Diabetic Remission

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JLBA

JLBA

Member Since 2014
Hello, new here!

Looking for all information in regards to Diabetic Remission (which I was told previously didn't even exist!).
But upon researching this because what was happening to my cat was unexplainable, I have found info so far that leads me to believe that he is in diabetic remission.

Any information you have, experiences, books to read, articles to read, the more current the better, would be very much appreciated. Thank you.

PS my cat is on VETSULIN
 
And some more info ...................

He is approximately 12 years old. He was diagnosed in September. He is on VETSULIN. In the beginning his blood was taken 3x a day. Then 2x a day. Eventually the vet said it was not necessary to take his blood everyday. I have a freestyle monitor. He was first put on 2 units which was then raised to 2.5 units and then was lowered to 2 units which he has been on most of the time so far. However, because of his behavior change ie one day not eating much, I took his blood and it was 70 which alarmed me. So that night he didn't get any insulin. His numbers have steadily started to decrease so he was decreased to 1.5 units of insulin. The past few days I can barely keep his numbers high enough to give insulin so he has been missing a shot aprox once a day. Also if his number is too low I was told to give him a pinch of karo syrup in his food. The person who has been helping me said she was also told by the vet that once a cat is on insulin you can never take the cat off or he will die. Because his numbers have been so low and I have to put syrup in his food just to get the numbers high enough to give him insulin at least once a day, I decided I better google this to find out whats going on. I had chosen not to go back to the vet he had been seeing as I was not really happy with his attitude. So I just found out from what I am reading that what I was told is incorrect. A cat can be "cured" of diabeties also known as DIABETIC REMISSION which would explain what is happening. My next step is going to be to find a vet who is more familiar with Diabetic Remission.
Is this a new finding in the vet world? Is there a specific way to take a cat off of insulin? Do I just keep lowering it (right now at 1 unit) until its at half and his numbers are stable and then just stop? Right now I am back to taking his numbers at least 2x a day sometimes I also do a midday reading.
 
Ya, glad you found the right spot to post. Some of our very knowledgeable members will be along soon and can offer you some great advice.

Welcome!:bighug::bighug:

Thumper is so adorable, I can't get over it!

Good Luck!
 
Correction on the age ... he is 13 years old ... just looked up the records and he was born the end of the year of 2003.
 
Hi

You might want to ask in the honeymooners/OTJ board. Honeymoon is what we call the period when a cat goes into remission and OTJ stands for 'off the juice' ie insulin. The peeps there know what to look for and how to deal with it. Also when you post a thread there is an option by the subject to add a prefix, if you hit on the drop down menu you'll find an option to add a question mark before it so that people know you're asking a question. You're vet is quite wrong and you are quite right, yes they can go into remission and yes they can come off insulin if they do. I can't offer much more help than that but post on their thread and they will be able to help you more

and FABULOUS if indeed it is remission :D
 
Welcome. Yes cats can and do go into remission. And can be maintained by diet. However, once a diabetic always a diabetic.

Being this is a holiday weekend, it's kind of light here right now.

You would test before each injection to make sure Thumber is safe enough to receive his shot. Getting tests in between is helpful to see how low the shot is bringing him down in a 12 hr cycle. You want to keep getting 2 shootable numbers a day. Eventually dose will decrease if he's heading for remission. There is a protocol if you will on how to do this safely.

There is a document in the Vetsulin/insulin section on your particular insulin. Read through and others will start popping on to help soon.

I'm not familiar with Vetsulin, but others here are. Keep checking in and you will get help. Good luck.
 
I was told from the members here to not shoot under 200. And my kitties are both alive a well and have been in remission for 11 months. Woody test 98 yesterday morning and Buzz was 72. Yes, I test once a month to make sure they are still in remission.

It would be nice if you'd set up a spreadsheet, even if your kitty is going into remission. And, yes, when I was taking Buzz off I reduced, but as you can tell on their spreadsheets I took them off fairly quick because of their lowest readings. I was also changing to low carb wet food and they have been on that since.

I was told if they had under 150 on both pre shots each day for 2 weeks they were in remission.
 
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Thank you everyone. I have been chatting on facebook in one of the diabetic groups I just joined and most everyone seems to agree. The only difference is the number that people say would indicate when a cat is in diabetic remission. That number seems to differ with each person who posts what they know. I keep a log for him from day one which includes every blood taken number and how much insulin given at what time etc.

Woodsywife you said this ..... "There is a document in the Vetsulin/insulin section on your particular insulin."
Did you mean this is a document someplace in this forum or there is a document on the vetsulin website?

Edited to say that I am definitely interested in ... "There is a protocol if you will on how to do this safely." I want to make sure I'm safe. I do have a plan in place but would love to read up on whatever the protocol is on what the experts say is the safe way to continue.
 
