no big deal” outside of from a cystocentesis sample that could introduce the blood from the stick. Visually, I cannot see blood in her urine, it’s straw colored and not cloudy. She has had visual blood in her urine only once when she had a really bad UTI. I don’t really know what this means other than what Dr Google has turned up: UTI, kidney stones, bladder stones, cancer and some very nondescript CKD cats and diabetic cats can have blood in their urine (why? Because of a UTI or just because? I have no idea, couldn’t find additional info on that).
I emailed my vet of the findings last night asking what do we do with this information. She said bladder cancer is rare in cats, she had an X-ray on 5/10 and no stones were present (guess they take a long time to develop or couldn’t have developed since? I really don’t know). She said to keep testing and see how repeatable it is and we will try to address it further if it is. She said we could repeat u/s but may not be worth the stress to her. I completely agree that I don’t want to stress her unnecessarily, but we still don’t have a good answer for some recent goings on with her and if something is treatable, I’m not happy to wait until it gets so bad that becomes difficult/impossible to treat, and I feel like that is exactly the game we have been playing recently.
I wish I could say her response eased my mind, but it didn’t. The reason I got these strips in the first place was because she is so prone to UTIs, I thought it could give me some early warning signs as to things awry perhaps before any obvious symptoms present. She is currently being treated for UTI/kidney infection with Zeniquin and has been on this round of abs since 4/14. I’m adding water to her food as usual and I’ve since been adding even more as of the trace reading last night. I’m also giving her d mannose BID (no confirmed bacteria this go round, but she has had a confirmed E. coli UTI infection in the past and it was susceptible to Zeniquin). I don’t know if these antibiotics are wrong for this infection as no bacteria were present in the sample and vet did not culture it (but likely nothing would have grown in the culture regardless, her urine is very dilute and nothing grew when she had a kidney infection which this “UTI” may be a continuation of).
No additional symptoms, other than the weird spike, it’s been status quo. I gave her R after the spike seemed not interested on settling and now she’s back in good, euglycemic numbers again. There is blood in her raw food, obviously, but I wouldn’t think that could relate to blood showing up in her urine and besides, it has never happened before if that is even possible which I highly doubt.
I’m meticulous with testing and use a pipette to put urine on the testing strips and make sure hands and tools are free of detergents and debris, tap the strips sideways so no reagents can mix to other test areas, etc. Any thoughts on these results? Anything I can do about blood in the urine besides d mannose and increasing her water intake?
.
I’m glad your IM day finally came.
