New Member - need advice on super high blood sugar

L

Lilly221

Member Since 2026
Hi! I'm Lilly, my cat is Luna and she was diagnosed in January and is on Lantus, right now it's 6 units.

When she was diagnosed her bs was 556, and since then it's mostly been in the 300s, with almost half of the time in the 200s. Occasionally I've gotten a reading in the 100s but that's rare.

While I understand that pre-shot testing is best, my cat is absolutely feral in the hour leading up to her feeding time and I simply can't get a reading. She won't tolerate it. But I can easily do it at other times of the day. So I know that preshot is best, but I'm doing what I can without her running to hide.

A few weeks ago she started peeing outside the box and we assumed it was my mom visiting that caused it. But then her bs shot up to 540. Then 600s. Then 700s. Now the alpha trak just reads High. She's been on antibiotics since Saturday, with no change in blood sugar.

She has no symptoms of anything being wrong. I'm getting a blood dka monitor, it's arriving Friday.

Vet isn't having me do anything yet. Vet has been consulting with a specialist which is why she's on an antibiotic without a urine test. They also told us to bump up from 5.5 units to 6.

What would be a next step? She has no physical symptoms of acromegaly but I'm open to testing. Would switching insulin from Lantus to Prozinc be a consideration? Anything else I can ask about?

She also had an ultrasound a month ago to rule out some things, and an xray, all good.

Food! Forgot to mention she weighs 15 pounds, and gets 4 cans of Fancy Feast per day, the standard low carb chicken or fish
 
Welcome to FDMB
First thing I can sat the 6 units is an extremely high dose!. and not testing before shooting you are risking a hypoglycemic episode, aside from the fact that it will damage other organs, or death, Have you or your vet tested for Ketones? Having Ketones is a good reason for such high BG. Prozinc is a very good insulin for cats, it is also a 12- hour insulin, it takes about 2 cycles (two days) for the insulin to react in the system, so keeping the same dose is important, we recommend to start with a low dose of 1.0 units, and increases and decreases are done by 0.25 units at a time.
Another reason the Levels remain high is the food. What is his diet? A diabetic cat needs to have a diet of wet can or raw foods between 0-10 % carbs, most members feed Fancy Feast Pates between 0-10% some feed up to 5%, a feeding schedule is important, your cat should have between 3-4 small meals or snacks during the day plus the two main meals before shot, grazing is not an option. a non-diabetic cats' glucose level is between 50-120 so is important to begin to regulate is levels as soon as possible, The transition from high carbs to low carbs, needs to be a slow process, you do not want to upset the stomach, and the sudden low carbs will dive down the levels, when making the transition is good to test several times during the day.
Having trouble testing at the most important time, which is before shot, you might want to consider the CGM, this is a sensor placed on the cat, that will constantly will monitor the glucose level , read with an app on your phone, however this device has some flaws, it read low number lower that reality, so is important to re-test manually when this happens and take the manual reading as value, the sensor can also malfunction, or fall off, Most members use the ReliOn premier human monitor and strips(Walmart) inexpensive and effective, or any other human monitor, We are very numbers oriented, we are happy to help you stabilize your cat, and answer all you concerns, so we can all be on the same page, we would like you to create your signature and spreadsheet, links below, please keep posting 🫶 :bighug:

Sticky - New? How You Can Help Us Help You!
https://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/forums/spreadsheets-tech-support-testing-area.6/
 
6 units is NOT an extremely high dose. My cat got up to 8.75 units before turning it around and we have a number here on much larger doses. A cat needs however much insulin they need. I hope you started at a lower dose and increased by reasonable amounts. With testing blood sugars you can make sure that Luna is not on too much insulin for what she needs.

My cat had both acromegaly and IAA (insulin auto antibodies). We have a few cats here that have just IAA, so if you get testing done for acromegaly, I'd ask for IAA testing too. Both tests are done at the same place - Michigan State University. My cat's only signs of acromegaly were her dose, and an insatiable appetite. Only 35% or so of acros have clinical signs at diagnosis, and about one in four diabetic cats has it. It's a good test to rule in or out these conditions. There are treatments for acromegaly.

I would not switch from Lantus to Prozinc at this point. Cats with higher doses seem to do better on Lantus than on Prozinc.

What antibiotics is she on? The problem with being on an antibiotic before doing testing is that you have to wait for the antibiotic to clear her system before you can test.

If you are interesting in having us help you with insulin dosing, it would be helpful if you could set up a spreadsheet. Details here: New? How You Can Help Us Help You!

At 15 lbs, is she the right size or large? My girl had some Maine Coon in her so just under 15, which her vet said was a good weight. Have you tried giving her some freeze dried meat snacks before testing her in the AM?

There are some people here who feed Fancy Feast, but by no means most of us. Fancy Feast is rather high in phosphorus, which isn't good if a kitty also has kidney issues, which many of our older cats do. FF is fine if your kitty's kidneys are OK.
 
She's on amoxicillum. Sorry, I don't know how to spell it. And yes, the dose has been carefully and slowly titrated up over the past 9 months. She tested at 475 a little bit ago, I just hope that's not an anomaly and it means something is going right.
She is a larger cat, but the vets originally told me that they wanted to see her down to 12 pounds. Since being diagnosed, they simply want to get her steady before we think about attempting further weight loss. She's already hungry about an hour before any feeding so I can't see how we would cut back her food further.
 
Is her weight pretty steady now or gaining/losing? I found I had to do a zero carb snack a couple hours before the main meal so I wasn't getting meowed at early. Once she gets somewhat regulated, you find that she's not as demanding for food. For some odd reason, when I switched my girl to raw, it seemed to satiate her better. Same number of calories but smaller volume. It also helped to do multiple smaller meals. I also got an automated feeder, and once she figure it out, she hovered over it instead of me.

Sounds like the most important thing now is to find that insulin dose that moves her into good numbers. The Tight Regulation protocol for Lantus can help you do that.

I'd also recommend prioritizing testing done for acromegaly and IAA.
 
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