Mom to New Diabetic Nudderbaby

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TammieW

TammieW

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Hello Everyone,

Nudderbaby was in the hospital last week for 4 days after the typical diabetic signs and subsequent blood test revealed sugars in 460's. When he came home Tuesday he was on 1/4 c Purina DM twice a day with 4units of Prozinc twice a day. I was told how to give him sugar if he was drooling or staggering and to call the vet right away.

After everything Ive read on here I'm quite concerned about his care. First, I was told I didnt need to monitor his sugars and to bring him back in a week for an afternoon test. Yesterday I noticed he would not eat as much and today was the same but was sitting by the water bowl and has been hiding. I also noticed a grunting noise when he was breathing and no purring. I got him to eat a few bites of salmon that had less than 1g of sugar and carbs since he wouldnt eat his food. Based on the dosage he's gotten and the fact he hadn't eaten much it seemed to me he was having a hypo episode and I gave him a little bit of honey on my fingertips twice and he seemed to perk up and after about 10 minutes, went to his dish and ate. I tried calling the vet and a message referred me to 2 other phone numbers which are not "on call numbers" as I had expected and the clinics are an hour away from here. Of course they werent able to help me without know his BS levels but were very nice about my questions.

I'm concerned that we are not done with this for the day. He is still sleeping but doesnt appear to be "grunting" as much. I've practically been following him all day and have pulled him out from under the bed a couple of times to bring him in to the living room. He put himself in a cubby of the bottom of the desk and is laying in the sun. Of course I dont have a glucometer handy and my husband is outside trying to fix our well pump that went out last night so I'm afraid to leave him to go get one.

I have to work in the morning so I'm hoping I can get some advice on what your thoughts are on how to watch and proceed with him. I'm not hysterical :). I work in the medical field but not on kitties.

Thanks for any help you could give.

Tammie

He's definitely not going to get his evening insulin at this point.
 
Tammie,

I am so sorry you are going through this so early in this sugar dance with Nudderbaby. Unfortunately, it is very hard to know whether he is too low or too high. It is a large dose of insulin but if he was in DKA earlier (is that what the vet called it?) there is no way to be sure without testing his blood sugars.

So that leaves you with 2 possibilities. Go get a meter and test his levels. Then you will immediately know whether he is too high or too low. Here is list of what you need:


A human glucometer. Any one that sips and takes a tiny sample is fine. The meters are often free at drug stores; it’s the strips that are expensive. You can, however, buy them on ebay at less than half the price of stores. Lots of people here also like the ReliOn from Walmart. It is an inexpensive meter and its strips are the cheapest around. Try the meter out on yourself or someone else before you try it on your cat. You want to be familiar with it before you poke the cat.

Lancets and a lancet device. Usually, until the ears “learn” to bleed, a 26-28 gauge is good. Any brand will work as long as the lancets match your device.

Ketone strips. (Ketostix) Just like human diabetics use. You will sometimes need to test urine if the numbers are high.

Rice sack. Make this out of thinnish sock, filled with raw rice or oatmeal and then knotted. You heat this in the microwave until very warm but not hot. Then heat the ears before poking.

Also nice to have. Flashlight: so you can look at the ears and find the little capillaries that come off the vein running down the ear. Vaseline: Put a tiny smear where you want to poke. It will help the blood bead up.

If you can't leave him and you have no one to watch him, I would take him to the ER. At least they can check his levels and see whether he is too high or too low and treat accordingly.

I know the ER is expensive, but he does not sound like he is doing well. I think if he were my cat, I would take him to the ER.
 
Thank you for your reply. You are absolutely right. I put him at his dish again and he ate a little bit more so I feel that I have some time to make a quick trip to the drugstore. I will let you know results. Thank you again.
 
