Calley AMPS 371

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Kris10mo

Kris10mo

Member Since 2014
I must not understand this insulin stuff. I thought insulin is supposed to keep the bg at an even level over the 12 hour period...and then we shoot again and it is supposed to stay even all night?

I thought bouncing is not good?

No vomiting in two days. Horray. I changed the food to a chicken pate....and have been giving her very little hoping for whatever was causing her to vomit, will heal.

Other than the no vomiting...I don't see any progress. :(
 
No, the insulin lowers the blood glucose in a sweeping curve from high to low and up again over the 12 hours. Hence checking the cat's "curve."

Here's an article with a couple graphs you can actually see.

http://www.felinediabetes.com/bg-curves.htm

Notice that the "ideal" one goes from 300 to 100 within the 12 hours. This is what you're looking for in general while on insulin, though a cat who is not on insulin with a perfectly functioning pancreas looks like. You can't mimic a healthy organ with insulin, just keep the BG levels from being damaging to the cat as best you can.

For now, you really shouldn't worry about the high PS numbers, though I know I was obsessed with worrying about those for a long time, too. It took MONTHS for me to get my head around only thinking about the nadirs as being meaningful in terms of how well things are going.
 
After the dry info, here's the hurrah!

I'm so glad she's gone so long without vomiting! That's fantastic.

And as mentioned, the PS number isn't meaningful in terms of how well she's doing, but how she looks in the middle of the cycle is. So, the fact that we know for sure that she's dipping down during the day means that she's showing GREAT progress. She will always be high at the PS times, though she may eventually (like within the next 6 months) be a little lower than she is now. Hopefully closer to 300 than 400.

Again, this is progress, you're just looking to the left of it instead of at it. ;)
 
hi kristen
we have to celebrate the small victories so the fact that she has not vomited is great. good job!! i know how hard it is to have patience. i want Tibbs better right now but it will happen for us. we just need to listen to theses folks. hang in there! don't know if u saw my other post. ur Calley and my civie Leah could be identical twins.
sending hugs
nadine
 
Even a nondiabetic cat doesn't have level blood sugar no living creature does.

Maybe explaining what insulin is will help.

Insulin is a hormone that the pancreas produces in response to food intake. When you eat your body breaks that food down into glucose (sugar). Its that glucose that fuels all the cells of the body. But the body's cells are locked and the glucose can't enter them without a key. That key is insulin. That's why with diabetics they remain ravenous while eating tons of food and still loosing weight. Kind like buying groceries and sitting them on the front porch because the door is locked. They aren't going to do you any good if you can't get them into the kitchen to prepare a meal. You have to have the key to open the door.

Now the body is a fabulous little machine it likes to stay in a constance state called homostasis. Which is a big fancy word for everything just as it was. When we get too hot the body cools itself by sweating or panting in the case of cats and dogs. But the body also adapts. A good example is for those of us that live in places with seasonal temperature changes when we first feel fall's 50degree mornings after summer's sweltering heat we shiver because it feels cold. But we put on a tshirt or go without a coat inthat same 50 degrees after we've dealt with below freezing temps during winter. Because our body has adapted to the changes.

With diabetic cats their bodies have adapted to the feel of those high numbers, it feels normal to them then we start adding insulin. Which has been missing. It does its job it unlocks the door so the cat can use the food it eats to fuel its body and repair damage to cells. But in doing so it lowers the sugar in the blood. Which now feels wrong to them. So the body reads it as a hypo setting in and the liver freaks out, it sends out stored sugars and counterregulatory hormones that drives the numbers back up again. But the longer we can keep them on insulin and down in lower numbers their bodies adapt again to what normal feels like and the liver stops fighting it. So they bounce less and go less high when they do bounce.

All newly treated cats bounce because their bodies have to relearn what it feels like to be normal again

Mel and The Fur Gang
 
thanks again Mel. you need to write a book with all your great analogies. it makes it so much easier to understand
 
Thanks ladies. I appreciate the support and information. It does make sense that the levels will be curved.....I don't know why I was thinking it should be level. I know that sugars in humans aren't level....so why would they be in cats? I'm learning.

Nadine...aren't the calico/white kitties so pretty.? It's my favorite color of kitty!!!!

And Yes I want Calley fixed NOW....yesterday..... a long time back. But I guess like any disease...it will take time. I am not a patient person...well I am with children(lol)....but I want Calley better asap. At the very least, I need signs that she is improving. :)
 
When I adopted Autumn she was a mess. Blood sugar in the 500s, moderate ketones, uti, so dehydrated her little ears felt like shoe leather and so matted I couldn't even get to her skin to shoot her. She was a walking breathing skeleton. Over time she healed from everything I first saw on her. She looked great, gaining weight, starting to purr when petted,the gulping down of food as fast as I could shovel at her slowed to near normal. Then about 9 months later the first bump on her chin appeared it looked like a pimple. When I went to touch it, it oozed pus, I pressed on the sides and a hard round silver ball came out. It was a bb, every few days there was another one, each time the same a small bb. Now I knew she hadn't gotten them here so I was perplexed on where they were coming from. While she was in for predental blood work I mentioned them to my vet. The explanation she gave me made sense. Sometime before comimg to live with us Autumn was shot in the face and shoulder but she was probably a diabetic already and her body had greater concerns like keeping her heart beating so it just ignored the bbs, now that her body wasn't working so hard just to keep her alive it could finally worry about those foreign objects and had the strength to rid her off them.

In March Autumn has been with me 3 yrs. For the most part well regulated but she is still healing from the inside out. I see little changes in her daily. Her coat every year changes a little bit the colors deepen, it gets softer and thicker, her eyes have changed color as the fog lifted and her personality has changed too. The standoffish surly cat was replaced by a snuggle bug. It took her a year to be able to jump on the bed, another 6 months to sleep with us. Now she tells us when its bedtime, scolds us if we're out late etc. But its taken years to get her there. Of course she was an extreme case but we celebrate every small step forward.

Mel and The Fur Gang
 
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