OTJ kitty seems hypoglycemic

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Hroswitha

Hroswitha

Member Since 2011
Yemala has been OTJ since diagnosis 2006. She relapsed once, after receiving steroids for an ear infection, but went back to the falls in 2011 after a month on insulin. She is 15.

We keep her on a reasonably low carb diet of Whiskas fish in a pouch, and have recently added a small half meal around midnight. Her weight is low, but low to normal.

She is asymptomatic in all respects.

At about 5 AM, I noticed that, as I slept, she moved with me to cuddle under the covers. Not strange for her - she's a very affectionate kitty. But her head was bobbing and she seemed to be dragging her hind quarters. I woke up enough to see that she's not moving normally. Her head bobbles constantly, she staggers. She cries incessantly. When standing, she braces herself on all four feet spread widely.

My first instinct is to check her bgs. Because *I AM STUPID*, I allowed my few remaining test strips to expire and my meter won't allow them to be used. I have a script, but the pharmacy won't open until 10 AM and it's not 7 here.

She immediately and ravenously ate some ham I cut up for her, showing great appetite. She had a small amount of karo syrup and is currently eating her usual breakfast. She shows every sign of being her normal hungry self, which is in line with hypoglycemia.

Is there anything else I should be doing?
 
I would get her to the vet. It could be something like a blood clot or a stroke which needs immediate attention, or nothing. Either way, I'd want reassurance before the weekend.
 
I would get her to the vet. It could be something like a blood clot or a stroke which needs immediate attention, or nothing. Either way, I'd want reassurance before the weekend.
 
Mala is now eating - a moderately carb wet food (fancy feast pate) with some dry kibble mixed in. She NEVER gets kibble, so this is a treat for her. She's ravenous and has gobbled everything. Her head movements have slowed, she is moving more and has better control.

through all of this, she is very receptive to attention and affection. She purrs, perhaps only because she's scared and wants reassurance. That's what woke me finally - her insistence that I pet her and give her more of my energy.

I am also diabetic, and I know what it is to be hypo. Irritability, ravenous hunger, difficulty controlling my physical movements. She's got all of that.
 
Mala is moving about more. Her symptoms are declining. She had roughly a quarter cup of kibble (which I only keep to feed the hordes of outdoor kitties we care for - all TNR felines). She ate the dry food with great interest and enthusiasm. Her nose works a treat - she spotted the ham snacks I gave her first with the scent. She is now out and about with the other cats, and although she is a little hesitant, she climbed up onto the couch by herself and batted off a too-nosy irritant kitty.

Her head still bobs, but nothing like it did. Her eyes are able to focus. Her hind quarters are more or less under her control. I'll be getting test strips after the pharmacy opens later this morning to see where she is. However, I believe she's out of the danger zone - but I'm not leaving her alone for a minute today.
 
Mala is now out of the woods. She can walk normally, her head is completely under her control. She is sleeping comfortably in a typical position for her.

Question is - for a kitty who is NOT on insulin, how does this happen and what can we do to keep it from happening again?
 
Very hard to tell since Mala already recovered. Only a very rare problem/disease can cause BG to go too low when not on insulin.
I doubt it was due to too low a a BG. Could be a mini stroke or other problem
 
She would not recover like this so quickly. She can now walk, her head stays level.

Mala has always had a poor stomach. She pukes up some of her food - sometimes a lot. We give her some stuff to help her send it the right direction, but she's been refusing it lately. If she lost part or all of her food recently, she might have fallen into hypo.

Hypoglycemia is not just associated with insulin. I was hypoglycemic decades before I became diabetic.

I really don't think this was a stroke.

Copy and paste from the sticky post on hypos. She demonstrated classic symptoms.

MODERATE HYPOGLYCEMIA
Disorientation
Trouble with vision... bumps into furniture
Poor coordination, such as staggering, walking in circles or acting drunk
Changes in head or neck movements
Restlessness
Urgent meowing
Behavioral changes, such as aggressiveness
 
Hroswitha said:
She would not recover like this so quickly. She can now walk, her head stays level.
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This is simply not true. It is possible for a cat to have a mild stroke and appear to recover rather quickly.

Hroswitha said:
Copy and paste from the sticky post on hypos. She demonstrated classic symptoms.

