Hello all. I'm new to the forums and I'll be hitting up the FAQ pages to try to keep our little guy as healthy and happy as we can.
We saw the usual signs, excessive water consumption, frequent trips to the litter box, etc. A trip to the vet and Scotty was diagnosed about 3 1/2 months ago. He's not responding to insulin, he has lost a lot of weight and has low energy. Scotty is a senior cat, 16 - 18 years old. (Not quite sure, he was a rescue.)
He's been a vibrant energetic cat all of his life, and it's hard to see him the way he is now. Obviously his age as much to do with him slowing down, but he has really lost that vitality over the last few months. To be quite frank, there have been three nights that we said our goodbyes because we didn't think he'd be with us in the morning.
Now that the sad part is over, here's what we've done so far: When he was diagnosed, he was in the mid 500s GL. He started out on 2 units of Vetsulin. That didn't work (his GL rose to mid 600s) and the vet upped the dose to 3 units. After several weeks of little to no change, they did a curve. They were able to get him to upper 300s in the office. Still no change. We were able to get him to mid 300s for a few weeks, hoping to see that cliff drop-off, but it didn't happen. Yesterday he was 320 and the vet suggested we switch insulin. Last night and this morning we have dosed 2 units of Novolin. We have also switched him over to wet food (using Dr. Pierson's chart). We're feeding what everyone else is... FF Classics, etc.
Our vet is very open to home testing and has made him her "project." She has had many diabetic cats in through the years, and they've all responded well. Our guy? Not so much.
So, we're kind of at our wits end. I feel like we're just delaying the inevitable, and we're all pretty tore up about his situation. Hopefully we can get him to rebound soon.
Thanks for listening,
Ken
We saw the usual signs, excessive water consumption, frequent trips to the litter box, etc. A trip to the vet and Scotty was diagnosed about 3 1/2 months ago. He's not responding to insulin, he has lost a lot of weight and has low energy. Scotty is a senior cat, 16 - 18 years old. (Not quite sure, he was a rescue.)
He's been a vibrant energetic cat all of his life, and it's hard to see him the way he is now. Obviously his age as much to do with him slowing down, but he has really lost that vitality over the last few months. To be quite frank, there have been three nights that we said our goodbyes because we didn't think he'd be with us in the morning.
Now that the sad part is over, here's what we've done so far: When he was diagnosed, he was in the mid 500s GL. He started out on 2 units of Vetsulin. That didn't work (his GL rose to mid 600s) and the vet upped the dose to 3 units. After several weeks of little to no change, they did a curve. They were able to get him to upper 300s in the office. Still no change. We were able to get him to mid 300s for a few weeks, hoping to see that cliff drop-off, but it didn't happen. Yesterday he was 320 and the vet suggested we switch insulin. Last night and this morning we have dosed 2 units of Novolin. We have also switched him over to wet food (using Dr. Pierson's chart). We're feeding what everyone else is... FF Classics, etc.
Our vet is very open to home testing and has made him her "project." She has had many diabetic cats in through the years, and they've all responded well. Our guy? Not so much.
So, we're kind of at our wits end. I feel like we're just delaying the inevitable, and we're all pretty tore up about his situation. Hopefully we can get him to rebound soon.
Thanks for listening,
Ken
