Hello, I am new to this board, I would like to introduce Krismas, my 8 yr old spayed tabby who was diagnosed diabetic about six months ago. I have lots of questions and perhaps some history would help.
Krismas gets Lantus currently 2 units bid, eats lo carb wet food (Fancy Feast Classic series) with small meals put out several times a day. I am sorry to say the first few months of our jouney were fraught with complications. I took kittie to a cat specialist when she first became ill, who diagnosed her, then recommended an extensive battery of lab, x-ray, ultrasound tests to look for a treatable cause of the diabetes. At the same time, the vet recommended I get the Alphatrak monitor and do hometesting, and started her on 1 unit Lantus twice a day and recommended Hills DM dry and wet food. Krismas loved the dry but would not touch the wet, so she was still basically eating dry cat food. I had no problem with the injections but could not get blood on the testing, so was driving over an hour one way to get her blood tested several times a week. Fortunately, the lab testing results all came out negative, no cancer, no positive results for pancreatisis, liver, kidney, bowel problems, no general or urinary tract infections, no dental problems. In the meantime, kittie had terrible problems with dehydration and constipation and even with stool softeners, laxatives, etc would develop impacted colon requiring emergency vet visits. This continued over three months until I exhausted savings after spending several thousand dollars and could no longer afford the numerous and expensive vet services. Through internet searches I found posts from your boards and others and educated myself, changed foods pulling her off the dry food, finally learned how to home test, and found products (canned pumpkin, slippery elm, Pet Alive Natural Moves) that have helped enormously with the dehydration and elimination. I had to leave the cat specialist and have had to basically 'go it alone" for about two months. When I could afford it, I took kitty to the neighborhood vet, who was much less experienced with diabetic cats. She doubled the Lantus dose to 2 units bid based on relatively high flat BG curves ranging from 250-350. She recommended I do a curve weekly and phone in the results. The Lantus increase lowered kittie's curves to roughly 250 am preshot to nadirs around 100. When I asked the vet about the possibility of trying for tighter regulation, she recommended increasing the Lantus another half unit last week. A few days later, AM preshot BG of 36 coupled with behavior (lethargy, not eating, not alert) led me to suspect hypoglycemia, I rubbed her gums with Karo and withheld the AM shot. Three hours later her BG was 407 and gradually went down to 352 over the next several hours. I gave her a decreased shot of 2 units that evening, this morning her preshot BG was 186, I continued with 2 units and called the vet, relating this incident and that I suspected it was a rebound cycle. The vet left a message saying there were no "rebounds" in cats and recommended I increase the dose again. I have called in further messages with more details but have not received calls back. I feel on my own again.
My goals are to tap into the collective experience of your group for advice and support. Of course I take complete responsibility for Kittie's treatment. I would like to set up a spreadsheet on Krismas and join the Lantus group, find out more about the rebound phenomenon, work to regulate kitty and find out more about tight regulation since as time goes by there seems less chance she can ever recover, ask if anyone knows a vet experienced with diabetic cats in my area (north shore suburbs of Chicago) and any other diabetic cat 'parents' in my area. I also have questions about the differences between the Alphatrak readings and human monitors', want keep up with food issues, have questions about supplements that purport to support the pancreas, and all the myriad things that seem to come up with this disease.
Thank you for your patience and compassion in reading my ramble, Kathy and Krismas
Krismas gets Lantus currently 2 units bid, eats lo carb wet food (Fancy Feast Classic series) with small meals put out several times a day. I am sorry to say the first few months of our jouney were fraught with complications. I took kittie to a cat specialist when she first became ill, who diagnosed her, then recommended an extensive battery of lab, x-ray, ultrasound tests to look for a treatable cause of the diabetes. At the same time, the vet recommended I get the Alphatrak monitor and do hometesting, and started her on 1 unit Lantus twice a day and recommended Hills DM dry and wet food. Krismas loved the dry but would not touch the wet, so she was still basically eating dry cat food. I had no problem with the injections but could not get blood on the testing, so was driving over an hour one way to get her blood tested several times a week. Fortunately, the lab testing results all came out negative, no cancer, no positive results for pancreatisis, liver, kidney, bowel problems, no general or urinary tract infections, no dental problems. In the meantime, kittie had terrible problems with dehydration and constipation and even with stool softeners, laxatives, etc would develop impacted colon requiring emergency vet visits. This continued over three months until I exhausted savings after spending several thousand dollars and could no longer afford the numerous and expensive vet services. Through internet searches I found posts from your boards and others and educated myself, changed foods pulling her off the dry food, finally learned how to home test, and found products (canned pumpkin, slippery elm, Pet Alive Natural Moves) that have helped enormously with the dehydration and elimination. I had to leave the cat specialist and have had to basically 'go it alone" for about two months. When I could afford it, I took kitty to the neighborhood vet, who was much less experienced with diabetic cats. She doubled the Lantus dose to 2 units bid based on relatively high flat BG curves ranging from 250-350. She recommended I do a curve weekly and phone in the results. The Lantus increase lowered kittie's curves to roughly 250 am preshot to nadirs around 100. When I asked the vet about the possibility of trying for tighter regulation, she recommended increasing the Lantus another half unit last week. A few days later, AM preshot BG of 36 coupled with behavior (lethargy, not eating, not alert) led me to suspect hypoglycemia, I rubbed her gums with Karo and withheld the AM shot. Three hours later her BG was 407 and gradually went down to 352 over the next several hours. I gave her a decreased shot of 2 units that evening, this morning her preshot BG was 186, I continued with 2 units and called the vet, relating this incident and that I suspected it was a rebound cycle. The vet left a message saying there were no "rebounds" in cats and recommended I increase the dose again. I have called in further messages with more details but have not received calls back. I feel on my own again.
My goals are to tap into the collective experience of your group for advice and support. Of course I take complete responsibility for Kittie's treatment. I would like to set up a spreadsheet on Krismas and join the Lantus group, find out more about the rebound phenomenon, work to regulate kitty and find out more about tight regulation since as time goes by there seems less chance she can ever recover, ask if anyone knows a vet experienced with diabetic cats in my area (north shore suburbs of Chicago) and any other diabetic cat 'parents' in my area. I also have questions about the differences between the Alphatrak readings and human monitors', want keep up with food issues, have questions about supplements that purport to support the pancreas, and all the myriad things that seem to come up with this disease.
Thank you for your patience and compassion in reading my ramble, Kathy and Krismas
