Sue and Oliver (GA) said:
We generally consider a cat OTJ if they range between 40-120 off insulin, with the majority of the time in double digits. Stinky sounds like he is higher than that.
We have 2 people on the PZI forum who are in your same boat. One bean is giving mini doses and doing well. (Catannac) The other is watching and hoping the kitty will come into normal ranges.
You can try feeding very low carb or raw to see if that brings the numbers down. But if they don't stay with the range above, you may have to try mini doses of insulin to get him completely OTJ.
Come on over to the PZI forum and read some of the threads and check out some of the spreadsheets. We'd be glad to help.
I didn't mean to imply that he's OTJ. This is just a trial week, at the vet's suggestion, because his numbers have been pretty low. He is usually between 130 and 152 in the morning, and between 108 and 112 in the evening. When we started with the ProZinc, about seven weeks ago, he was getting 1 unit twice a day. The vet had me cut that in half, but even at .5 units, his numbers were so low at night - 108 to 112 - that the vet told me under no circumstances should I give him insulin in the evening. At this point, I'm not sure how low I could go, since everything under 1 unit is simply eyeballing it. There are no measurements on the syringes and it makes me nervous to just guess.
The vet and I have a standing phone appointment every Wednesday and we go over his numbers, his feeding and appetite for the week. As I mentioned in my earlier reply, he wants to do everything possible to keep me from having to bring him into the clinic and stressing him out.
Stinky and Buddy both get low-carb food now (Fancy Feast Classic, Wellness pate and Gerber's Turkey & Gravy baby food) and a very small portion of EVO dry. We had eliminated the EVO for a while, but Stinky's had some problems with going 12 hours without any food. Caused him to vomit a lot when he finally did eat. The vet told me to leave a tiny portion out once a day (less than a 1/3 of a cup). They really only eat about a teaspoon or so a day. Stinky has always been a light eater, and skinny as a rail, so I added the baby food to his diet to bulk him up. (The vet wanted him to gain a pound, which he has.)
This is more a question of whether some cats just really really like water. I had a cat when I was in my 20s who climbed into the shower with me every other day. It was...odd. Stinky always plays with water, splashes water, sticks his head under running faucets and would probably drink the ocean dry if I let him. So it's hard for me to gauge whether it's the return of high glucose numbers or just Stinky's neurotic fascination with H2o.
Cheers!
Colleen
PS: The spreadsheets everyone use here don't make much sense to me. My vet gave me one to use that is much simpler to read so I use that instead.