JLBA said:
Thank you everyone. I have been chatting on facebook in one of the diabetic groups I just joined and most everyone seems to agree. The only difference is the number that people say would indicate when a cat is in diabetic remission. That number seems to differ with each person who posts what they know. I keep a log for him from day one which includes every blood taken number and how much insulin given at what time etc.

Woodsywife you said this ..... "There is a document in the Vetsulin/insulin section on your particular insulin."
Did you mean this is a document someplace in this forum or there is a document on the vetsulin website?

Edited to say that I am definitely interested in ... "There is a protocol if you will on how to do this safely." I want to make sure I'm safe. I do have a plan in place but would love to read up on whatever the protocol is on what the experts say is the safe way to continue.
Click to expand...

I believe the reason why I was given the 200 number was because I had data on their spreadsheets to show how hard and fast they dropped. That's why the spreadsheet is so valuable. Members can look and see what is happening with your kitty.
 
JLBA said:
Thank you everyone. I have been chatting on facebook in one of the diabetic groups I just joined and most everyone seems to agree. The only difference is the number that people say would indicate when a cat is in diabetic remission. That number seems to differ with each person who posts what they know. I keep a log for him from day one which includes every blood taken number and how much insulin given at what time etc.

Woodsywife you said this ..... "There is a document in the Vetsulin/insulin section on your particular insulin."
Did you mean this is a document someplace in this forum or there is a document on the vetsulin website?

Edited to say that I am definitely interested in ... "There is a protocol if you will on how to do this safely." I want to make sure I'm safe. I do have a plan in place but would love to read up on whatever the protocol is on what the experts say is the safe way to continue.
Click to expand...

Here is the user guide. http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/vetsulin-caninsulin-user-guide.302/

Can't find of the juice guide. Maybe someone else can. I'll keep looking.
 
Woodsywife said:
Here is the user guide. http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/vetsulin-caninsulin-user-guide.302/

Can't find of the juice guide. Maybe someone else can. I'll keep looking.
Click to expand...


Thank you. I read the user guide. Some things like start low was not done so its too late now to turn
back the clock but I am giving a low dosage now 1 unit. Pretty much everything else I had been doing.
The only thing I have not been doing is checking keytones (sp?) but he was only spiking in the very
beginning of his treatment and the vet checked for keytones after that and it came back negative so yay!
I will have to go get some strips and start testing keytones periodically. Tonight his number was too low
for insulin so he didn't get any.
 
Hi there.

Can you please tell us which type of glucometer you're using (human meter or pet meter) to measure blood glucose levels.

Also can you please tell us the BG reading you got tonight which made you decide to skip the dose of Vetsulin (the right thing to do if the reading is in the normal range for the meter you're using.)


Mogs
.
 
@JLBA -

For a Freestyle human meter the normal BG range for a cat is 50-120 mg/dL.

Without seeing more of your BG information the best we can suggest is that you do not give any insulin if BG is less than 200 mg/dL.

If you are constantly getting preshot numbers in the normal range for your meter then it suggest that the current dose may be too high OR that your cat may no longer need any insulin.

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION

For Vetsulin (especially for a cat with improving numbers) it is very important to get a preshot test, feed, wait 30 mins give insulin and get tests at +2 and +3 to see where the cycle is going. It may be necessary to keep testing for several hours if cat is under 100 at those times.

It is important to keep checking for urine ketones, especially when reducing the dose/stopping insulin.


Mogs
.
 
His number was 139 tonight. And I didn't realize I had to test his ketones so I will have to get some strips to do that.
In the beginning when his numbers were high and low and high again the vet did test his ketones and he was fine.
But that was 3 months ago. That said, his numbers settled down after that slowly going down down down which is why I have been lowering his dosage to the point of now every other dosage his blood is too low for me to give him his insulin shot.

Edited to add that you are missing the beginning of the story ..sorry..I'm posting in so many places I'm forgetting who knows what. The beginning is that I was away in another state, and my friend had him at her house where he used to live. She contacted me to say he had a very high temp and she had rushed him to the vet. He got an antibiotic shot and then another day she had to bring him back again and he got another antibiotic shot because he was still running a high temp. While she was there on one of the visits, I think the first visit, he drew blood to get tests done. I learned tonight while writing the results of the tests to someone else that they got the glucose test result back at three hundred and something but the other test had not come back yet. So they may have jumped the gun with diagnosing him as diabetic. :(
 
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JLBA said:
His number was 139 tonight. And I didn't realize I had to test his ketones so I will have to get some strips to do that.
In the beginning when his numbers were high and low and high again the vet did test his ketones and he was fine.
But that was 3 months ago. That said, his numbers settled down after that slowly going down down down which is why I have been lowering his dosage to the point of now every other dosage his blood is too low for me to give him his insulin shot.

