Good morning (well afternoon here
) I wanted to throw a few things out here concerning IAA's for you and anyone else who's interested. I have no experince with them personally but I have been trying to help you out because I find these cases so interesting (more so than acro because we do know a bit about acro) I have looked at BK's SS and find it facinating. I know a fair bit about antibodies in general because I myself have an autoimmune disease and produce quite a few crazy antibodies against all sorts of things. Basically my own immune system is trying to kill me (If I die from it, is it a suicide :razz: ?) Anyway antibodies are something that everyone has, they are usually a good thing that protects us from diseases (viruses etc.) sometimes things go whacky though and antibodies are produced that begin attacking important things that belong to our body! In the case of IAA the antibodies are directed at injected (analogus) insulin. Now every animal that we inject "foreign" insulin into will produce some antibodies against that foriegn substance (it is not 100% identical to the body's own insulin) usually these antibodies are insignifacant and will only render a small amount of the insulin inactive. In cases like Buddy there is a significant over production of these antibodies (think of it like an allergy, where he is hyper reacting to the foreign substance) so when you inject 1 or 2 units of insulin (which would be a reasonable dose for many cats) He produces 1-2 units of antibodies which makes all that insulin useless. The antibodies attach themselves to the insulin molecules and it can no longer attach itself to the glucose or the receptors on the cells where it is supposed to deliver the glucose. Insulin is a hormone which does nothing on it's own it works like a coupleing between 2 things to bring them together. On one side it has a hook for glucose on the other end a hook for the receptors that are present on cells in the body. It attaches glucose and brings it to the receptors once it is locked in the loading dock it delivers the glucose into the cells where it will be used as energy. The antibodies work like condoms (for lack of a better analogy) they attach themselves to the hooks on the insulin molecule and now there is no place for the glucose to attach, so all that nice insulin you injected is unable to do anything because it is blocked up by antibodies.
Jojo frequently mentions "squishing" the IAA's, I like to think of this more scientifically @-) Everytime you inject insulin those antibodies are set loose to go find it and destroy it, so you keep injecting more insulin, and more insulin and it very little of it has any effect because there are more and more antibodies. It's a viscious cycle the more you inject the more antibodies ohmygod_smile BUT...at some point you have gotton enough insulin in there that the antibodies are all occupied with and there is enough extra (maybe just 1-2 units) that doesn't get scooped up by antibodies and can actually work! So you keep shooting this big dose (could be 10U or 50U who knows) and eventually you have found the threshold of antibody production and you have some usable insulin in there working. Now the BG starts to come down and things become more regulated. Eventually if all goes well the same things will start happening with Buddy as with other cats that are going towards remmission and his pancreas will heal and start producing it's own insulin which is NOT foreign and will not be attacked by antibody. Now he will start going low and you will have to reduce your dose just like others who heading OTJ. As you reduce the amount of injected insulin the amount of antibodies produced will also decline and the amount of his own insulin will increase untill hopefully his pancreas is healed and can take over the job alone.
Interestly there is a medication out there for treating Multiple Sclerosis (MS) which is an autoimmune disease that produces antibodies against the protein covering of the nerves in the brain and spinal cord. These antibodies attach to the nerve covering and "mark" it as foreign so the white blood cells which normally destroy bacteria and viruses see it as a danger and attack it, which then causes inflamation and damage to the nerve leading to the neurological symptoms the person with MS has. This new medicine (Copoxone) is nothing more than a cocktail of proteins that look simular to the protein covering on the nerves. It is injected daily subcutanously and basically serves as a decoy to occupy the antibodies. The antibodies attach to the medicine (decoy) and it is destroyed by the blood cells instead of the nerves. A really simple concept much like the idea that the way to improve allergies is to keep exposing the body to the allergen untill it becomes oversensitzed and stops producing antibodies.
So while your dose is a bit more than what most kittys here are getting the actual amount of working insulin in there is about the same. It may be a big dose but it is the dose Buddy needs and you have slowly and under collection of data worked up to that dose so you know it is the right amount. I guess you could think of it as your insulin is less effective (weaker) than everyone else's so you have to have inject more of it to get the same effect.
With all the screwy antibodies I have (ANA's, U1rNP, c-ANCA's...) I don't want to know what would happen if I injected insulin into myself, probably my head would explode :lol: The treatment for me is to try and kill most of immune system (Chemo) so that it stops attacking my organs, the trick is (the immune system is kinda important) so not to kill me with treatment first :mrgreen:
BTW: I may be looking for a kidney or a peice of liver in the near future anyone......?
