Hi,
Our 9 yr old, Delilah has always been a healthy indoor kitty. Last week we noticed she wasn’t eating or drinking much for 3-4 days and then started vomiting bile. We took her to the emergency vet. Her blood glucose was 234 and kidney function was a bit elevated. After subQ fluids, they did a urinalysis and that showed ketones and glucose in her urine. Vet said that she was in DKA and wanted her to stay in the hospital but unfortunately, we didn’t have the money for that so we decided to take her home. The vet said she was a strange case of DKA because her blood sugar wasn’t super high and she was still acting normal. They originally wanted to send us home with insulin but they were afraid she’d be hypoglycemic since she hadn’t eaten in a few days so the decision was made to just bring her home after the subQ fluids, anti nausea meds and an appetite stimulant. They wanted us to try to get her to eat and then reassess in 24-48 hours.
I guess this is a good time to mention that taking her to the vet is absolutely tortuous on her. She gets so stressed out, more than most kitties. The vet actually said that it probably wouldn’t even be good for her health to stay in the hospital over night because of her stress level there.
After not eating or drinking the next day, I stumbled on the catinfo website. We decided to start force feeding her with a syringe (just soaked dry food - Purina beyond - since that’s what we had) so we could at least get some calories and water in her. She took it well and we were able to increase a little more each time with no vomiting. Then we decided to get a glucometer and make our own food using the recipe on the website. We have been able to feed her about 40 cc’s 2x/day for the last 3 days and after multiple attempts, I finally got a BS reading of 132. She is back to acting like her normal self but still refuses to eat on her own. She doesn’t mind being syringe fed at all, doesn’t fight us and eats it all down. I did buy Dr Elsey’s chicken dry food since she she only eats dry food hoping she would start eating on her own but no luck so far. I’m planning on checking her BS again today if I can get it. She is drinking a little bit on her own, not excessively and is urinating appropriately for what she’s drinking. She is acting super hungry but she is extremely picky and will not eat the homemade wet food or the Dr Elseys dry food on her own yet.
I would like to try to avoid taking her back to the vet if at all possible because I feel like she would regress just from the stress of it all. Of course if her BS were to be super high we would take her in.
Are there any suggestions/tip for our situation? We want to try to mange at home with diet if at all possible. I feel like it was reassuring that her BS was 132 at home under less stress than the vet (although I did have to poke her a couple times to get enough blood)
Our 9 yr old, Delilah has always been a healthy indoor kitty. Last week we noticed she wasn’t eating or drinking much for 3-4 days and then started vomiting bile. We took her to the emergency vet. Her blood glucose was 234 and kidney function was a bit elevated. After subQ fluids, they did a urinalysis and that showed ketones and glucose in her urine. Vet said that she was in DKA and wanted her to stay in the hospital but unfortunately, we didn’t have the money for that so we decided to take her home. The vet said she was a strange case of DKA because her blood sugar wasn’t super high and she was still acting normal. They originally wanted to send us home with insulin but they were afraid she’d be hypoglycemic since she hadn’t eaten in a few days so the decision was made to just bring her home after the subQ fluids, anti nausea meds and an appetite stimulant. They wanted us to try to get her to eat and then reassess in 24-48 hours.
I guess this is a good time to mention that taking her to the vet is absolutely tortuous on her. She gets so stressed out, more than most kitties. The vet actually said that it probably wouldn’t even be good for her health to stay in the hospital over night because of her stress level there.
After not eating or drinking the next day, I stumbled on the catinfo website. We decided to start force feeding her with a syringe (just soaked dry food - Purina beyond - since that’s what we had) so we could at least get some calories and water in her. She took it well and we were able to increase a little more each time with no vomiting. Then we decided to get a glucometer and make our own food using the recipe on the website. We have been able to feed her about 40 cc’s 2x/day for the last 3 days and after multiple attempts, I finally got a BS reading of 132. She is back to acting like her normal self but still refuses to eat on her own. She doesn’t mind being syringe fed at all, doesn’t fight us and eats it all down. I did buy Dr Elsey’s chicken dry food since she she only eats dry food hoping she would start eating on her own but no luck so far. I’m planning on checking her BS again today if I can get it. She is drinking a little bit on her own, not excessively and is urinating appropriately for what she’s drinking. She is acting super hungry but she is extremely picky and will not eat the homemade wet food or the Dr Elseys dry food on her own yet.
I would like to try to avoid taking her back to the vet if at all possible because I feel like she would regress just from the stress of it all. Of course if her BS were to be super high we would take her in.
Are there any suggestions/tip for our situation? We want to try to mange at home with diet if at all possible. I feel like it was reassuring that her BS was 132 at home under less stress than the vet (although I did have to poke her a couple times to get enough blood)
