Hello- I am new to this forum. Thank you for reading the story and for any advice you can give:
Our cat, Foppa, is a female, spayed calico who we adopted from a rescue league as a kitten. She was quickly diagnosed with colitis (she had blood in her stool) and has been on Purina's Overweight Management dry food her whole life. Any other foods or treats caused the blood to return to her stool, so she's never received any other types of food or treats. Now, I wonder if the food she was given previous to our ownership caused these problems and we just have been lucky on the OM food.
Last fall, I started noticing changes in Foppa like I would expect to see in a human with DB: increased thirst, increased need to clean the litter box, always hungry and one day it hit me that she had lost weight (we had just been out of town for a few days and when I got back it hit me that she was very light). She was taken in and was found to have blood sugar of over 400. She had a stay at our vet office for a glucose curve and we brought her home to 1.5u and 2u PZI each once daily. We modified as when we gave her the 2u she seemed to vomit frequently. We then adjusted to "heavy 1.75u BID". I have monitored her off and on for 6 months with home glucose monitoring and was consistently frustrated that she consistently ran in the 200-350 range no matter what we tried with her insulin injections. I took her in for a recheck of everything and she had gained 1 pound back of the 2 she had lost which was encouraging but her fructosamine came back over 500. That is when I started to take matters into my own hands, as the vet's solution was increasing insulin and doing another glucose curve. I didn't want her to go back in there for 24+ hours and cause that stress when I felt I could do the curve myself at home. I did this, and seemed that the somogyi effect was occurring, so I contacted our vet again. I felt like I was still not really being heard and I truly just needed to try things on my own for a week or so.
After doing more research, I stopped the OM food and switched to canned food on Monday- It took a lot of time at the store to pick out foods I thought would work with low carb content, but if anyone has any suggestions as to specific brand and flavors of food they use and work well, that would be great. Foppa has taken to the canned food without problem (except for today's flavor, but she does eat it). Foppa's blood sugar's continued to be erratic and high (anywhere from 247 and a random high of 512 the 1st day). Due to the high values that continued into the 2nd day, I gave her 1/2 U PZI around noon, and then her values were even higher that night so we did another 1/2 unit. The next day (Weds/yesterday) I did not give her anything until 330pm. I then gave her just under 1u. at 1030pm I checked her ad she was at 44! I couldn't believe it so I checked again to be sure it wasn't a mistake, and it was 52. She was asymptomatic (i have no idea how or why!) but I immediately gave her karo syrup and a small amount of the OM food to bring her up. She was stable for the next 2 hours and was at 276 when I finally went to bed. This morning she started at 403.
I feel that she is so completely all over the map, I have no idea what to do. I am not happy with our current vet and am considering taking her to the vet we love that takes care of our dog. I called a few more new ones today to try and get a feeling for their DB treatment approaches and did not have much luck or success in learning much, and when I did, I was not very satisfied with the responses.
I guess my questions are:
(1) Canned foods to use
(2) How long does this transition usually take? Everything I read said it was fast, and until the hypo episode last night, I hadn't seen any changes.
(3) Is it normal to still have these drastic swings? (I'm sure this morning it was still high from the less than 1/4c of dry food I gave her last night to get her back up).
(4) Does anyone live in the north-metro area of Denver and have a recommendation for a great vet who treats these cats well?
(5) Any other advice would also be welcome and appreciated!
Thank you again for taking the time to read this story. I appreciate it. Our dog was our first baby and she is now blind and on allergy medications (and is a miracle after a family member lost her in the mountains last October while we were out of town- she was gone for 6 nights and managed to survive and was found over 7 miles away from where she got lost!) and Foppa was our second baby. Even though we have 2 human children now as well, these guys are still so very important to us and we are willing to do what needs to be done to allow Foppa to have a wonderful quality of life. We just need someone on our side willing to listen and make suggestions and work with us!
Sincerely,
Mandy
Our cat, Foppa, is a female, spayed calico who we adopted from a rescue league as a kitten. She was quickly diagnosed with colitis (she had blood in her stool) and has been on Purina's Overweight Management dry food her whole life. Any other foods or treats caused the blood to return to her stool, so she's never received any other types of food or treats. Now, I wonder if the food she was given previous to our ownership caused these problems and we just have been lucky on the OM food.
Last fall, I started noticing changes in Foppa like I would expect to see in a human with DB: increased thirst, increased need to clean the litter box, always hungry and one day it hit me that she had lost weight (we had just been out of town for a few days and when I got back it hit me that she was very light). She was taken in and was found to have blood sugar of over 400. She had a stay at our vet office for a glucose curve and we brought her home to 1.5u and 2u PZI each once daily. We modified as when we gave her the 2u she seemed to vomit frequently. We then adjusted to "heavy 1.75u BID". I have monitored her off and on for 6 months with home glucose monitoring and was consistently frustrated that she consistently ran in the 200-350 range no matter what we tried with her insulin injections. I took her in for a recheck of everything and she had gained 1 pound back of the 2 she had lost which was encouraging but her fructosamine came back over 500. That is when I started to take matters into my own hands, as the vet's solution was increasing insulin and doing another glucose curve. I didn't want her to go back in there for 24+ hours and cause that stress when I felt I could do the curve myself at home. I did this, and seemed that the somogyi effect was occurring, so I contacted our vet again. I felt like I was still not really being heard and I truly just needed to try things on my own for a week or so.
After doing more research, I stopped the OM food and switched to canned food on Monday- It took a lot of time at the store to pick out foods I thought would work with low carb content, but if anyone has any suggestions as to specific brand and flavors of food they use and work well, that would be great. Foppa has taken to the canned food without problem (except for today's flavor, but she does eat it). Foppa's blood sugar's continued to be erratic and high (anywhere from 247 and a random high of 512 the 1st day). Due to the high values that continued into the 2nd day, I gave her 1/2 U PZI around noon, and then her values were even higher that night so we did another 1/2 unit. The next day (Weds/yesterday) I did not give her anything until 330pm. I then gave her just under 1u. at 1030pm I checked her ad she was at 44! I couldn't believe it so I checked again to be sure it wasn't a mistake, and it was 52. She was asymptomatic (i have no idea how or why!) but I immediately gave her karo syrup and a small amount of the OM food to bring her up. She was stable for the next 2 hours and was at 276 when I finally went to bed. This morning she started at 403.
I feel that she is so completely all over the map, I have no idea what to do. I am not happy with our current vet and am considering taking her to the vet we love that takes care of our dog. I called a few more new ones today to try and get a feeling for their DB treatment approaches and did not have much luck or success in learning much, and when I did, I was not very satisfied with the responses.
I guess my questions are:
(1) Canned foods to use
(2) How long does this transition usually take? Everything I read said it was fast, and until the hypo episode last night, I hadn't seen any changes.
(3) Is it normal to still have these drastic swings? (I'm sure this morning it was still high from the less than 1/4c of dry food I gave her last night to get her back up).
(4) Does anyone live in the north-metro area of Denver and have a recommendation for a great vet who treats these cats well?
(5) Any other advice would also be welcome and appreciated!
Thank you again for taking the time to read this story. I appreciate it. Our dog was our first baby and she is now blind and on allergy medications (and is a miracle after a family member lost her in the mountains last October while we were out of town- she was gone for 6 nights and managed to survive and was found over 7 miles away from where she got lost!) and Foppa was our second baby. Even though we have 2 human children now as well, these guys are still so very important to us and we are willing to do what needs to be done to allow Foppa to have a wonderful quality of life. We just need someone on our side willing to listen and make suggestions and work with us!
Sincerely,
Mandy
