Lucky Question on BG

[MisMelzy]

I have posted before but it's been a while. Lucky is 16 and was diagnosed with diabetes about two years ago. Never needed insulin as we got it under control right away with diet change. I test once a month because her BG levels were always steady between 65 - 80. Recently she has had an appetite change. She is eating but not as much as she was. Brought her into the vet and she said her lymph-nodes were swollen a bit and it seemed she had pain in her colon. She put her on antibiotics because she thought it was an infection. In the past she had been very constipated and was giving her miralax 1/4 tsp once a day and it corrected that.

I did check her glucose before bringing her in, and it was at 125, but forgot to pull food up so I assumed she had eaten. I have waited two hours today and pulled food. Tested her and again got 125.

The only thing that has changed is I have been giving her 1/4 of a zyrtec once a day to keep her appetite up. She's been on it for a while. She's also since been diagnosed with Hyperthyroidism and is controlled on 5mg in the am and 1/2 a pill in the PM.

Can the zyrtec cause high glucose readings or affect the pancreas? I am in an IBD group and had posted her issues with pain and inflamed lymph nodes in the colon area and they said it could be Pancreatitis as some cats don't get any symptoms but pain. Can pancreatitis cause high glucose readings? I know her numbers right now are not high enough to give insulin but is there something I can do to keep them from rising? Not sure if it's the zyrtec causing everything or if the two are separate?

Thanks!
Melissa

 

[Sharon14]

Sorry Lucky isn’t feeling great. Zyrtec should not cause higher bg’s, but pain and/or infection can. Can you get her to the vet and get a pancreatitis test? Maybe some pain meds will help. Keep us posted

 

[MisMelzy]

When I originally took her in, the vet gave pain meds to try to help with the appetite. She thought it was pain that was keeping her from eating. And the pain med she gave her did nothing. So I called the vet back, and she put her on antibiotics because she felt there was an infection either in the lymph-nodes or possibly in her colon. In January she had to go in for an enema because she had not pooped in almost 4 days. They did an x-ray which came out clean except for some poop. It took 48 hours after the enema for her to finally poop. I had started her on 1/4 tsp of Miralax once a day and she was pooping every day nicely. The vet thinks that from the constipation and trying to push hard poop out it could have internally caused tears inside that got infected possibly. She said that internally the colon is very sensitive, and maybe the infection was caused by the straining. So she's been on the antibiotic for 3 days now. I tested her this morning as she had finished her food over night and it had been quite a while since she last ate and I got a MUCH better reading of 54. So apparently either I tested her too soon or the antibiotics are working. But she is acting more like her normal self. Hungry and pawing for attention. So that is good news. Crossing fingers that the antibiotics keep working.

Melissa