Help with diabetic cat

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Kris10mo

Kris10mo

Member Since 2014
Hi all,

I am at my wits end with my kitty Calley. She is a 14yr old white and calico shorthair. In December 2013 she was diagnosed with diabetes. The vet put her on Lantus and we started at 1unit/twice/day. That was increased all the way up to 9 units/twice per day over the period of several months. Nothing worked. Calley was still peeing buckets and eating voraciously. She was not herself and would pee all over the house, had diarrhea, drank tons and never groomed herself. She looks terrible.

About a month ago the vet changed her insulin to Humilin(I think that is what it is). We started back at 2 units/twice daily. I am now up to 4units/twice/day and it still is not working.

Every time I have her blood sugars checked it in in the 400 or above range.

I have changed her diet to a wet higher protein/lower carb food...to no avail. NOTHING IS WORKING FOR THIS CAT.

All she does is sleep behind her favorite chair. She follows me around and begs for food and just does not look right in the eyes or any other way.

I'm ready to put her down. She isn't well, isnt' happy and I think is just feeling sick and in pain.

HELP....

Kristin
 
Welcome! Specifically which food are you feeding? Do you do home testing? Do you see any drop shortly after dosing?
 
Hi,
I'm feeding Blue Buffalo......95% protein.
I do not know the numbers right after she eats....I can not afford test strips and office visits more than what I am already doing at one/month.

The vet says that she is thinking that it might be something altogether different like a tumor in the brain that is causing the continued problems. She says that Calley should have long been regulated. Six months of dealing with the disease and no help for the poor kitty.

I have gone as far as buying my seven year old a stuffed calico/white toy so she can love on it .....in preparation of putting Calley down.

:(

She is not regulating.....

Kristin
 
Hi Kristin and sugarkitty Calley and welcome to the message board.

How often was the lantus dose raised?
By how much each time?
Was this based on the nadir in the 12 hour cycle, usually around +5 to +7 hours after the shot was given?
Or were the dose increases based on a single blood test at the vet?
During your once a month vet visits, is the vet doing a curve, testing every 2 hours for a 12 hour period or only a single blood test?

It's possible that Calley has agromegaly, that brain condition your vet probably mentioned. It's also possible the dose was raised too quickly.

Humulin N usually only lasts 6-8 hours in a cat. One option would be to dose Calley 3 times a day with the Humulin to keep her BG's in at better levels. Not many people have schedules that allow for that 3 times a day dosing.

It's easy to learn to home test, and we've taught many people how to do that over the internet. We have lots of videos and testing links to share with you. You would save a lot of money by home testing instead of going to the vet for testing once a month.

To give you some idea of the cost of home testing, here are a few numbers.
1. A Relion Prime meter from Wal-Mart costs about $15-16 and 50 test strips are $9. Needs 6 microliter blood drop. Harder for new people to use. Need 120 strips a month, so $27/ month for test strips.
2. A Relion Confirm meter from Wal-Mart costs about $15-16 and 50 test strips are $20. Needs 3 microliter blood drop. Easier for new people to use. Need 120 strips a month, so $60/month for test strips.
Lancets are about $4/100.
 
Hi again,
Calley was on Lantus for five months. Started at 1 unit/twice daily. Was raised by one unit every few weeks. I was taking her to the vet for blood testing twice a month. Levels never went below 400. Testing was at different times but always several hours after morning dose.

She was switched to Humulin just last month because I could not afford another new vile of Lantus....too expensive. I can not afford all of this. I have three other pets and two of them also have medical issues.

I don't want to give in, but after six months of shots, cleaning up pee all over the house, etc....she is not getting better. I think she is in pain. She begs for food nonstop....pees buckets in the box and on the floor around the box and it turns to paste there is so much of it. :(

I don't know what else to do. We have not done a curve at the vet becuase the vet said the readings would not be accurate due to stress in the cat. So how would that help? I've thought about doing it and seeing what happens but i don't have money to throw into just guessing, know what I mean.?

