Looking for advice about pred and insulin

[tizercat]

I have an 11 year old IBD kitty, Tizer. He was on prednisolone a number of months ago and started to become diabetic, so we switched him to budesonide. His BG went back to normal, but after a couple months he developed pancreatitis and spent a couple days in the hospital. He also began regurgitating every time he was given the budesonide, so we discontinued that because of the risk of aspiration pneumonia with nightly regurgitating. We put him on chlorambucil for the IBD in April and he'd been doing great until a couple days ago - now his WBC is 2.45 x 10^9/L (previously on the leukeran it has been between 4.9 x 10^9/L and 8x10^9/L) and he hasn't eaten of his own accord since Friday. I've basically decided that I would rather manage him as a diabetic than as severely immune-compromised and plan on putting him back on pred for the IBD.

Any advise for a pred-induced diabetic? Due to his response to pred in the past, I'm pretty sure he'll end up on insulin at some point. Thanks in advance.

Carol and Tizer

 

[tuckers mom]

My little man was not a steroid induced diabetic although I can't say what kind of meds he may have been on before I adopted, he's was quite sick when I got him.

Toward the end of his journey he did start Prednisolone because of a brain tumor. Years ago I would have fought tooth and nail to keep my kitties off steroids, but I learned through Tucker that a happy cat feeling better who needs insulin was better than a suffering kitty. He lived a year on Prednisolone and was on Levemir insulin at that time. His dose of insulin never went above a small amount of only 1.5 units BID. His blood sugar went down after he started the steroid, I assume because he felt better.

Tucker had chronic pancreatitis, IBD, allergies (airborne and food) and the brain tumor.

 

[Larry and Kitties]

I changed my Bailey's from Budesonide to pred and just had to increase he insulin dose a little. Just watch for symptoms of diabetes, PU/PD and hunger and this BG. However, the pred may also cause hunger.
I also started by civi Snowball on pred for a skin problem. I monitored his BG since he was listed as a diabetic on an oral med when I adopted him. I periodically monitored his BG. It go to a little over 200 before I stopped the pred.