Edited to add that you are missing the beginning of the story ..sorry..I'm posting in so many places I'm forgetting who knows what. The beginning is that I was away in another state, and my friend had him at her house where he used to live. She contacted me to say he had a very high temp and she had rushed him to the vet. He got an antibiotic shot and then another day she had to bring him back again and he got another antibiotic shot because he was still running a high temp. While she was there on one of the visits, I think the first visit, he drew blood to get tests done. I learned tonight while writing the results of the tests to someone else that they got the glucose test result back at three hundred and something but the other test had not come back yet. So they may have jumped the gun with diagnosing him as diabetic. :(
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Hello--

First, congratulations on figuring out how to deal with your cat's diabetes diagnosis despite what sounds like very weak support coming from your vet! By testing his blood glucose yourself and letting that information guide your dosing decisions, you may have saved him.

Mogs and others are much more familiar with Vetsulin than I am, so I will leave specific dosing recommendations to them and just make a couple comments here. First, that beginning of the story is quite revealing-- cats can spike blood glucose due to stress and/or transient infection, so I think it is quite possible that the glucose reading that led to the diabetes diagnosis was misleading. Often vets will use additional tests-- either subsequent blood glucose readings or else a fructosamine test-- in order to confirm a diabetes diagnosis, but it sounds like your vet did not do that.

Second: 139 is a low pre-shot number for Vetsulin, so in my opinion you were right to skip since your cat seems to be in the process of reducing his insulin needs. It sounds like you have a lot of data in your logbook-- if you were to transfer that to one of our standard spreadsheets so that other users could view it, people might be able to give you more specific recommendations at those low numbers. Without that data, we will tend to be more cautious, because the first priority is to keep the cat safe.

That said, generally speaking, in taking a cat to remission one would rather not skip a lot of shots, but instead just reduce the dose (down to tiny amounts-- we use fractions down to 0.1U here!) and keep going with consistent insulin support for as long as possible in order to give the cat's pancreas as much time as possible to heal. In this case, I'm not sure of the best procedure given the uncertainty about the original diagnosis-- I will leave it to the experts, but I'll keep my fingers crossed that your cat's road to remission will be a short one!

Congratulations again on figuring out how to deal with all of this basically on your own! Your cat is very lucky to have you in his corner!
 
JLBA said:
I have to put syrup in his food just to get the numbers high enough to give him insulin at least once a day,
Click to expand...

This is not a safe practice. Any syrup you put on the food to bring numbers up to a shootable level is just going to wear off quickly so by the time the insulin reaches peak action, that influence would be gone from his system anyway.

I agree with Critter Mom that you should not give insulin if pre-shot test is under 200. When you get a number under 200 at pre-shot, I'd skip the shot, feed as usual and then test randomly starting at +2, to see what his numbers look like without insulin. Bear in mind the range 50-120mg/dL is a guideline and not exact so don't panic with a reading slightly higher than 120 if it's after food. Just test to see what the numbers look like. This will help you decide if insulin is still needed. The protocol for being able to declare remission is 14 consecutive days without insulin. If you do get a shootable reading, then I think a dose reduction may be in order.
 
Thank you all for your info. I knew to test at home due to the rescue person guiding me on that. She was taking care of him while I was out of town when all this happened. Then when I got home and his blood numbers started to settle she brought him home to me which btw was a new home because I had just moved. So now my cat was dealing with a new environment and minus my roommate who he loved to go visit. So my poor cat had quite a bit on his plate which may have lead to a misdiagnosis. The vet did add on the addition test of the fructosamine test but yesterday while reading that to someone I saw that that test plus two other test said "not processed yet" or "still being processed" or something like that so he may have eventually gotten that fructosamine test number but I don't have it. Or maybe he didn't get it or follow up on it? I don't know, I was in another state so all this took place while I was away. Thank goodness all the pieces of the puzzle came together so quickly for me and my cat ie within 3 1/2 months vs. months or years later. I do believe and pray that he is already in diabetic remission, thats if he ever had true diabeties to begin with. So this has been his log of numbers so far .......

His last insulin shot was given in the morning of 12/31/16

12/31 (730pm) +8 hrs Blood 110

12/31 (1130pm) +12rs Blood 139
NO EVENING INSULIN SHOT

01/01/17 (1130am) Blood 129
NO MORING INSULIN SHOT

01/01/17 (6pm) +6.5hrs Blood 107

so as you can see no insulin yet his numbers still have been going down.
 
