Biscuits is home and doing better

[Karen & Biscuits]

Hey everyone, I've been meaning to tell you that Biscuits is home after 6 days at the vet with pancreatitis. She is doing better now, thankfully. We had a scary ordeal after she came home on Monday, due to her sugar bottoming out. We almost lost her AGAIN! This is the second time that has happened. Her sugar went down to 25 as she had not eaten at the vet since that morning, about 8 am. It was after 6 pm when we arrived home and I had not had a chance to get her food out that the vet sent her home with before this happened, so I assume she was already bottoming out on our way home. Thankfully my roommate and I were able to get sugar water and some food into her fairly quickly but my biggest fear was that she would go into a seizure like the last time. Fortunately, she didn't and recovered after a few hours of us pumping food and drops of sugar water into her. More alarming was the next day, her sugar spiked to 679 by mid-afternoon, and that had nothing to do with the sugar water or the food we gave her the previous evening. She only got about 1cc of sugar water that day as we did it drop by drop so it wouldn't bring her sugar up too fast but I believe it was the food from the vet that caused this. She had not eaten anything else as she was locked up with me in the bedroom all night and the only food she was given in the morning was 1/2 a can of Hill's digestive care wet food with her meds. That's it. Oddly enough, I wonder if this happened at the vet on occasion because when I was updating her spreadsheet (and it IS up to date finally), her meter only showed a few entries, mostly in the mornings and it confused me a bit. They may have used their own meter too, but it caused me to leave some areas blank on the spreadsheet because I have no idea how often they took glucose readings and what they were.
Since then she has stabilized, as I took her off the digestive care food and back on the Weruva that she's used to. She seems better overall. The only challenge I face with her now is getting her meds into her. She gets very angry if I try to poke it into her mouth, but if I crush it up and put it in her food, she won't eat the food. It's fine with the tiny pills she has because I don't need to crush them and she will usually lick them up with the food but there is a horse pill called sucralfate to help keep her stomach and pancreas from producing too much acid and she must smell it when I crush it up but if I don't, it's very large and difficult for her to swallow so it's been challenging to get her to eat her food with it crushed up but I just let her graze on it a little at a time throughout the day. She's not stupid, but I'm trying to avoid treats as her body heals otherwise this wouldn't be so difficult.
In any case, her sugar is still staying high, she's not eating anything bad, so I'm still at a loss on how to get it down further. What are your thoughts?

 

[Christie & Maverick]

Sucralfate is meant to be given on an empty stomach and not crushed in food. The tablets should be crushed and dissolved in lukewarm water and you could syringe that into her mouth. Or, perhaps ask your vet to get the liquid suspension form of sucralfate, that sounds like it would be easier for you to administer since it is prepared already into liquid form. It is recommended not to give sucralfate within 2 hours of other meds because it can inhibit absorption.

 

[Howiesmom]

I’m just so glad to hear Biscuits is home. Big hugs as you figure out all these mysteries! There are so many great experts and helpers on here as you navigate all this!

 

[Sienne and Gabby (GA)]

I would also check to see if Biscuits' meds can be compounded into a transdermal if you have trouble with pills or liquid meds.

 

[Karen & Biscuits]

Sucralfate is meant to be given on an empty stomach and not crushed in food. The tablets should be crushed and dissolved in lukewarm water and you could syringe that into her mouth. Or, perhaps ask your vet to get the liquid suspension form of sucralfate, that sounds like it would be easier for you to administer since it is prepared already into liquid form. It is recommended not to give sucralfate within 2 hours of other meds because it can inhibit absorption.

You're so right about the sucralfate - however, even the vet and techs had issues giving it to her without crushing it. It's not ideal but at that point they were saying as long as it gets into her system it's better than not at all. Hmmmm. My roommate's cat had the same issue back in January and when she dissolved the pill in water, it "bloomed", and didn't really dissolve. I had the same problem with my pills, different dosage and different color but it also doesn't dissolve, which defeats the purpose of syringing it into her mouth. I will ask the vet about a liquid though, I wasn't aware they had that option. They did tell me to try not to give it to her with food but that ended up in me getting bitten and the pill never making it past the bed LOL. Biscuits is a challenge with pills, she's been like this since she had that seizure last Fall. I never had these issues with pills before that, but she also never got this sick in the past either. Gotta love her though!

 

[Karen & Biscuits]

I’m just so glad to hear Biscuits is home. Big hugs as you figure out all these mysteries! There are so many great experts and helpers on here as you navigate all this!

Thank you for your kind words! I'm thankful she's home too, it felt so weird without her last week and her brothers definitely noticed it too. They refused to eat while she was gone and even now, they are still acting a little strange about eating. I'm not sure why. I really wish I had taken greater advantage of this site before now. I just get so caught up in dealing with all the cats (I only have 33 in total LOL), and so many have been sick with serious illnesses the past several months it's just hard to remember to come here and talk about this. I'm trying to make a bigger effort now because Biscuits needs help and so do I.
Maybe we'll get the ball rolling in the right direction now.

 

[Karen & Biscuits]

I would also check to see if Biscuits' meds can be compounded into a transdermal if you have trouble with pills or liquid meds.

That's a good idea. I will call the vet on Monday to ask about that. She is definitely challenging with pills despite trying to hide them in food. She's resorted to biting me when she doesn't want something and the vet techs commented on that too, she often tried to bite them as well. She can be spicy when she wants to LOL. She's still my baby girl though, no matter what and I will do what I have to do to ensure she stays healthy.