Grayson 3/25

[Grayson & Lu]

Hi all -

Just poppin in to say hi and fill you guys in on G's adventures.

His ear infection wreaked havoc on him. We went through 3 weeks of ABs and after 3 weeks of mid- to upper-pinks, we dropped an average of 100 points. His dose decreased quite a bit as well. 60% to be exact (from his highest dose). We saw blues & greens - even a few TOO LOW (that had never happened before). He got GRAVY food! flip_cat

So the past few days he's hanging in the pinks again. :sad: R isn't doing much.... and until tonight, not much in his ear to make me worry. ... then I just pulled some crud out of his ear that's the size of Montana. UGH!!! Flushed it out with some ear cleaner - he was NOT happy, but remembered it's almost time to eat, so I think he's pacifying me. The C&S had shown it was a staph infection and should've responded to most ABs. I opted for Zeniquen as it was only once a day. Wondering where to go from here. Clavamox, Orbax, ???

 

[Sheila & Beau GA & Jeddie GA]

Happy belated birthday, Grayson! party_cat

Ugh - so sorry about the ear infection. Jeddie had one (mild) and that is my only experience with them. It cleared up on it's own with some cleaning help from me. Came on fast, left fast (after about 3 days).

Wow his dose really has come down. I noticed you are shooting on a bit of a sliding scale, which is not the SOP for lev, so wondered why? I'm just conditioned to think that a steady dose works better. Also, I'm not sure you need to give a gravy (HC) food on a low of 48. I would suggest not to on a regular diabetic, but maybe because he has had SRT and is on such a large dose still (compared to a reg FD) that is the prudent thing to do?

Hope the ear thing clears up completely very soon.

 

[Grayson & Lu]

The ear infection has been off & on since about September. I hate to continue pumping ABs into him, he despises the (refrigerated) steroid drops BID, and I can't say I blame him! We had the C&S done, and it showed it was a staph infection, responsive to most ABs.... then it was chosing one that wouldn't upset his stomach. As it turned out, after the 3 wk course, he got a poop blockage and had x-rays & 3 enemas at the vets. Not a very happy little camper, I'm afraid.

As for his dosing, I'm not really trying to use a sliding scale. He's just had so many swings (seemingly from the ears/ABs), I've had to drop back, and my some of my scheduling has resulted in shooting REALLY conservatively (like the 10u). Clearly it was not enough, but it was safe for the cycle. With Acros, I'm told we can resume the last good dose (think of it like a partial fur shot). Anyways, the more recent climb has mostly been by one unit increases (so 5%), as have been MOST, but not all, of the decreases. When we were initially climbing, the increases I shot were usually 20-25%. For a normal diabetic, that's pretty normal... but when you're a high dose, that's a chunk of insulin. And yes, a few people freaked out at the time. Keep in mind that when we changed from ProZinc 6u TID to 6u BID (while I was outa town), we started at a very 3u Lev BID - so basically at 1/6 of his dose.... and he was frequently ketonic. I couldn't risk DKA, so it was truly a juggling act between increases, fluids, and testing. It took quite a while before we really started seeing good numbers. From May 31 to November, for the most part. In kitty years, that's forever!

As for the gravy food, he liked it better than the Karo, and it seemed to last a bit longer. He'd pretty much never been below 63, and even THAT was a rarity, so as I saw it, 41 was really scary low. :shock:

So he's gone from just insulin to Insulin, Thyrosin (hypo thyroid as a result of SRT - very common), Miralax, the ear drops, and for those 3 weeks AB (plus more ABs back in December and Sept I believe. Now he also gets Lactulose. So his SS looks like a littany of the alphabet for each med. But for the present, he seems to be doing okay. When he stopped eating 12 cans of FF/day, he started having less poop... which makes sense, but previously he'd leave 3 giant poops in the box (uncovered so I could inspect, of course!) per day. Now I only get about one/day.

Gotta run... meeting in 20 min out of the building. Thanks for checking in on us!

 

[Sheila & Beau GA & Jeddie GA]

I sure hear you on the "litany" of medications. Cami's SS looks like that.

It does seem like Grayson's acro is slowly ebbing. Sure didn't think it would be this slow, but I should know better since my sister had the same procedure (human version) and it has taken a long time to see changes. Actually, she has just stopped mentioning it. I should ask her about it.

Please know I am not questioning what you are doing, just curious about the process. It all makes sense. The reason I said gravy food might not be needed is that 41 is not normally a dangerous number. Beau and Jeddie both got down into the 30s with no problems, but yes the first times Beau did I gave Karo and then gravy foods, but I probably wouldn't not. I would make sure the cat ate something and keep offering food and testing. Gravy (and karo) can sometimes intensive a bounce - at least on a regular FD.