I've been lurking a lot here and am so grateful you exist since I feel we are rather on our own in figuring out how to best deal with all this (we have gotten some pretty dodgy advice from the vet who up to this point I felt was excellent). Our 15-year-old cat Nippers went from "boring" numbers at his last appointment -- great news since he is managing several conditions -- to a month later losing his appetite and ultimately getting the diabetes diagnosis. We've had a very dramatic few weeks due in some part to terrible advice (like telling us to take him home after his blood sugar got too low with the instructions to give no insulin for 5 days). He ended up in the hospital for 3 days and I feel lucky he survived. I now feel really stupid for following instructions that ridiculous but we're such newbies I hadn't yet realized to what extent vet advice on diabetes can be seriously off the mark. They also told us taking our own readings was optional but I realize from reading here that was also bad advice. We're now at a point where his readings are consistently good (last few: 130, 134 -- it's been too crazy to do a chart but we will get to that) and he's on a pretty small dose, just 1/2 unit of lantus once a day.
The big problem now is that he'll eat well (or at least well given the new diagnosis) for a couple days and then get dehydrated and lose his appetite and stop pooping. He has always had a constipation issue and was on miralax and cisapride but we've never had the dehydration issue. Once he gets fluid therapy he feels much better, starts eating and pooping again, but then two days later he's dehydrated again. My theories are that he's just not eating nearly as much as he used to (he was a big eater, and a healthy, not overweight, almost-12 pounds...now he's down to 8.4 pounds and eats about 1/3 as much as he used to). Is he simply getting too little water because of this dramatic decrease in food intake? Or should we be giving a smaller dose of lantus every 12 hours? Is there a problem with only getting it once a day? Other than those theories I'm at a loss as to why he so quickly gets dehydrated. He drinks water willingly and we only give him wet food. We're taking him in for fluid therapy later today because after having a good appetite post fluids yesterday he's back to no appetite. Sorry for the very long intro; just thought someone might have gone through something similar. Thank you for being here -- you've been a wealth of info through three terrible weeks of constant stress and worry.
The big problem now is that he'll eat well (or at least well given the new diagnosis) for a couple days and then get dehydrated and lose his appetite and stop pooping. He has always had a constipation issue and was on miralax and cisapride but we've never had the dehydration issue. Once he gets fluid therapy he feels much better, starts eating and pooping again, but then two days later he's dehydrated again. My theories are that he's just not eating nearly as much as he used to (he was a big eater, and a healthy, not overweight, almost-12 pounds...now he's down to 8.4 pounds and eats about 1/3 as much as he used to). Is he simply getting too little water because of this dramatic decrease in food intake? Or should we be giving a smaller dose of lantus every 12 hours? Is there a problem with only getting it once a day? Other than those theories I'm at a loss as to why he so quickly gets dehydrated. He drinks water willingly and we only give him wet food. We're taking him in for fluid therapy later today because after having a good appetite post fluids yesterday he's back to no appetite. Sorry for the very long intro; just thought someone might have gone through something similar. Thank you for being here -- you've been a wealth of info through three terrible weeks of constant stress and worry.
)
