Cat still gaining weight???

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Tuxedo Mom

Tuxedo Mom

Member Since 2014
My Tuxie (14 1/2 years old)was diagnosed with high glucose just over 4 months ago, He is currently unregulated and is currently on 5 units of Levemir x2 daily. He had lost a little weight at the time of diagnosis...his normal weight was around 12-12.5 lbs and he was 11.85 lbs. Since then he has been steadily putting on weight and is currently at approximately 13.5 lbs even though he is on a consistent food intake.

Tuxie and his sister have both been on a lightly cooked homemade diet for the last 8 years, which was checked and tweaked by a nutritionalist Snacks usually consist of salmon, chicken, or roast. Occasionally (once or twice a month) they will get a bit of Friskies pate or tuna as a treat, but no dry food.

Tuxie has been tested recently for acromegaly and IAA with negative results. Of course Tuxie is always hungry with the uncontrolled glucose levels, so his food is spread out into mini meals and snacks throughout the day.

So my question is has anyone else had a cat that puts on weight when normally an uncontrolled diabetic cat will lose weight. His vet is not concerned since he is not losing weight so she feels that is better than losing weight but I am very puzzled by this.
 
Your cat is petite next to mine. Max is a fatty, and probably weighs close to 17lbs now. We feed him and our other cat only about 300cals/day each which is under what should be "maintenance" amount. They both sleep all day when we are not here though.

Insulin causes significant changes to metabolism, causing the body to prefer to use sugars for energy. This makes is harder for the body to mobilize its fat stores and lose that chub, even when calorie intake is reduced. Insulin causes the body to go into storage mode. Exercise can help overcome some of this, because there's only so much calorie reduction that is ok for a diabetic cat. Weight gain is ok when first diagnosed, a lot of times that weight is muscle that was atrophied from lack of insulin.

Cushings can cause abnormal weight gain as well, but there are usually other symptoms. If you keep going higher it might be worth getting tested.

I'd first calculate the calories in the foods that you are feeding and make sure you aren't overfeeding:
http://www.animalmedicalcenterofchicago.com/pdf/CalorieRequirementsForCats.pdf

Then I'd keep trying to increase to get his sugars into a normal range. This decreases hunger and intake.

Then I'd try to get the cats to move around more.
 
Thanks for the information. Actually Tuxie was already tested for Cushing's and came back as negative.

For Tuxie his ideal weight is around 12 lbs. His calorie intake is around 250-275 daily (although I have been trying to cut it down lately) and has been the same for the last 4 months since I monitor absolutely everything!! A bit OCD but I have lots of information. My spreadsheet was posted just recently but I have been monitoring for 4 months now with at least 4 tests each day. Actually he was eating more before he was diagnosed, since his birth sister is more of a grazer and would leave her food to come back to...except when I started monitoring I noticed that Tuxie would finish his and then finish hers as well!! The little piggy!! So now I feed them together but watch and put his sister, Maxie's on the table where Tuxie can't get it.

I have definitely been working to get his sugars down. He started with 1 unit of Lantus back the end of November 2014 and worked his way up to 3.5 units by the end of December 2015. Then I had him switched to Levemir..starting at 2 units and now at 5 units. He had a dental and extraction done February 25...I hoped that would help, but it really made no difference. So since then I am continuing to increase his dose based on the TR protocol. Trying to get Tuxie into a controlled range is not proving an easy task and even his vet and another she conferred with are puzzled by his resistance.

I try to get him to do some play time each day, but Tuxie has never been as active as his sister. Actually with his extra weight he seems less interested in doing serious playing. So I am doing all the "right" things but patience is definitely becoming a short supply commodity around here. I know that in some people, so I assume some cats, insulin can cause some weight gain as well. But the insulin is necessary so not much I can do about it.

I guess that I read of so many people with diabetic cats that have trouble keeping their weight up when they are not controlled so I thought I would see if anyone else had problems with weight GAIN in an uncontrolled cat.
 
As soon as we started insulin, max began to gain. I think prior to diabetes he was maybe 15lbs. Lost a pound or two when sick, now is probably around 17lbs. Your cat sounds similar to mine. We started on lantus, went up to 7U with no response (400-500 all day long). Restarted on levemir. Went up to 7U and had a dental which helped.

His blood sugars recently began creeping up again. Interesting with Max, it seems like there is a "breakthrough" dose. We climb up for a while, then suddenly his sugars are better, and I can reduce. Take a look at the last month on our SS. I think this is related to glucose toxicity, and his pancreas stops working and once we reach a good dose, it kicks in again.

In order for his numbers to go down though, sometimes I have to hold his dose for a couple days through some low numbers (50s) where others would give a reduction. I'm not recommending this but we monitor closely, and it seems to help and I try to reduce quickly once he's had a couple good days. The bounces even out when you hold the dose through them as well.

He doesn't have any co-morbidities that we know of, but hasn't been tested for cushings/IAA/acro.
 
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Meya...yes your Max sounds a lot like Tuxie., even with his response to the Lantus..Tuxie was basically in the same high numbers range as your Max with little or no response to the Lantus. Then when he went on Levemir he started getting some downward movement, but it never lasted. The last few weeks Tuxie has had some blues with even a couple of greens thrown in to keep me on my toes. I haven't had to shoot through a low number yet but I DO monitor closely so I would be willing to do it. As my vet said Tuxie definitely has not read the manuals for feline diabetes treatment and responses...another case of every cat is different . :)
 
Just saw you were using the alphatrak, your "low" cutoff is going to be higher than mine, as I'm using a human glucometer.

Incidentally, I used to use the Alphatrak, and found it to be incredibly inconsistent (40-50% difference when tested on the same drop = not within FDA regs.). This and the price of strips caused me to switch. My new meter never reads more that 10% on the same drop. It makes a difference when trying to get the whole picture.
 
I use the AT2 meter but I use the Freestyle Lite strips (same company) with it which are much cheaper. I did a number of test comparisons using the AT2meter/AT2 strips and the AT2 meter/FSlite strips and the results were well within an acceptable range between the two combinations. I often will do several tests at the same time if the numbers are wonky compared to the rest and the results are well within 10-15% variance. Since my Shopper's here in Canada has discount coupons and specials as well as points good for $$ discounts I have been able to get the strips at a very affordable price.

The AT2 reads higher than a human meter by about 30-35%. I also did comparisons between the AT2/AT strips and the FSlite/FSlite strips and the 30-35% variance was pretty consistent. At one time I took my meter and compared it with the vet's..she uses the One Touch Ultra 2. At higher numbers 400-500 the numbers are pretty close to each other. The AT2 seems to have the higher range in the middle to low numbers so I keep that in mind when charting him. I can always do a FSlite/FSlite strips test as a comparison if need be. Tuxie is SO good about ear pokes and I am SO OCD about monitoring. At some point I really think I need to get a life besides "kitty nurse" LOL
 
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