Grendel is back

[Dan Schoo]

Hey all,

I am back with my boy Grendel. He got the diabetes back in 2018 and I was able to get it back in remission (yay!). But now, at the age of 16, he's lost a lot of weight and has pretty high BG levels again. He had a level of 430 at the vet and I started him on two units twice a day of glargine. I had some trouble finding new test strips (mine had expired :/) and started home testing. I just got a reading of 550 today (this seemed alarming at first, but I think it's not so bad this early right...?). Friday is my first day free so I can do a full curve and I'm hoping for some better levels then. I'm in the process of re-educating myself, since I've forgotten so much of all this stuff since back in 2018 when I was dealing with it last.

His legs are really shaky and weak and his appetite is pretty low, but he eats very small amounts consistently throughout the day and drinks tons of water and it's breaking my heart.

Any general tips and support on treating a cat this advanced in years would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Bron and Sheba (GA)]

Hi and welcome back.
Do you have a spreadsheet for Grendel? If you could enter any data you might have that would be helpful.
Also if you could set up your signature again.
This link will help you with both of the above and will also give you information on how to set up a hypo kit.
Press this linkhttps://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/new-how-you-can-help-us-help-you.216696/

Two units is a larger than normal starting dose. Are you testing before every shot to see it is safe to give the dose. And testing during the cycle to see how low the dose is taking him? I would reduce the dose to 1 unit twice a day especially as his appetite is not great and see how he goes on that to start with.

I would also give him a couple of snacks during the first half of each cycle as well as the meal before the insulin dose. If he has lost weight I would let him eat more except don’t feed for the 2 hours preshot so the BGs are not food influenced.
What are you feeding him? A low carb diet?

Are you testing for ketones in the urine? If not I would recommend you test daily at the moment. You will need to buy a bottle of Ketostix from Walmart or a pharmacy and then you will need to collect a urime sample form Grendel and dip the test strip into the urine and test exactly 15 seconds later against the colours on the side of the bottle. Anything above a trace needs vet attention.

I would read the yellow stickies at the top of the Lantus page here..
https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/forums/lantus-basaglar-glargine-and-levemir-detemir.9/

It sounds as if he may have some diabetic neuropathy with that leg weakness. Getting him back into better numbers will help with that. You can also give him methyl B12 tablets. Lifelink.com has Zobaline which is especially formulated for cats.
Keep asking questions, we are happy to help
Bron