Geoff Chadwick
Member Since 2020
My wife's cat Hatter, who we think is somewhere around 12-14 if not older. He topped out at 20lb but is currently down to 17 and change at his last vet appointment.
He's also missing most os his teeth, has megacolon and has been hospitalized several times in his life for obfuscation and even bladder spasms. He's a happy cat, just not the most healthy.
He's been on vetsulin 5.5u 2x per day (and he takes cisapride, enulose and miralax for the megacolon) and over the first month we transitioned up from 1u to 5.5, and it's been a 3 month journey so far.
With giving him insulin at 8:30am/pm each day the vet has kept up with his blood sugar and last week we finally got our own meter and checking it around 3pm with their meter both were about 135 within a few points so tomorrow we are finally going to do our own BG curve.
He's been doing "okay" but he still drinks a metric ton of water and pees a LOT and has intermittent issues going to the bathroom outside the litterbox. Sometimes on a bath mat or a towel on the floor, but often literally just outside the litterbox like he just can't make it the last few steps. Our flat is 1400sq ft and we have 3 litter boxes in the house.
Every time this happens the vet suggests we drop him onto antibiotics for a week for a potential bladder infection, but they make him miserable, give him a wicked case of the runs, and he can't make it to the litter box when on them... And they're expensive.
The vet has him on Purina Pro plan's diabetic food (dry) with matching wet food to help him take his meds. I'm concerned that the bathroom problems (especially all the thirst) is part of it and definitely not a good sign, but the BG of 130 at 6 hours after insulin says he may not need more insulin, but that before food his BG may be insanely high (curve coming tomorrow).
We'd love to get him into remission obviously, but we understand that may not be possible - If we can get his bathroom use under control and his thirst under control (both likely related to his diabetes) we'd take that at least. Our hardwood floors are taking a serious beating.
Sorry for the long intro.
Really, my question is if there are any suggestions on thirst issues even with insulin? Our plan is to do the curve then talk to our vet on Monday. My only idea is to transition him (life long kibble cat) to 100% ProPlan diabetic wet food with the hope it mitigates some of his thirst, but before we do that we need to discuss an insulin strategy with the vet to reduce his insulin significantly to make sure we don't over dose.
He's also missing most os his teeth, has megacolon and has been hospitalized several times in his life for obfuscation and even bladder spasms. He's a happy cat, just not the most healthy.
He's been on vetsulin 5.5u 2x per day (and he takes cisapride, enulose and miralax for the megacolon) and over the first month we transitioned up from 1u to 5.5, and it's been a 3 month journey so far.
With giving him insulin at 8:30am/pm each day the vet has kept up with his blood sugar and last week we finally got our own meter and checking it around 3pm with their meter both were about 135 within a few points so tomorrow we are finally going to do our own BG curve.
He's been doing "okay" but he still drinks a metric ton of water and pees a LOT and has intermittent issues going to the bathroom outside the litterbox. Sometimes on a bath mat or a towel on the floor, but often literally just outside the litterbox like he just can't make it the last few steps. Our flat is 1400sq ft and we have 3 litter boxes in the house.
Every time this happens the vet suggests we drop him onto antibiotics for a week for a potential bladder infection, but they make him miserable, give him a wicked case of the runs, and he can't make it to the litter box when on them... And they're expensive.
The vet has him on Purina Pro plan's diabetic food (dry) with matching wet food to help him take his meds. I'm concerned that the bathroom problems (especially all the thirst) is part of it and definitely not a good sign, but the BG of 130 at 6 hours after insulin says he may not need more insulin, but that before food his BG may be insanely high (curve coming tomorrow).
We'd love to get him into remission obviously, but we understand that may not be possible - If we can get his bathroom use under control and his thirst under control (both likely related to his diabetes) we'd take that at least. Our hardwood floors are taking a serious beating.
Sorry for the long intro.
Really, my question is if there are any suggestions on thirst issues even with insulin? Our plan is to do the curve then talk to our vet on Monday. My only idea is to transition him (life long kibble cat) to 100% ProPlan diabetic wet food with the hope it mitigates some of his thirst, but before we do that we need to discuss an insulin strategy with the vet to reduce his insulin significantly to make sure we don't over dose.
, should be 3:00 and +6.5, but message is the same]. In particular, vetsulin usually shows peak action earlier than this, I think around 4-5 hrs post-shot. So that 135 may mean that Hatter was going even lower than that earlier. You may or may not see that when you do your curve, for reasons I'll explain below, but it's something to keep in mind with him being on a fairly large dose of vetsulin.