Good afternoon Tammie -

Hoping Nudderbaby is holding okay... I use the Relion monitor from Walmart and am really pleased with it. However, our Walgreens had a kit for about $15-20 that had close to everything: the meter, about 10 or 20 stips & lancets, and a bottle of ketone strips in it, as well as a carrying case. That would be enough to get you started if you can't get to WalMart & back quickly (it is the weekend, after all!). Just ask at the pharmacy area - they may have the stuff near their area, or behind the counter.

Good luck!
 
Oh my I'm glad I got that glucometer. His BS is 445. I'm on the phone with the emergency vet now. :cry:
 
So he is high, not low. The syrup you gave could be part of it. It is good he is eating more. How many hours is it since he got insulin?

Did he have DKA when he was at the vet the first time? Did you get ketone strips so you could test him? If you can't test for ketones and he was DKA, I would take him to the ER. DKA is not something you can treat at home.

Ketone info:http://petdiabetes.wikia.com/wiki/Ketoacidosis
 
No he wasnt DKA the first time he went in. He had insulin about 8 hours ago. The emergency vet said to wait until his next dose which is in a couple of hours (since its a long acting insulin) and to increase it to 5. I'll take his BS again a while afterwards to see how he's doing. This is going to take some getting used to.

Thank you for your help. I will keep you posted on how he's doing.
 
So he started on 4 units twice daily? That is a lot of insulin. Now that you can get numbers on him, you may be able to see just how the insulin is working. If you can get mid cycle numbers, it is possible that he is dropping low and then bouncing back up. It's called rebound
http://petdiabetes.wikia.com/wiki/Somogyi_rebound

If you look at the spreadsheets here, we do not have cats on that much insulin. I know it is hard to go against your vet's advice, but I would not increase the dose until you get more numbers and see what is really happening.

I'm glad he wasn't DKA. That would complicate things.
 
Ok :) I want to take him for a walk to see if the exercise would help but I know I'd end up dragging him instead..poor thing.
 
PLease please please do not give insulin
It really sounds like he is hypoing especially if he never had a DKA
Did the vet start you on 4 units?
PLEASE skip his shot tonight and continue to monitor him
I am very afraid if you give him insulin that it could kill him, especially if you up the dose
 
I noticed on the postings that most cats weren't on as high of a dose as he is but then again this is just our first week. He's about 12lbs, maybe back up to 13 where he started but I'm thinking he's still at 12. I will stick with the 4 and test him a couple of times before I go to bed and then again in the morning. Is there a suggestion as to how many times after his next dose I should ck him? Maybe hourly?
 
Sorry I didnt see your last post. I'm not positive if 4 is what he started him on. He was there from Friday last week to Tuesday and sent him home on 4 units twice a day.
 
Please dont give 4 units
I know that is what your vet recommends
but we always suggest starting at 1 unit and slowly increasing to avoid hypo incident
If he just started insulin I would really NOT shoot tonight and let him try to level out

My shakespeare is 16 pounds and he only gets 3 units and has hypoed on 3.5
I would like to recommend that you start over.

It would be good to not shoot tonight as I said, let him level out
tomorow morning you can start at 1 unit and go from there,
being sure to test before the shot and during if possible

He will probably be a little high tonight because you gave him honey
but as we say, better high for a little while than too low for a minute
 
Hourly isn't so important. Every couple of hours is okay. We'd really like a number 5-7 hours after the shot. That is usually their nadir or lowest point in the cycle.

Often vets dose insulin by weight. That's generally done for dogs, not cats.
 
For some reason I got a different message when I called my vets office back just now and was able to get ahold of the other vet in the clinic. He said to wait an extra hour past his regular time tonite then cut him down to 2 and no food and to bring him in the morning without eating or dosing. He's also afraid the glucometer I bought may not be accurate as he said they use glucometers specific to the pet (mines a human CVS brand).

I'm leaning towards your recommendations here because you all have lived it day by day but then I dont want him to go in to DKA. I'm so confused but thankful I didnt follow the emergency vets advice.
 
