Michael won't eat Need to give insulin. Help!

[Paula]

Hi all again.
I took Michael to the vet. Gave him a shot so he would eat. I gave him FF ( salmon) he ate it. Everything seemed o.k.
until this afternoon, then he started looking like he didn't feel well. I feed him friskies turkey & giblets he ate very little.
I think he might be allergic to FF. As I stated in my previous post he wouldn't eat. All this started when I feed him FF.
I gave him .5 u of insulin. The vet did a bunch of lab work every is o.k.
No ketones. Thyroid .8 (low normal) Please look at Michael's SS it might be easier to understand than this message. With the combination of y/d food and tapazole and his t4 in normal range l.6 made the t4 go to .8 in a matter of 2 days,
The vet took him off of tapazole and y/d for now to see if the t levels come up. Meanwhile, I'm feeding him friskies.
His bgs today are in the 200's didn't give shot this morning but gave shot(.5u) this evening. With all being said, If his appetite
doesn't get better soon, how am I to give the insulin? he needs his insulin, but I don't want him to go hypo.
Thanks all in advance. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Paula & kitty Michael

 

[KPassa]

When it comes to diabetes, you treat the high numbers with insulin, not necessarily the appetite. Diabetic ketoacidosis occurs from an infection, a lack of appetite, and not enough insulin. You can control the third by giving insulin if needed, however, you do need to be much more cautious giving insulin to a cat who isn't eating.

You did good on giving a reduced dose because a lack of food going in usually means lower numbers (no food spike). Mikey has had a couple of times where he's stopped eating for a couple of days and the best you can do is give a little insulin if needed and monitor the numbers a lot more closely. If it's an extended bout of inappetence, then you will want to take him into the vet for fluids and/or to make sure nothing else is going on.

Are you testing for ketones? You'll probably want to test once or twice daily till he gets his appetite back.

 

[BJM]

1) giving insulin allows the body to use the glucose that is circulating.

2) look at how much he drops when both eating and getting insulin.

3) take that info and go for the BCS dose (big chicken sh*t) of perhaps 1/4 to 1/2 the regular dose. This will help you gauge what you need to do in the future if he won't eat. He needs the insulin to use up the glucose that is circulating AND lowering the glucose often provokes some hunger.