Hi all. I am in a quandry and not sure what to do. My sweet kitty Christopher has been OTJ for about 4 months from a recommendation by his vet. His numbers on insulin were getting too low so we dropped the dosage by half and they still were low/normal. He is OTJ and his fasting glucose has been in the 120-130 range and his after food glucose is around 150-170. HOWEVER he is drinking MORE water than usual and has been extra needy lately.
I was told NOT to give insulin unless his blood glucose goes over 200. Is this right? I have him on a wet food only diet ( with occasional iams when I run out) and I think that is what has put him in honeymoon phase. I dont want to NOT give insulin if I should but dont want his numbers to crash if I give him it again.
HELP.... Thanks in advance
Dear Kristine,
technically the vet is right as we don't advise giving insulin under 200 if you have no data how a particular dose works for your cat and also if you are in the beginning of treatment.
I would suggest that you first stop feeding any Iams (even occasionally) and only give wet food which is very low carbohydrate.
It would also help to know if Christopher is overweight and if he is I would feed him at regular intervals using automatic feeder if necessary. I feed Rocky homemade raw species appropriate diet and measure every portion eg. he gets like 2 teaspoons of food 4 times in 24 hours and his daily allowance is 2% of his ideal weight. So, his ideal weigh is 5.5 kg, 2% of that is 110 gr of food. His weight is 6.2 kg now but I want him to loose weight hence the ideal weight figure.
And while you doing this you could take his BG as you've been doing.
Just lower amount of food and low carbohydrate food could keep him in a healthy range and it is possible that you could avoid having to use insulin.
Another thing is Christopher might have another health problem like kidney disease or pancreatitis or something else, if he is drinking more it might just mean that and maybe asking the vet to run some tests would help to find out.
Let us know what you would like to do.
There is a lot of information here so just read what you can, this is a first step.
I hope more people will respond to your post and correct my advice if it is not a sound one.
Wishing you luck with whatever you are thinking of doing and hoping that Christopher is feeling better soon.
Marlena
