Is increased anxiety associated with diabetes?

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monty_dweezil (GA)

monty_dweezil (GA)

Member Since 2014
Since shortly before Dweezil's diagnosis, he has been a lot more anxious and scared by things that never used to bother him.

Thunder for instance. Tonight it has been rumbling for about the last 4 hours and i feel so bad for poor Dweezil. Monty is stretched out on the coffee table under the ceiling fan but Dweezil is squashed in the narrow space between the fridge and cupboard. It must be so hot there. :(

I want him to not be stressed and i am SO annoyed at this weather.

I had to give him his insulin in the hallway as he was too scared to eat from his normal place. Then to make sure he ate, i had to keep giving him little bits of his dinner in the various hiding places he would move to.

Is this normal? He is so tense and also subdued. I just want him to be ok.
 
Seems to me that I have read about other members here reporting strange behaviour with their kitties who are getting Lantus. Some of those kitties were switched to Levimir (detimir) and did much better behavior wise. @KPassa was one of those people. Maybe she remembers others.
 
I thought of something last night. Made me feel really stupid :banghead::banghead::banghead: for not mentioning that some people find paw pad testing easier than ear testing their cat. Perhaps Dweezil is one of those kitties that would accept paw testing?
 
Deb & Wink said:
Seems to me that I have read about other members here reporting strange behaviour with their kitties who are getting Lantus. Some of those kitties were switched to Levimir (detimir) and did much better behavior wise. @KPassa was one of those people. Maybe she remembers others.
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Mikey definitely had a reaction to the Lantus when he was on it. It's not very common, but there are a few other cats that have/had similar issues. You might want to read this thread about people who have switched from Lantus to Levemir and see if any of the symptoms others have reported are similar to what you're seeing.
 
The other thing that can affect their mood is if they just don't feel very good because their BGs are out of whack. If he was doing this even before insulin, then it might be related to that moreso than the insulin. As his numbers get into better range, he'll start to feel better and won't hide out as much. Many people report they see a difference for the better in personality before they see an actual difference in numbers, so he might start perking up soon, if that's the case.
 
The poor little thing was hiding for most of the evening, though he did come out before I went to bed (there had been no thunder for about half an hour) and gobbled his night time snack, thank god.

I just want him to be happy. There is thunder right now...I am at work. He and Monty are at home alone. I'm worried he will be scared and hide all day.

And yes, he never was worried much about thunder until late last year (about a month before he was diagnosed) when there was a bad storm during the day (a Tuesday, which is the only day all week when my partner and I both work all day so nobody's home until just after 5pm), and when I got home I couldn't find him. I called for him, put the lights on and he emerged from the hall closet, tail down low and he scuttled over to me, meowing and telling me about the storm. Ever since then, he's hid whenever it thunders. Monty gets startled by it if it's a particular loud boom, but otherwise isn't bothered.
 
Saoirse was miserable and used to hide a lot when a Caninsulin dose was active in her system. As the dose wore off she behaved more like her normal self (though still poorly some of the time). I remember telling my vet that it was like having two different cats. Saoirse was much happier on Lantus.

If Dweezil's very sensitive, then all the changes to his routine could be overwhelming him emotionally maybe? They also pick up on our moods. I had to do a lot of "fake it till ya make it!" to reassure Saoirse in the early days. (I was in bits.)
 
I try to be normal around him. I SOUND normal. I appear normal. But sometimes while he's sleeping I'll look at him and cry. I keep worrying he's going to die very soon, even though I know how illogical that is.
 
It's not illogical. A couple of times in the week before Rosa was diagnosed, I looked at her next to her twin and realized she looked like a much older cat than she is. That made me cry thinking she was going to die years earlier than Regan. I still feel that now, though I know once she's regulated there's no reason why that should happen - she still just looks ill at the moment. I've always worried about both of them, but seeing one of them so obviously not well makes it worse. Cats are family - why wouldn't you worry, even though you know he should be just fine now he's getting treatment.
 
