Insulin Doesnt Control BG ...Affects her Personality

Status
Not open for further replies.
suzricky

suzricky

Member Since 2020
My female 12 year old cat Luna was diagnosed as diabetic with a BC of 326 at first visit on 12/30/19. Liver and Pancreatic Enzymes High. X Ray and all other blood tests in standard test panel normal. Took her to vet because of inactivity and drinking too much water. No ketones. Put on Novolin 1 unit. Raised it slowly.....BG going up ....then switched to ProZinc got up to 3.5 unit 2 x a day. No help. Acted strangely with higher dose. So they tried new insulin. Now on Lantus with same pattern. Each new dose seems to work and then 2 or 3 days after new dose and /or new insulin her BG starts going up and up to 400s and high 500s and stays there. The lowest recorded has been 193 at her nadir...was 6 hours. She is calmer during the day but at night she acts crazy like on amphetamines....unable to sleep or even sit...paces tries to break into my cabinets....wakes me up at 5 am and beyond with this odd sound she makes. Not consistently below 300-400 usually higher. Vet at a loss. Suspect Cushing's but cannot afford to go that route and shows no other signs. I am trying to manage her quality of life by lowering blood sugar if possible. There have been rare times when my old Luna appears inexplicably. I use AlphaTrak2 to check her BG. We have tried the slow uptick because of potential Somogyi effect but no positive change. ...except that on less insulin she is calmer but BG stays high. She has seen two vets about this. Any insight welcome. She has always been on wet food and weighs 8 lbs. Lost a little weight once she was put on the insulin. Never acted crazy until given the insulin or even acted this hungry. Right now on 2 1/2 units of Lantus twice a day. Was up to 4.0 but that made her totally like she was on amphetamines as if crawling out of her skin.. Anyway....she eats twice a day and am giving her Tiki Cat. Any insight would be welcome :) For her sake any help is welcome.
 
Hi Suzricky and sugar girl Luna.

Deep breath, hold, release, deep breath, hold, release, deep breath......................................

Lantus is a good insulin for cats. It takes time to get a diabetic cat better. We'll help you with that all we can.

Are you home testing? Do you have some blood glucose readings to share with us?
The best way for us to help you is to see some of the more recent BG (blood glucose) test data.

You're probably not going to like this but we need you to set some things up first.

Information in your user signature (takes about 60 seconds) Editing your Signature, Profile, and Preferences
and then a spreadsheet.
We have a standardized spreadsheet with a template you can copy. Detailed directions for pc, tablet, smartphone are in this document.
FDMB Spreadsheet Instructions
What it means is here.
Understanding the Spreadsheet/Grid

I need to see the last couple of weeks of BG test data if you have it.

While you work on that, let me get you some other information.

Would you do that for us please?
 
Did the vet say why he/she suspected Cushings? There are a couple other secondary conditions that can cause diabetes, Cushings is one of them. But we don't see that as often. The initial test for it is not too expensive. We do see all sorts of strange diabetic cases here, probably more than most vets.

If you can get that spreadsheet that Deb mentioned up for us to look at, it may provide some clues as to what might be happening. Note that if cats have spent a while in higher numbers, they are going to feel off when the numbers come down. Someone described it (high blood sugar) like coffee, get rid of the coffee and you feel out of sorts. My girl hid under the bed the first time she saw normal numbers.

What is she looking for in your cabinets?
 
Just want to agree the spreadsheet would really help us.

Have you tried many smaller meals through the day instead of 2 big ones? Vets always seem to suggest two giant meals, but diabetics, both human and feline, better regulate blood sugar on multiple meals. You just have to pull up food two hours before pre-shot BGL testing. Have you got any mid-cycle tests at night? She could be acting out because of a blood sugar drop making her want to eat, even if that drop is not too low.
 
We have always fed cats with dry food. When Cashy became diabetic we switched food a couple of times before trying Young Again Zero mature. He went from 12 units per day of vesulin to none inside a month. After about another 2.5 years he suffered some dog bites and his diabetes flared with blood glucose over 300. We put him back on vetsulin 2 units BID. As he healed he required less insulin. For about 2 months now he has been tapered to .8u BID and is doing great.
 
Thats very interesting Cashy! I remember when we removed the dry completely Trouble went into remission about 3 weeks later. We got VERY lucky. Trouble didnt think so. He sat where his dry food use to sit, for hours just staring down at the empty space. :rolleyes:

ALWAYS TEST TEST TEST FIRST, WHEN YOU CHANGE THEIR DIETS:cool:
 
Have someone now over in the Prozinc forum that stopped giving her cat the Dr Elseys' dry food and Teal'c is finely getting into the blue number ranges. Stopped feeding the Dr. Elseys on 2/15/2020 and her cat is coming down the insulin dosing scale. Cat was being fed a mixture of wet and dry food. Now is eating Friskies pate style.

Yes some people have luck with giving their diabetic cats dry food, but once the dry was out of the picture and 3 days for the dry to clear the cats system, cats BG levels improved dramatically.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top