Jane and Ragnar
Member Since 2020
Hi all and thank you for sharing your support and expertise. My kitty is Ragnar, age estimated at 11 years old.
Ragnar was a semi-feral kitty who hung around my yard on and off for 3 years as a young cat. I fed him and put a bed out on the porch, and in return he stared at me while I did yard work (and he has a creepy stare!) and hissed every time I came out to put a bowl of food by his bed.
I finally had to catch him up because he was limping, and I took him into work to get him checked out (I was hospital manager for a vet surgical specialty practice). We also neutered him and tipped his ear. Once I let him back outside, I thought he'd never be back. Six months later, he was fat and happy sleeping in my house and had quickly decided that a litterbox beats pawing around in the dirt. He is such a lover, and definitely one of the most special cats I've ever had.
He's a snorky cat with chronic herpesvirus (at least that's what we think) plus hyperesthesia over-grooming. He's been on short courses of prednisolone maybe once every 9-12 months when the over-grooming starts to dominate his waking life. He had just finished one round at the end of August when I started to notice that he might be losing weight and becoming PU/PD. The pred dose should have been much too low to precipitate diabetes, but here we are.
Bloodwork won't be back till tomorrow, but vet did prelim diagnosis based on symptoms and urine glucose of 3++. I gave Ragnar his first dose of 1 unit of basaglar tonight. I guess we're on the SLGS program, since I wasn't given any instructions to do anything but watch for signs of hypoglycemia.
I feel a bit thrown into the deep end, like I wasn't given the full "this is what happens next" spiel, because of 1) COVID and the limitations of curbside drop-offs, and 2) because the vet knows I was a vet tech (but that was a long time ago!!!!). So I'm doing quite a bit of self-education here and elsewhere online.
It seems like the vet's approach is to just do the low dose insulin for a week and then do an in-hospital glucose curve, but I'm taking the bull by the horns and getting set up tomorrow for in-home testing. Ragnar didn't even notice the insulin injection tonight, so I'm hoping for some of that laissez-faire when I start BG testing!
The vet also said that he really wants Ragnar to gain back some weight, so doesn't want me to switch to all-canned LC diet yet. (Ragnar will eat some canned but prefers dry.) I will continue on the combo wet/dry that I'd been feeding until we run the curve at the vet office next week and then want to move to a LC wet diet in conjunction with insulin changes as necessary.
Whew, sorry for the novel. Thanks again for being a place of support!
Ragnar was a semi-feral kitty who hung around my yard on and off for 3 years as a young cat. I fed him and put a bed out on the porch, and in return he stared at me while I did yard work (and he has a creepy stare!) and hissed every time I came out to put a bowl of food by his bed.
I finally had to catch him up because he was limping, and I took him into work to get him checked out (I was hospital manager for a vet surgical specialty practice). We also neutered him and tipped his ear. Once I let him back outside, I thought he'd never be back. Six months later, he was fat and happy sleeping in my house and had quickly decided that a litterbox beats pawing around in the dirt. He is such a lover, and definitely one of the most special cats I've ever had.
He's a snorky cat with chronic herpesvirus (at least that's what we think) plus hyperesthesia over-grooming. He's been on short courses of prednisolone maybe once every 9-12 months when the over-grooming starts to dominate his waking life. He had just finished one round at the end of August when I started to notice that he might be losing weight and becoming PU/PD. The pred dose should have been much too low to precipitate diabetes, but here we are.
Bloodwork won't be back till tomorrow, but vet did prelim diagnosis based on symptoms and urine glucose of 3++. I gave Ragnar his first dose of 1 unit of basaglar tonight. I guess we're on the SLGS program, since I wasn't given any instructions to do anything but watch for signs of hypoglycemia.
I feel a bit thrown into the deep end, like I wasn't given the full "this is what happens next" spiel, because of 1) COVID and the limitations of curbside drop-offs, and 2) because the vet knows I was a vet tech (but that was a long time ago!!!!). So I'm doing quite a bit of self-education here and elsewhere online.
It seems like the vet's approach is to just do the low dose insulin for a week and then do an in-hospital glucose curve, but I'm taking the bull by the horns and getting set up tomorrow for in-home testing. Ragnar didn't even notice the insulin injection tonight, so I'm hoping for some of that laissez-faire when I start BG testing!
The vet also said that he really wants Ragnar to gain back some weight, so doesn't want me to switch to all-canned LC diet yet. (Ragnar will eat some canned but prefers dry.) I will continue on the combo wet/dry that I'd been feeding until we run the curve at the vet office next week and then want to move to a LC wet diet in conjunction with insulin changes as necessary.
Whew, sorry for the novel. Thanks again for being a place of support!