Thank you. Sometimes I feel so silly, but before I was going through old pics of my kitties and in some of them Dweezy looked so fat. lol. He wasn't really, it was just he was lying down on his side stretched out and the angle of the camera was from above. He looked like a plump grey seal. I wish he was a bit bigger now...

I know part of it is my association with my beloved soul mate cat, Sooty. I had him (and his brother Tiger) from when I was 3 years old until I was 19. I chose them from a litter of kittens my grandparents' cat had. I named them. I grew up with them as an only child and Sooty was just my everything. He slept with me every night, using my shoulder as his pillow. When he was 15, he seemed to lose some weight. We took a while to notice as he'd never been a lean cat, though not fat either. One day he seemed unresponsive and my mum took him to the vet. I will never forget the look on her face as she came back in the door and said Sooty had cancer. I shut off and went numb. We had 3 months with him, during which I cried every single night into his fur while he patiently sat in my arms, and then he worsened and we had to put him to sleep, 2 days before my 19th birthday (I'm 36 now). I cried every night for the next year. I have never gotten over it, and I never will. I will always long for him.

I keep remembering how thin he got. And I can't help but look at Dweezil...you know...even though it's a totally different situation. Dweezil is my second soul mate kitty. I love, love, love Monty SO deeply, but Dweezy...I don't know what I'd do without him.
 
If it's silly then I'm just as silly. I'd looked at Rosa 2 days before we took her to the vet and just started crying. She just suddenly (and it happened in the space of about a week or a week and a half) went from looking a little thinner but healthy to looking old, ungroomed, skinny and sick. I was convinced there was something terminally wrong with her - it probably didn't help that a friend of ours just lost her 14 year old cat to osteosarcoma - and that she only had a few weeks left. Rosa sounds similar to your Sooty - she's never been a small or skinny cat, though not really fat either...she was always just a little chunky and muscular so she didn't look thin immediately. I'm so sorry for what happened to your Sooty - he sounds like the sweetest cat. Regan likes to sleep with my arm around her and uses my shoulder as a pillow for her head and often one of her front paws too - she likes to sleep with her head on her paw just like a little person! After losing one cat young to being hit by a car, the thought of losing Rosa too young just tears me apart - it would with Regan too but she seems to be in bouncing good health fortunately. The big fear I had for Regan when I didn't know that Rosa had something that can be controlled is that if I lost Rosa I'd lose Regan too - they've never been apart for more than a few hours and I just don't think one will survive without the other. I can completely understand why you're not over such a sweet cat. And it makes perfect sense that looking at Dweezil will bring that all back. But this time, you've found out early enough to save him and you're getting him under control so he can be healthy again. That's the big difference with Dweezil - he can and will get better.

And yes, I do understand - some cats are just extra, extra special. The two I have now are like that for me. I tamed them from feral until they're completely soft and loving lapcats so we have a very strong bond and although they're fine with our friends and with hubby and our housemate, they're very obviously and definitely MY cats - they respond so much better to me than anyone else.
 
Awww, Rosa sounds so beautiful. Sleeping with her head on her little paw. :) :) :)

Thank you for your words. Sooty was a beautiful black kitty. I always love black ones now because of him. I am drawn to them. At the same time, I have been a bit careful in terms of getting another black one in case I try and make him or her into Sooty, which isn't fair and is of course impossible.

I'm so glad we can help our babies feel better and stay healthy.
 
I've only ever owned black cats until now. My first cat was black (the one who died young) and since then I've had a real thing for black kitties. Plus when I got my 2 from the rescue center, they told me they were being overlooked not only because they were feral but because it's more difficult to find homes for black cats. Of course I had to take them when I heard that - even feral, they were beautiful and adorable! Though I agree, if anything was to happen to these 2 I'd have to be very careful about getting more black cats because I'd want them to be these 2 over again and you're right that's neither fair nor possible for the new cats. Our latest addition is a 2 year old tabby though so we have branched out a little on color in the last year.

