Mikey Update

[Marycatmom]

I know this isn't a popular thing to do here, but I had a curve run on Mikey at the vet's today. My vet is wonderful, and I want him to have input on the decisions I make for my cat. I am listening both to him and to the Wise Ones here and making the best decisions I can for my boy. The vet was very pleased with Mikey's progress. In case I didn't mention this before, Mikey lost quite a lot of weight recently due to the diabetes. I believe it was nearly two pounds. In the 6 days since starting Lanitis, he has gained back .5 lb. He was not overweight to begin with, so this is a great start toward normal. Judging by the curve he did and a copy of my spreadsheet, the vet recommended lowering Mikey's dose. He was close to taking him right off it, but the last BG test changed his mind. He wants us to continue slowly changing Mikey's food to all low carb wet. Mikey is a kibble lover, but I'm having some success changing him over using my Jedi mind tricks. (That's for another post.) The vet usually asks the owner to bring the cat in for a second curve in three weeks, but in Mikey's case, he feel's it should be run in a week, since in that time he may be ready to go off the insulin entirely. One funny note, Mikey was so relaxed lounging in this bed, that the vet techs had a photo shoot with him. They said they had never see a cat so relaxed while at the vet's!

 

[Lisa and Witn (GA)]

That is very encouraging news. Way to go Mikey. :RAHCAT

Hopefully you will be OTJ very soon.

 

[julie & punkin (ga)]

Nothing wrong with having your vet do a curve, mary. We're not anti-vet here, but most vets don't have much experience with diabetic cats because most people put their cats to sleep with the diagnosis. All we do here on this site is help people with diabetic cats learn to take care of them and adjust the dose, hopefully to help the cat go off of insulin as soon as possible.

Most people test at home for 2 reasons - 1) the cost is cheaper at home and if you're doing this for years, it makes sense to learn how to handle testing at home and 2) some cats exhibit higher numbers because of vet stress. Was the curve done today? You might want to get the blood sugar numbers and put them into the spreadsheet for reference - it will be helpful later.

Since you've reduced his dose by 50%, i'd hustle up with the transition to all canned low carb food asap. you can pulverize some of his dry food & sprinkle it on the canned food to tempt him. Dr. Lisa, a vet, has an article on transitioning dry food addicts to canned food on her website http://www.catinfo.org. We know from people experimenting with their cats that even 3 pieces of kibble can raise a cat's blood sugar by 100's of points and it can stay that way for a full day. As soon as you can make the change to canned low carb and he's eating it successfully, get rid of the dry food.

Mikey is showing a good response to the insulin. Normal blood sugar for a cat on insulin is considered to be 50-120. Cats not on insulin might go into the 40's, but we use the 40's as a safety zone to take action and pull up the blood sugar of a cat on insulin. Typically we suggest that a cat has all of its blood sugar tests under 120 before we even consider doing a trial off of insulin. We know that cats that get as much insulin support for as long as they need it have a better chance of staying in remission.