Brand new diagnosis DKA

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roonazoon

roonazoon

Member Since 2023
Hello, my cat Charlie is 5 and I just found out yesterday that he is diabetic. I took him for a check up on Wednesday since he had lost some weight. Then yesterday before even getting the blood results, he stopped eating and was hiding all day. So after I got the call about the diabetes diagnosis, he ended up at the emergency vet for the night because he was actually experiencing diabetic ketoacidosis. Thankfully he is feeling better today and is currently at the vet being observed. I'm trying to read up on everything I can while I wait to go pick him up and start this new journey. I guess my questions is about food. He loves tiki cat canned food, should I start to stock up on it? or wait? I'm at a loss. My vet mentioned quickly fancy feast pate, but he's never been a big fan of pate type food.
 
@roonazoon If I were you I would also add to your title /DKA to catch members attention
Look to the right. You will see the word Thread Tools ,tap on that then tap on Edit Title add DKA and tap save.
Charlie is such a cutie pie
 
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roonazoon said:
He loves tiki cat canned food, should I start to stock up on it? or wait? I'm at a loss. My vet mentioned quickly fancy feast pate, but he's never been a big fan of pate type food.
Click to expand...
Which Tiki Cats are you feeding?
I know that this one is low carbs and low phosphorus
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roonazoon said:
My vet mentioned quickly fancy feast pate, but he's never been a big fan of pate type food.
Click to expand...
You can try these
I did a search on our site and found this posted from one of our members
On the food chart take a look at Fancy Feast Roasted/Flaked /Chunky
They are not pates, some are 4, 5, or 6 % carbs
Chunky Chicken Feast - is 4% carbs.
https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/dr-pierson-new-food-chart.174147
See what's on the food chart, if some are fish flavors we suggest just feeding fish flavors only once a week because of mercury in them
 
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Well I have Charlie home now, I was given Prozinc and told to give him a dose every 12 hours and to feed him only 2 kinds of fancy feast flavours. My vet didn't say anything about testing him. I'm going to start looking for a new vet on Monday. I've learned more about food just today, from here to know that he can have more than just fancy feast.
 
DKA is essentially not enough insulin + not enough food + an inflammation or infection happening somewhere.

Ketones, Diabetic Ketoacidosis (DKA), and Blood Ketone Meters

To combat DKA, you need to feed Charlie 1 1/2 times the amount of food that he normally eats. And as much fluid as he will take. You can add water to the food to make it soupy. Fluids help flush out the ketones.

If Charlie does not want to eat, try some of these suggestions:

I'm going to paraphrase @Bron and Sheba (GA) since she writes about DKA so well.

Bron and Sheba (GA) said:
The recipe for DKA is not enough insulin, not enough food and an infection or inflammation in the body.
So to try and counteract what happened you need to address those three issues.
  • If you can feed her every two hours that would be very good. You can water the food down a bit to get it into the syringe and that will give her some fluids as well. We need to get as much food into her as she can tolerate. We don’t want to make her vomit though, so you will have to gauge that,
  • Oral fluids are different to subQ fluids so are OK
  • If you can start testing the blood glucose, that would be excellent and would help us know that the BG has not dropped too low.
  • If you can catch a urine, please test it for ketones
Click to expand...

A lot of Canadians use the FreeStyle Lite meter. Strips are quite expensive in Canada. If you have any PC points, you can use this for this purpose.

Tips to catch and test a urine sample

You can pick up keto sticks at any human pharmacy. I believe they are called keto diastix.


Some questions:

Did the vet send Charlie home with anything other than the Prozinc?

Did the vet tell you that the ketones were gone?

Did the blood work show any kind of infection or inflammation?

Did the vet give you any idea of the blood glucose numbers? (Most of the forum members post U.S. numbers instead of rest-of-the-world numbers.) You multiply Canadian numbers by 18. Once you have a spreadsheet up and running, the spreadsheet does it for you.

Was Charlie eating at the vet?

Why only 2 kinds of Fancy Feast? There are plenty of low carb foods. With ketones in the mix, just feed Charlie whatever he wants to eat (with water added if you can). Food is an important tool in combatting DKA.
Here is the link to the Food Chart. Not all varieties are available in Canada. Note: in Canada, Fancy Feast Classic is called Fancy Feast Pates.
Canadian specific foods can be found here:
 
I am out at the moment and will write more when I am back home. You have been given great advice so far.
At the moment it is more important that your kitty eats ANYTHING so if he doesn’t like the food the vet said to eat, feed him whatever he likes. The tiki food is fine.
I would also strongly recommend you think about home testing. You don’t want to be skipping any doses of insulin and the only way to tell if the dose is enough or too
much is by testing the blood glucose.
Also try and get the ketone test strips today and start testing the urine for ketones daily. We need you know if there are any ketones in the urine. It is food and insulin that keeps ketones away and fluids help Flush them out.
 