I'm so happy tonight to see Rosa looking more alert and interested in life with just a slightly lower number. She's still frighteningly thin of course at this point and she's got a long way to go yet, but she looks just that little bit more like her old self - I'm so grateful that this condition can be treated effectively in cats now. I'm sitting here stroking her paw and she's following the movement of my hand with her head as though she's almost thinking about tapping my hand to play - it's the first time in a couple of weeks she's shown any interest in playing even a tiny bit.
 
My Mikey was a 6-month old kitten and only ~4.5 pounds when he was diagnosed. I didn't realize how malnourished he had been from the diabetes (probably since birth) until he started putting on appropriate weight and caught up to where he was supposed to be after I started the insulin. I always assumed it was from the rough start in life (abandoned by his feral mom); I never realized he was most likely abandoned because of the diabetes.

I look at his kitten pictures and he looks to be about 8-10 weeks old all the way up to his diagnosis and then all of a sudden, he turned into the kitten size he was supposed to be.

Cats are remarkably resilient. Now that you're giving insulin, things will start looking up.:bighug:
 
Cats sure know how to scare us half to death...they act like nothing's wrong until they can't hide it anymore and of course then they're really sick. If they'd just let us know sooner we could fix all this stuff so much earlier. As you say, things will start looking up and fortunately, cats do seem to be very very resilient. I almost lost Regan to pneumonia at 5 months old (she'd had cat flu and finished up with that as a secondary). She lost about 60% of her bodyweight in 2 days but a week after she got antibiotics, she was all the way back to normal.
 
Baby steps, remember those baby steps. You'll know what you are doing is helping when your kitty drinks a bit less water, the pee patches in the litter box go from lake to pond size to puddle size, their interest in grooming themselves comes back, they move better, and seem a tad more active and maybe seek out a little play time again, their coat starts to grow in again and get that nice shiny silky look, more purring, etc........

It takes time, but there are encouraging signs of improvement if you just look carefully.
 
Rosa's getting there just a little...a little less camping out by the water bowl, slightly smaller lakes in the litter box. Still variable on grooming and activity but some days she's definitely a little better than she was already. Very small changes, but all significant overall.
 
I'm sure she's tired of me checking on her so much, but while she's still so high I feel I have to keep a much closer eye on all the other signs than I would do if she was in the lower BG ranges. She takes it all fairly calmly, but just once or twice she's given me that "can't I just get some peace and quiet around here" look.
 
With the high nadirs you are seeing, you may increase 0.5 units. Normally, with the Lantus Tight Regulation Protocol, you would wait 5-7 days on the initial dose, however with those very high nadirs and numbers, moving up sooner is OK if you continue the mid-cycle testing.

You've got your signature and spreadsheet going; would you like to move over to the Lantus forum and start following one of the protocols there (Tight Regulation or Start Low, Go Slow)?
 
She has been on the Lantus for exactly 5 days - I just didn't have the right lancets to monitor her for the first 2. I have posted a few times in the Lantus forum and was advised there that a 0.5 increase from tonight would be safe given that her numbers are consistently still high. I do have every intention of continuing with regular testing and I'm going to start posting her "numbers" thread daily as I've seen other people are doing there as, once she becomes regulated, I intend to keep a close eye on those numbers to make sure she stays tightly regulated and safe. :)
 
Great! They're very supportive there, and if you follow the TR protocol, with the high nadirs, there is a slightly faster approach to dose increases to help get her regulated as fast as reasonably possible.
 
I did see the fast-track information on the sticky this morning though for now I'm still double-checking every change I plan to make with the people on there...while I'm getting used to the protocol I'd rather have as many people checking to make sure I'm not messing something up as possible. I've been getting loads of support from that forum as well as this one - everyone's being so great with helping me get used to this.
 
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