Nancy and Scotty
Member Since 2014
I have never posted much here and was not even going to send this out but I see so many people today who are so discouraged about their diabetic cats that I thought maybe I should go ahead and send Scotty's story out. Scotty was diagnosed in January 2014 and put on PZI, since Scotty had no other health problems, mainly ate canned food anyway and was not overweight I thought in 3 months tops I would have him in remission, boy was I wrong. On the PZI the best blood sugar I ever saw was 330, i would raise his dose, he would drop to the 300's then in about 2 weeks he would go back to 500-600, in June I was giving him 15 units of PZI twice a day, he could barely walk from the neuropathy, was skin and bones, dry skin and fur, when I would go to work everyday I would ask him to please still be there when I got home, at that time I was working about 14 hours a day and there was no way I could give him shots every 12 hours so I was very scared to try Lantus or Levemir but by the middle of June I decided that I could try another insulin on a schedule of 14 and 10 or he would die of hyperglycemia, so I asked my vet for a prescription for Levemir, even though he had never heard of it, he read up on it and gave it to me. I did not see a big difference in his numbers right away but I did start seeing symptom relief almost immediately. In August there was a shake up where I work and I was able to start working from home, I am on duty about 16 hours a day but I am at home, this and the fact that I can driver to my vet clinic in 60 seconds let me put Scotty on a super tight regulation schedule, in November when I hit 6.5 units twice a day (also the magic 10 months) his blood sugar starting dropping, sometimes I had to decrease every 2 or 3 days. In February I was giving Scotty a tenth of a unit twice a day and although his numbers were always in the 80's (Relion Confirm) I was seeing some signs of hypoglycemia and he was eating constantly so I decided he was probably going too low and eating to stay higher so I quit giving him insulin on February 20 and so far he is OTJ. My vet seemed convinced he was an IAA cat but did not want to fool with having him tested and I did not push because he is go great at working with me on everything. For everyone who is having trouble regulating their cat and has been able to read this long ramble this was a very sick cat for no reason other that diabetes, he was at one point on 30 units of PZI a day and not controlled and went up to 13 units of Levemir before I got him regulated and today he is OTJ and laying behind me pulling my hair because I am typing this instead of paying attention to him, it took 14 months but it is possible, this is a cat who had neuropathy so bad that he cried to be carried around the house so try not to give up, its okay to hate the people who got their cats in remission in 2 months, I know I did but now I just consider them lightweights. Just Joking, I just want everyone who is discouraged to hang in there.
