cronkiteshuman
New Member
Hi there. My name's Cassie, and my cat Cronkite was diagnosed with diabetes this last September. His blood sugar was around 600 when I took him to the vet, concerned by his suddenly and dramatically increased water consumption. She prescribed lantus (2 units twice a day), and I switched him to varieties of Fancy Feast I found through links from felinediabetes.com (from strictly controlled portions of dry food beforehand)...and he did okay with that for a while... but it was too high a dose. It was reduced to 1 unit about a month later.
Two weeks ago now, after being on 1 unit twice a day for several months, Cronkite went hypoglycemic (and I was really glad that I'd bought the meter I hadn't yet had the guts to use...) and I ... basically stayed with him for four days straight, testing him every couple hours and figuring out that he appeared to be having a honeymoon, or maybe even just to be a very lucky cat whose condition can be controlled solely with diet.
When he was hypoglycemic that first day, he basically just lay down with his head on his paws, not moving or looking as I went by, with his tail straight out behind him. He wouldn't purr when I sat down and pet him, and this is a cat who purrs at the approximate volume of a chainsaw when you look at him across the room, say his name, or even accidentally walk too close to him. This was about an hour after he ate breakfast. I when I tested him at that point, his blood glocose was at 79--and maybe he could feel it going down further from the insulin in his system, but this seems kinda high, from the data I've seen, for him to have gotten so very lethargic.
Now, he's been insulin free a while, and I've shown my spreadsheets of his levels to his vet and she's looked at him, and he is usually around 84-90 before dinner, and I haven't been poking his poor beleaguered ears much more often than once a day. This morning, however, he was at 80 a few minutes after I fed him--which I know because he went into the same lethargic, non-purring, non-responsive lying down state next to his food bowl without even finishing.
Cronkite weighed around 35 pounds (he's now 14-point-something--he's a Maine Coon) when I adopted him at the age of 6, 6 years ago--he's, er, very into food. He wails and laments the unfairness of my not giving him all the food his little orange heart desires every day. He does not stop eating until he's checked ten times that no food has been overlooked. Sometimes he tries to break into the garbage, even. So this was odd. I gave him a couple spoonfuls of his old dry food (I still have some) and coaxed him to eat it, and he bounced back almost instantaneously.
This is Cronkite, after having been subjected to the horrors of the dreaded lion cut.
I guess my question is, what the devil is going on here? Do other people's cats show symptoms of hypoglycemia with blood glucose levels as high as 80? Do other people's cats who aren't currently on insulin manage to produce so much insulin themselves to work themselves into a state of showing signs of hypoglycemia? It just seems really weird, and I haven't read anything about anyone else's cat doing this and would like to know if it's normal.
Thanks from both human and cat.
Two weeks ago now, after being on 1 unit twice a day for several months, Cronkite went hypoglycemic (and I was really glad that I'd bought the meter I hadn't yet had the guts to use...) and I ... basically stayed with him for four days straight, testing him every couple hours and figuring out that he appeared to be having a honeymoon, or maybe even just to be a very lucky cat whose condition can be controlled solely with diet.
When he was hypoglycemic that first day, he basically just lay down with his head on his paws, not moving or looking as I went by, with his tail straight out behind him. He wouldn't purr when I sat down and pet him, and this is a cat who purrs at the approximate volume of a chainsaw when you look at him across the room, say his name, or even accidentally walk too close to him. This was about an hour after he ate breakfast. I when I tested him at that point, his blood glocose was at 79--and maybe he could feel it going down further from the insulin in his system, but this seems kinda high, from the data I've seen, for him to have gotten so very lethargic.
Now, he's been insulin free a while, and I've shown my spreadsheets of his levels to his vet and she's looked at him, and he is usually around 84-90 before dinner, and I haven't been poking his poor beleaguered ears much more often than once a day. This morning, however, he was at 80 a few minutes after I fed him--which I know because he went into the same lethargic, non-purring, non-responsive lying down state next to his food bowl without even finishing.
Cronkite weighed around 35 pounds (he's now 14-point-something--he's a Maine Coon) when I adopted him at the age of 6, 6 years ago--he's, er, very into food. He wails and laments the unfairness of my not giving him all the food his little orange heart desires every day. He does not stop eating until he's checked ten times that no food has been overlooked. Sometimes he tries to break into the garbage, even. So this was odd. I gave him a couple spoonfuls of his old dry food (I still have some) and coaxed him to eat it, and he bounced back almost instantaneously.
This is Cronkite, after having been subjected to the horrors of the dreaded lion cut.
I guess my question is, what the devil is going on here? Do other people's cats show symptoms of hypoglycemia with blood glucose levels as high as 80? Do other people's cats who aren't currently on insulin manage to produce so much insulin themselves to work themselves into a state of showing signs of hypoglycemia? It just seems really weird, and I haven't read anything about anyone else's cat doing this and would like to know if it's normal.
Thanks from both human and cat.
