Chronic pancreatitis, diabetes and laser treatment

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Lisamstephan

Member Since 2012
My kitty is an unregulated diabetic with chronic pancreatitis. He is recently having an acute pancreatic episode. I have started home testing and I am terrible at it. I have been doing mostly spot checks. Today I am trying a curve for the first time and he looks like he has been in a knife fight :(. Anyways, he was hovering around 250 even without insulin before this latest pancreatic episode and now he is hanging mostly in 400s even with one unit of Lantus. If I go to 1.5 units then he drops below 50 at his nadir. My vet is suggesting treating the pancreatic inflammation with lasers. It is expensive and I would like to have some good experiences with it before I commit. My guy feels terrible I have to do something!

Lisa and Dustin
 
I have never heard of laser treatment. My cat has cronic pancreatitis and we just treat the symptoms.
I may be incorrect, but doesn't acute pancreatitis require hospitalization?
 
He has been hospitalized twice. The problem is that his BG are totally unpredictable due to the inflammation and he is heading downhill. Treating symptoms is fine except it is sending BG out of control
 
Thanks. We have tried pain meds, cerennia, ondanstetron, and Pepcid. Nothing seems to help and he hates oral meds so much that if I do any oral meds then I have trouble with any testing. I have moved to injectable Pepcid and injectable vitamin B plus 6 homeopathic meds. Nothing is helping this time!
 
What pain meds have you tried? What analgesics is your kitty currently on? Buprenorphine seems to have a fairly good record for treating this sort of pain in felines.

I really suspect the pain has a lot to do with his high, seemingly uncontrollable BG levels. Get that under control and you may find the BG comes down low enough for the insulin to start to treat the BG peaks without having such a worryingly low nadir.

Additionally, how are his hydration levels? Have fluids (either IV or sub-q) been administered? You need to ensure he doesn't get too dehydrated. This is very important.

The pain needs to be got under control, as a priority; then hopefully the BG will start to come down, putting less stress on his little pancreas.

What is your vet recommending? Does the vet think kitty needs hospitalisation again now? What analgesics does the vet recommend? Buprenorphine, metacam etc? Is your cat currently on any steroids/ anti-inflamatories at all?

I can't seem to find any info on this laser treatment you mention, could you provide us with a bit more info on it?

Finally, what homeopathic remedies are you giving him? 6 seems quite a lot...

I really hope he starts to feel better soon, poor little thing.

Good luck.

H
 
Pancreatitis may lead to variable appetite and vomiting. This can make the glucose levels completely unpredictable, as I discovered with Spitzer.

Lantus works best on predictable glucose patterns. You may find it helpful to switch to a non-depot insulin such as ProZinc or BCCP PZI so you can adjust the dose based on his glucose levels (pre-shot and nadir), appetite, and whether or not he has vomited.

Another, much more complicated and tricky option is to go with a lower dose of Lantus to keep a basal level of insulin present, and to use a very small amount of a short acting insulin to handle any glucose elevations not handled by the Lantus. This requires running a curve with the supplemental insulin to see how it works in your cat, plus very frequent testing. This is not a preferred option.
 
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