Hi everyone!
I wanted to make a post, as my cat Misha has recently been recently diagnosed and hospitalized for his diabetes. I originally took him to the vet for lethargy and weight loss on 11.03.25, where his BG was 290 mg/dL and he presented with ketones and a UTI. The vet thought his BG wasn't high enough to be diabetes and that he might have a hole in his kidney instead, and told us to go home and change his diet to Hills Science DM while a fructosamine was sent in. After a week that came back and proved it was diabetes, but the vet still wanted us to see how he did for a while on just a changed diet since he was feeling better (I decided to go with Fancy Feast instead of Hills). I have been tracking his BG, which has been mostly around 260 mg/dL, which was still high enough for me to want to put him on insulin. I changed clinics to hopefully see a vet that knew more about diabetes, and I took Misha in last Thursday to run his bloodwork again and start him on insulin. The bloodwork came back worse than before, as his ketones were much higher (6.2 mmol/L) and his electrolytes were unbalanced, so I was told to hospitalize him as he was on the edge of DKA even though he had no outward symptoms. Misha was in the hospital for around 32 hours, and he was pretty quickly stabilized and transitioned onto Lantus.
Now, he has been out of the hospital for 2 days and has been placed on 1 unit of Lantus twice a day as well as a supplement for his potassium levels. However, I am concerned about his BG levels as they are generally higher than they were before he was placed on insulin, with AMPS BG of 380 and 350 mg/dL over the past two days. When the hospital gave him Lantus, they were able to get his BG down to 120 mg/dL but now the lowest he is going is around 270 mg/dL (I am letting him eat throughout the day to restore his weight, which might make it higher). I know Lantus needs time to build up, but I'm just concerned especially due to the presence of ketones. I am waiting to hear back from the vet about potentially increasing his dosage, as it seems low for a large cat (healthy weight: 14 lbs, current weight: 10.3 lbs) but I would love to hear from other people about their experiences with DKA and starting Lantus.
I wanted to make a post, as my cat Misha has recently been recently diagnosed and hospitalized for his diabetes. I originally took him to the vet for lethargy and weight loss on 11.03.25, where his BG was 290 mg/dL and he presented with ketones and a UTI. The vet thought his BG wasn't high enough to be diabetes and that he might have a hole in his kidney instead, and told us to go home and change his diet to Hills Science DM while a fructosamine was sent in. After a week that came back and proved it was diabetes, but the vet still wanted us to see how he did for a while on just a changed diet since he was feeling better (I decided to go with Fancy Feast instead of Hills). I have been tracking his BG, which has been mostly around 260 mg/dL, which was still high enough for me to want to put him on insulin. I changed clinics to hopefully see a vet that knew more about diabetes, and I took Misha in last Thursday to run his bloodwork again and start him on insulin. The bloodwork came back worse than before, as his ketones were much higher (6.2 mmol/L) and his electrolytes were unbalanced, so I was told to hospitalize him as he was on the edge of DKA even though he had no outward symptoms. Misha was in the hospital for around 32 hours, and he was pretty quickly stabilized and transitioned onto Lantus.
Now, he has been out of the hospital for 2 days and has been placed on 1 unit of Lantus twice a day as well as a supplement for his potassium levels. However, I am concerned about his BG levels as they are generally higher than they were before he was placed on insulin, with AMPS BG of 380 and 350 mg/dL over the past two days. When the hospital gave him Lantus, they were able to get his BG down to 120 mg/dL but now the lowest he is going is around 270 mg/dL (I am letting him eat throughout the day to restore his weight, which might make it higher). I know Lantus needs time to build up, but I'm just concerned especially due to the presence of ketones. I am waiting to hear back from the vet about potentially increasing his dosage, as it seems low for a large cat (healthy weight: 14 lbs, current weight: 10.3 lbs) but I would love to hear from other people about their experiences with DKA and starting Lantus.