Thank you, I am sorry I am a little panicked but I would hate to see something happen to
your baby. We have seen a lot here and It just tears me up to see something like this happen

But also an FYI, you should never give insulin on an empty stomach
that in itself will cause their numbers to drop quickly and could result in another hypo incident

you MUst always test, feed THEN shoot,
I am also hesitant on the 2 units, only because if they hypo, then the next cycle they
are still sensitive to insulin and could go too low again.
If you feel that you must give insulin, I would FEED, then maybe shoot .50 unit

We always say to start low and go slow,
Going to 4 units in one week is not good...the animals get stressed when they are at the vet which
causes their numbers to be artifically high which is one reason why you should home test
My Shakespeare goes 100 points higher from just seeing my vet!
no meter is always accurate but at least you have any idea of where they are at
and all meters but be within a 20% variance, so it might not be exact, but it is close
(except for the freestyle meters!)

I will stay on this afternoon and be here for you and please ask as many questions as you like
My shakespeare has been diabetic for almost 2 years now, and would not be here today if
it wasnt for the folks here...
 
Vets do like pet specific meters and we do have a few people who use them. But easily 90% of the members here use human meters. I don't know about the CVS brand. You can take your meter to the vet tomorrow and test your meter on the same sample of blood that your vet uses. The problems with the pet specific meter is money and availability. It is very expensive for the meters and the strips. And you can't rush down to the drug store when you get some strange numbers and need to test frquently.

Is the vet saying no food tonight? I'm sorry; I don't think that makes any sense. Diabetics need food and insulin. I can see if he wants you to withhold food in the morning 2 hours before he gets to the vet, but anymore than that is overkill, IMHO. Food can impact blood glucose numbers but is usually not a factor if you watch that 2 hour window
 
His BS are down to 389, almost 2 hours later so we are headed in the right direction. I will wait until after 6 to test him again..poor things ears are gonna be sore since we're new at the ear thing. I dont want to do his paw because he is an indoor outdoor cat

I really appreciate everyone's input. Unfortunately Walmart is a minimum of an hour round trip and I was afraid to leave him that long without know what was wrong with him so I opted for CVS. I didnt see the brands others were using until I got back.

I've already called my boss and told her between the cat and having no well pump for water I'm afraid tomorrow isn't looking good for a workday. Good thing for me she is a cat lover herself. ;-)
 
Hi Tammie and sweet Nudderbaby,

Just wanted to pop in and welcome you to the forum. I'm new here myself, my Scout was diagnosed in January but already (due to the advice I received here) is diet-controlled and no longer needs insulin.

If I were you, I'd feed him as normal, give him a smaller insulin dose tonight (maybe 1U or whatever the experts here say), and bring him and your glucometer to the vet in the morning. Then have the vet test off the same drop of blood on his machine and yours. There may be a 20% variance and pet meters tend to run 30 points lower, but other than that it should be accurate. Then your vet can be confident that the numbers you report are accurate.

Hope this helps and WELCOME!

Lori
 
You can use Neosporin with pain relief on his ears. Also, be sure to hold the ears for several seconds after poking - that will help the bruising.

BTW, congrats on becoming a member of the Vaire Club! Not too many of us got blood on the first attempt. Fantastic that you did!
 
Welcome Tammie and Nudderbaby to the FDMB family, and to PZIville! cat_pet_icon

And congratulations for becoming a member of the Vampire Club so quickly! Amazing!

Now that you're home testing, you'll want to get a spreadsheet set up to keep track of your BGs and doses. Here is the link to get you set up. If you have questions, Sue is our resident expert. :-D

Having the spreadsheet is helpful to you, for tracking what you and Nudderbaby are doing, and great for others trying to help when you want the help.

Welcome again, and don't hesitate to ask questions. We're all here to help our and others' sugar kitties. :-D
 
Thank you all again for the help. Its been almost 2 hours since I checked his BS but I didnt get to him before he got to the bowl to eat. I had just fed my other cat and I think he heard me :) He only ate a few bites.