Red & Rover (GA) said:
DKA is essentially not enough insulin + not enough food + an inflammation or infection happening somewhere.

Ketones, Diabetic Ketoacidosis (DKA), and Blood Ketone Meters

To combat DKA, you need to feed Charlie 1 1/2 times the amount of food that he normally eats. And as much fluid as he will take. You can add water to the food to make it soupy. Fluids help flush out the ketones.

If Charlie does not want to eat, try some of these suggestions:

I'm going to paraphrase @Bron and Sheba (GA) since she writes about DKA so well.



A lot of Canadians use the FreeStyle Lite meter. Strips are quite expensive in Canada. If you have any PC points, you can use this for this purpose.

Tips to catch and test a urine sample

You can pick up keto sticks at any human pharmacy. I believe they are called keto diastix.


Some questions:

Did the vet send Charlie home with anything other than the Prozinc?

Did the vet tell you that the ketones were gone?

Did the blood work show any kind of infection or inflammation?

Did the vet give you any idea of the blood glucose numbers? (Most of the forum members post U.S. numbers instead of rest-of-the-world numbers.) You multiply Canadian numbers by 18. Once you have a spreadsheet up and running, the spreadsheet does it for you.

Was Charlie eating at the vet?

Why only 2 kinds of Fancy Feast? There are plenty of low carb foods. With ketones in the mix, just feed Charlie whatever he wants to eat (with water added if you can). Food is an important tool in combatting DKA.
Here is the link to the Food Chart. Not all varieties are available in Canada. Note: in Canada, Fancy Feast Classic is called Fancy Feast Pates.
Canadian specific foods can be found here:
Click to expand...

To answer your questions.
Yes I was just sent home with the Prozinc and a box of syringes.
They didn't tell me if he still had ketones.
When I took him to the emergency vet lasts night, the bloodwork they did showed he didn't have any sort of infection or inflammation.
His original glucose levels from the bloodwork on March 16 was 28.4. From the paperwork he was at 26.6 this morning. I don't know what he was at when I picked him up from the regular vet.
He did eat a little bit a food I know this morning before leaving the emergency vet. Again the regular vet didn't say if he ate today.

I'm not going to only give him the 2 kinds the vet said. Thankfully prior to this, Charlie loves all the flavours of Tiki Cat, and some of the fancy feast, so I will be mixing those.

Right now he is not eating, and is hiding. Do I still give his a dose of prozinc?
 
Is there a 24 hour pharmacy close by? Knowing what his ketone level is (assuming you can catching him peeing) will help us tell you what needs to be done. If he is not eating, it may be another trip to the emergency vet for meds.
 
A pharmacy will have syringes to use to feed him too. Try getting him to eat his favorite foods right now. They should have sent you home with nausea medication, an appetite stimulant and fluids. Zyrtec (
Cetirizine)
can act like an appetite stimulant for many cats. That should be available at the pharmacy. You would give 1/2 a regular strength pill once a day. Before trying meds see if he will eat anything at all.
 
Bron and Sheba (GA) said:
We don’t want you to skip any doses of insulin, becasue of the ketones.
When was the dose due and when did he last eat and how much?
Offer him any food you think he might eat
Click to expand...


This is the issue I.I'm having, my lovey vet didn't tell me anything about how he was all day. So I don't know when he ate last or when he had a dose last.i ended up bringing him back to the emergency vet.
 
L
roonazoon said:
This is the issue I.I'm having, my lovey vet didn't tell me anything about how he was all day. So I don't know when he ate last or when he had a dose last.i ended up bringing him back to the emergency vet.
Click to expand...
These are the questions you need to ask:
  • Make sure he gets the dose of insulin he is due NOW ASAP.
  • Does he still have ketones.? Either way, you need to make sure you have a bottle of Ketostix or Keto Diastix from Walmart or a pharmacy so you have them at home to test daily. This is one of the most important things you can do with a cat who has had ketones.
  • Can he have another injection for nausea?
  • Ask for some cerenia and ondansetron tablets to take home for the nausea when the injections wears off. Don’t leave without them. He may need them for a while until the nausea stops….this is not unusual.
  • Can they give him some subQ fluids to help with the hydration and flush out any ketones while he is at the ER
Things will settle down for you both so try not to feel too stressed. If is always the hardest in the beginning when it is all so new, especially if it is complicated with something like ketones. :bighug:
Please let us know how you get on.
 
An unfortunate update. I took my sweet Charlie back to the emergency vet. He was breathing very hard, loud and also would not eat. While the they were looking at him, it was discovered that he had fluid in his lungs and was in heart failure. So I had to make the decision to put him down.
 
I am so very sorry ,I'm heartbroken for you. Fly high sweet Charlie .I have no words ,I'm so upset to hear this . Such a beautiful boy . Please take care of yourself. :bighug::bighug::bighug::bighug::rb_icon:cat_wings>o
 
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