The vet says that Calley should have long since been regulated. She was taking more insulin that her weight. Meaning, the vet says that usually cats will regulate with doses close to weight. So Calley was on 8 units/twice daily and she only weighs 11lbs.

Thanks for the help-
Kristin and Calley
 
Humulin tends to wear off in 6-8 hours. You may need to give it every 8 hours for getting some control.

If you are in the US, check out BCP PZI or ProZinc which both last longer than the Humulin/Novolin products and are less expensive up front than Lantus or Levemir. Also, it is possible to use certain Canada pharmacies to get Lantus less expensively.
 
I took Calley to the vet this morning for an insulin curve. The vet measured her first test before any meds or food at 6am with a reading off the charts....so over 500. The next reading two hours later after first shot of 8 units, was down to 425, and another two hours was down to 230. The vet was about to do another reading and then another one at 4pm. So the vet said she was optimistic about her levels.

Question... how would reusing the needles affect her insulin levels? I have been using the needles at least twice if not 3-4 times. I wasn't given a lot of direction from the vet on how to use the needles when I first started giving the shots six months ago. So I went by what the pharmacist told me.

Calley hasn't been keeping herself groomed at all for a long time now. I brushed her out for the first time in a few months and I must have gotten 10 hand full of fur out of her coat. :(

I just want my baby to be health and happy again.

Kristin
 
Question... how would reusing the needles affect her insulin levels? I have been using the needles at least twice if not 3-4 times. I wasn't given a lot of direction from the vet on how to use the needles when I first started giving the shots six months ago. So I went by what the pharmacist told me.
Click to expand...

Well, let's see.
1. Reusing your insulin needles could contaminate the insulin. Meaning you'd need to throw away the insulin and buy new.
2. The needles get blunt after a few uses so it hurts your cat more.
3. You could give your cat an infection by reusing the needle.
4. As the needle gets blunter and blunter, I would think the risk of a fur shot might go up.
5. Needle could break off in your cat as the metal gets stressed from repeated use.
6. You could be causing unnecessary bruising and bleeding in your cat at the injection site.

Insulin syringes are meant to be single use. A box of 100 Relion insulin syringes from Wal-Mart cost about $13. That's about a 7 week supply using 2 syringes a day. That's 26 cents a day.

Here are some pictures of used insulin syringes. NOT pretty.


Here's a few articles on reuse of insulin needles.
http://www.bd.com/us/diabetes/download/Reuse_White_Paper.pdf
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/expert.q.a/09/28/insulin.syringe.brawley/
 

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I didn't know you could test for insulin resistance. How do you do that? And I can't afford to do MRI or ct scan. My vet does not have those machines.

The curve did show that the insulin brining down her glucose to 150 at the six hour mark and it climbed to 190 at the 8 hour mark.
 
Kris10mo said:
...The curve did show that the insulin [is] bringing down her glucose to 150 at the six hour mark and it climbed to 190 at the 8 hour mark.
Click to expand...

Glad Humulin is being somewhat effective for you. What was the nadir, ie lowest glucose level detected? How high did it go once it was wearing off? You may get better control of the numbers if you can dose every 8 hours. The BCP PZI may be a better choice as it tends to last longer - about 12 hours per dose.

If you home test with an inexpensive glucometer (ex Arkray USA Glucocard 01 or 01 Mini from our shopping partner American Diabetes Wholesale which is a generic version of the WalMart ReliOn Confirm or Confirm Micro), you won't need to run curves at the vet, which may save you some money AND get you more accurate numbers as vet stress can raise the cat's glucose from 100 to 180 mg/dL, resulting in excessive insulin doses ... and that could be fatal.

Helping her groom is good; she'll feel better with less built up fur and it reduces the chances of fur balls.
 
Here are the answers from your other post

Generally, its a good idea to stick to 1 post on a specific question, rather than asking similar things twice.
 
The nadir(lowest level tested) was 150 and that was at six hours after morning dose(8am). When testing stopped at two hours post nadir....the number was up to 190. No levels were taken at 10 or 12 hours after morning dose so I do not know how high the number went back up. This is the first and only curve I will do at the vets as I can not afford any more vet bills for this cat.
 
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