JLBA said:
Thank you all for your info. I knew to test at home due to the rescue person guiding me on that. She was taking care of him while I was out of town when all this happened. Then when I got home and his blood numbers started to settle she brought him home to me which btw was a new home because I had just moved. So now my cat was dealing with a new environment and minus my roommate who he loved to go visit. So my poor cat had quite a bit on his plate which may have lead to a misdiagnosis. The vet did add on the addition test of the fructosamine test but yesterday while reading that to someone I saw that that test plus two other test said "not processed yet" or "still being processed" or something like that so he may have eventually gotten that fructosamine test number but I don't have it. Or maybe he didn't get it or follow up on it? I don't know, I was in another state so all this took place while I was away. Thank goodness all the pieces of the puzzle came together so quickly for me and my cat ie within 3 1/2 months vs. months or years later. I do believe and pray that he is already in diabetic remission, thats if he ever had true diabeties to begin with. So this has been his log of numbers so far .......

His last insulin shot was given in the morning of 12/31/16

12/31 (730pm) +8 hrs Blood 110

12/31 (1130pm) +12rs Blood 139
NO EVENING INSULIN SHOT

01/01/17 (1130am) Blood 129
NO MORING INSULIN SHOT

01/01/17 (6pm) +6.5hrs Blood 107

so as you can see no insulin yet his numbers still have been going down.
Click to expand...
Looks like the beginning of an "off the juice" trial to me! Glad you are testing and not shooting those low numbers. My cat was on Vetsulin just under 4 months before going into remission. You can see her spreadsheet by clicking on the link in my signature below.

Please if your cats levels are a little elevated and you feel he needs insulin, give a reduced dose as clearly his pancreas is showing great signs of healing. 1.5 units for a cat under 200-250 is a pretty high dose and probably would send him into hypoglycemic levels.
 
wow congratulations JanetNJ!! You must be sooo happy!

So many of the charts I see are confusing but yours is pretty clear. What does the second P stand for in AMPS and PMPS ..... so AM (morning) P?S is sugar??? And PM (evening) P? S is sugar?

ALSO at the top of the sheet it gives numbers in colors ... is that to show people what range it is via color coding it? Is it showing you what color to make the reading so the chart is easier to see or does the chart automatically make the box the correct color depending on the number you put in it?

I love the comments area because it shows that I'm not the only one having certain issues. Like in the beginning I was having a problem getting blood out of him until I read that I needed to warm up his ears and that helped a lot. But comments area is great to see how we all can share the same issues.
 
JanetNJ said:
This is a different cat from the diabetic cat you had in 2014?
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Yes my Callie lived a year not on insulin as I said I wanted to try to treat her with diet only. She was doing fine and then all of the sudden declined. I then put her on human insulin (my roommate was diabetic and said I could use her insulin) but she died within two weeks. However, during those two weeks she was fine. All of the sudden two days before she died she started to decline big time. When I rushed her to the vet he said it really was too late and she needed to be put down. She was aprox (I rescued her from outside so don't know how old she was, actually she rescued herself by running through my door one snowstormy night and never left lol
) 12 years old? Could have been older.
Now looking back at the way she was treated and not treated for diabetes, I think she could have lived a lot longer. I didn't know anything back then the way I know it now about feline diabetes. Also I had no income and no money for expensive insulin and that did factor into my decision to treat her holistically. Unfortunately she died because of my lack of knowledge. :( Thumper and I miss her very much. I will try to upload a picture or two of her....


Here are two pictures if I do this correctly lol ......

Callie And Thumper 12.05.2011 011.jpg



CALLIE NOVEMBER 7 2011 097.jpg
 
JLBA said:
wow congratulations JanetNJ!! You must be sooo happy!

So many of the charts I see are confusing but yours is pretty clear. What does the second P stand for in AMPS and PMPS ..... so AM (morning) P?S is sugar??? And PM (evening) P? S is sugar?

ALSO at the top of the sheet it gives numbers in colors ... is that to show people what range it is via color coding it? Is it showing you what color to make the reading so the chart is easier to see or does the chart automatically make the box the correct color depending on the number you put in it?

I love the comments area because it shows that I'm not the only one having certain issues. Like in the beginning I was having a problem getting blood out of him until I read that I needed to warm up his ears and that helped a lot. But comments area is great to see how we all can share the same issues.
Click to expand...
Amps is am (morning) preshot. Pmps is the evening preshot. The chart is automatically color coded... It's formated that way to see the number trends at a glance and automatically makes the box the correct color when you type the number in.

The comment area is really helpful, and it makes it clear to other viewers what's going on as well.
 
How do I go about downloading a copy of that spreadsheet? Where do people get the spreadsheet to download and use?

and ooohhhhh so PS is pre shot okay lol... had that wrong. thank you. :)
 
Thank you April!! aka manxcat419! I've now joined so many FB diabetic groups I've lost track lol. I have an email folder I am keeping so I can keep track of certain info people posts in one of the group or here.
Thank you for the links to the spreadsheet and signature. :)
 
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