My other cat is his Momma, Heffer...go ahead and laugh, she was named that for obvious reasons. She's actually got a few other names also, such as Bad Girl, for obvious reasons also but she's always been my girl. I have put her on the Purina DM also because I dont want her ending up with this and she has been somewhat overweight since I got her fixed years ago. She's a little crabby about not having her food at her beck and call but she's adjusting.

His brother, Baby, died in November unexpectedly. I found him outside one Sunday morning and he was laying in the flowerbed like he had just gone to sleep but had a dried white foam looking bit around his mouth. It broke my heart because I didn't know what had happened. After Nudderbaby was diagnosed I started questioning myself whether the signs had been there for Baby. He had started urinating outside the catbox weeks before he died but I never knew which one was doing it until he died and it stopped. Nudderbaby has always been one that sits by the waterbowl and drags it across the room like he can't get enough but he's always loved to be outside and would potty out there more often than not so I didnt really put 2 and 2 together. I wonder how long now this may have been going on.

I pray that we can some day have him regulated to be off the insulin. I have some experience with testing sugars as I have a blind neighbor that I help but I dont monitor her meals or anything because she is pretty self sufficient. She is much easier than the cat and I'm sure she wouldnt be happy if I poked her ears either.
 
He was down to 374 a half hour ago. I'm not going to poke him anymore tonight, he's not happy. No insulin tonight, just going to let him level out and try a test in the morning.
 
That is not terribly high or low, either. It is lower than his number when you got the first test; part of that higher number could have been the syrup.

I understand your wanting to give both of you a break. (are you sure giving a treat after each test?). But be aware that he could be very high tomorrow, after 24 hours since his last shot. I hope, if he is high, the vet won't overreact with a high dose.

Our protocol is start low and go slow. We like to start a kitty on one unit, getting numbers that guide us to increase or decrease. (easy to slowly raise the dose, impossible to get the insulin out of the kitty once he's dosed.). If that appeals, you could talk to your vet about starting low. - especially since you have had a rocky start.
 
Look at you go with your spreadsheet up and running! Woohoo!

The way we use the spreadsheet....
AMPS is the morning pre shot BG test number
U is the amount of insulin we give
+1 is 1 hour after the shot
+2 is 2 hours after the shot, etc.
PMPS is the evening pre shot and so on.
Remarks is a great place to note anything at all - food issues, potty issues, great days, thoughts, shot times, just anything you want to make note of. :smile:

When someone looks at your spreadsheet, they will know at a glance what the AMPS or PMPS was, what you shot, and how the cycle is going based on what you input. Pretty neat, huh? And no worries about translating time zones and all that jazz. :-D
 
Hi Tammie and Nudderbaby and welcome.

There are some great folks here and they really know there stuff. Glad you are here and hoping that Nudderbaby will get regulated fast.

Lori and Copper
 
Good Morning Everyone,

I think everybody is still in bed or getting ready for work. I am planning on going in today as we FINALLY have water! Yay

Nudderbaby's BS is 366 this morning. He did not have a dose or any food after 5 pm last nite. I did find him on my pillow purring away this morning, which was the norm for our routine this last week so altho he is a little high I think he looks better and may actually feel better.

I'm gonna shower and get ready for work and will come back to see if anyone is awake yet before I do anything.
 
Good Morning Tammie,
there is a breaksfast group here consisting a quite a few early birds who get on around 5ish to 6ish
366 is really not a bad number for not having insulin last night
AND it is great that he is purring and alert this moring
Are you going to take him to the vet today
if not, here is my suggestion....
I would feed like you normally do then If it were me I would start over with the dosage on the insulin.
We ususally recommend starting at 1 unit.
If you are not going to be home at all today to test and if you feel more comfortable
going alittle lower that is fine to, but in my opinion, if it were me, I would not give more
than one unit on insulin until you see where he goes with that dosage
I will stay here if you have any questions
 
I agree with Denise. 366 is a good number to start a regular cycle with a small dose (1u is maximum). I wouldn't go any higher until we know how Nudderbaby does with it. :-D

And how great he's feeling good and being all purry! Woohoo! :-D
 
Good Morning again. I would prefer not to take him to the vet. I know his numbers will be elevated from the ride and I would rather regulate him at home.

He is usually fed around 6 am and given his dose before I leave at 7 (usually before 7). I have been trying to be home by 530. The bad part is, I work an hour away so that time could fluctuate by an hour but lately it hasn't.

Do you see a problem with me giving him a unit after he eats and leaving him til 530? My husband comes home around 130 pm or so and checks on him before he goes on. He does not know how to give shots yet as he hasnt been available to teach him. I think I am going to call my daughter to come over tonight so I can show her. My mom lives around the corner and I will be teaching her as well. She works a different shift than me and could potentially be a big help at least to get started. She was recently diagnosed with MS so I dont want to burden her any more than I need to. I'm not sure she has the patience for giving shots but is going to have to start on herself soon. She even joked she needed to practice on herself to save the Cats ears :)

Thanks for all of your advice.
 
ECID (Every Cat Is Different) but I think Nudderbaby will be just fine with no more than 1u. Does Nudderbaby scarf his food, or does he graze?
 
I dont blame you for not wanting to stress him out any more
than he already has been, as long as you know he is feeling ok
Does your husband know how to test yet, it is good that he will be home around 1 to check
on him.
I think one unit would be good to start with when he has a preshot of 366.
PZI is a forgiving insulin as it is ok to shoot a little early or late
it is not like Lantus where it has to be every 12 hours exactly.
so dont stress too much if you are a half hour late or so

What I would do would be to make sure tonight when you shoot again to get some midcycle numbers
so you know what one unit is doing and this way you will be more comfortable leaving him during the day
 
They both are grazers but Heffer likes to eat his food so I've had a difficult time with him getting all of his food before his dose.

He is on 1/4 cup Purina dm twice a day and he ate maybe an 1/8 or less this morning.

I just cleaned the catbox so I can see how much it is used today.
 
If Nudderbaby is a scarfer (eats everything put down as soon as he can), have hubby feed him a bit more at lunch. If Nudderbaby is a grazer, leave food out for him when you leave for work. Either way works well. :-D
 
Ok he got one unit and he has food and water out. He is more alert than yesterday but still a little lethargic. However, he is purring and his tail is flipping so to me that is a good sign.

I will text my husband and have him give me an update when he gets home on everything.

I think I will see if my Mom will pop over and ck on him a couple of hours before my DH gets home.

Thank you all. I will talk to you later.
 
Great whole kitty report! Sounds like he's feeling better, and that's always good!

I've heard the signs of feeling better (purring, pooping, preening, playing, peeing, etc.) happen before we see results in BGs. :-D
 
Just wanted to say welcome and you are doing a great job testing and already have a ss up.
Glad to see you reduced Nudderbaby to 1 U this morning, 4U is a lot for a kitty just starting out on PZI.
366 is not a bad number at all for no insulin last night.
It sounds like hes feeling better already and his clinical signs of diabetes are already starting to improve.
 
Good Afternoon/Evening.

Well I didnt get any help during the day to give me progress reports but I came home a little early and his BS are 383. We had a tough time getting a sample :cry:

Feel bad for the poor thing. Had to start wrapping him in a towel this morning to get him to stay.

He didnt eat any of his food today that was left from this morning.
 
Awww poor Nudderbaby! I went through the same thing with Scout the first few days. I had to trick and cajole her into eating, and she did not get why I was always poking her with needles. However... once she started feeling better (around day 4 of insulin) it was all worth it to see her up and about and going back to her old self.

Do whatever you can to get him to eat... mix food with hot water, put treats in the bowl, feed him his favorite meat/fish. Once his blood sugar is under control his appetite will probably come back.

Lori
 
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