MODERATE HYPOGLYCEMIA
Disorientation
Trouble with vision... bumps into furniture
Poor coordination, such as staggering, walking in circles or acting drunk
Changes in head or neck movements
Restlessness
Urgent meowing
Behavioral changes, such as aggressiveness
Click to expand...
The symptoms listed above can also be associated with other medical issues. Like Larry, I doubt it was due to too low glucose in the blood. It was more likely due to/sounds like a mini stroke or other medical issue, but we're not vets and cannot diagnose over the internet.

Hroswitha said:
Question is - for a kitty who is NOT on insulin, how does this happen and what can we do to keep it from happening again?
Click to expand...
In my opinion, a vet visit is the first step in trying to keep this from happening again. What you saw may be indicative of something serious.

For Mala's sake, please have her checked by your vet.
 
That may be a warning sign for an impending stroke, which can be caused either by a blood clot or a bleed from the brain. A small clot might have passed, causing the transient symptoms you observed. More may be coming and getting her on anticoagulant meds could save her life.

I missed recognizing 1 short congestive cough at night as being an emergency and lost my civvie Buster to pulmonary embolisms/clots that caused him to drown in his lungs during the frantic drive to the vet a couple weeks later.
 
I will take her to the vet tomorrow AM. No doctor can take her today.

Update - Mala is walking, jumping, and interacting in normal fashion. She shows no signs of changed personality, her eyes dilate normally, her head is on straight, and she doesn't seem confused. She has a strong appetite and has kept everything she's eaten in her stomach. She begs for food treats and has no trouble finding them and eating them. She had a really big BM this morning before breakfast, so her kidneys seem fine.

She's a little slower and more hesitant than normal while walking, but she seems tired. Not excessively so - she will interact, purr, knead her bedding, demand affection, has even gone to her favorite site to look out at kitty TV. She's just moving a little more slowly than normal. But when I offered ham snacks, she trotted to me with her head and tail up, mewing her normal demanding way, and fought off any other kitty who tried to take her treat.

I'll post her bgs later today. I'll take them right before she's fed again.
 
Mala had a chicken snack around 3:30 PM. She was eager for it, ate the little pieces she got happily, and kept them down.

I just checked her bgs. Non-fasting, she's at 106. She has eaten nothing since this morning that had carbohydrate in it.

I'm happy with a 106, but still perplexed about what caused her problem.

She has a vet appointment tomorrow AM.
 
Hroswitha said:
...She's a little slower and more hesitant than normal while walking, but she seems tired. Not excessively so - she will interact, purr, knead her bedding, demand affection, has even gone to her favorite site to look out at kitty TV. She's just moving a little more slowly than normal. ...
Click to expand...

That makes me wonder about a seizure - post-seizure, there tends to be a subdued period.
 
Because *I AM STUPID*, I allowed my few remaining test strips to expire and my meter won't allow them to be used.
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What I have done with this on one of my meters is reset the date on the meter so that it is before the date the strips expired. They worked fine then. You run the question of if the strips are still giving accurate readings if they are too far past their expiri date, but in a pinch it can give you a way to test until you can get new strips.

So many senior kitty problems will present the same way. Its so very important to have any change in behavior or health checked out so that you can make sure to treat as quickly as possible. I really hope all is well!
 
I have thought about seizures. I have done some searching and, once again, nothing I see says seizure to me.

I'll take her to the vet tomorrow and see what they think. Since I have cared for her entirely at home - none of the vets I've consulted support at home testing - the medical records on her are sparse. She doesn't get vaccinations as neither she nor any of the other indoor cats go outside.

I'm diabetic myself. When I have a hypoglycemic incident, I become irritable and sweaty. I shake. My vision can become blurry and I have passed out before. I used to have white-out spells that would last up to 20 seconds at a time, then be fine afterwards. Once I'm past the hypoglycemia, I'm exhausted. I eat ravenously, then collapse. My family knows to leave me be for at least an hour.

I know I could be reading this in, but I see her having the same symptoms as I do. Uncontrollable body movements and loss of coordination, hunger, then exhaustion.

She is, of course, her old self now. Demanding attention, yowling, purr-grunting, trying to nip my nose when she doesn't get what she wants - her usual self.
 
The vet saw her today. She ruled out a stroke pretty quickly, as Mala shows no signs of neurological impairment. A seizure was ruled out as well - her symptoms didn't present as a seizure would. She is appropriately hydrated, she has not had diarrhea and her urine output is appropriate for a kitty her size and weight. She's a little bit skinny - only 7.7 lbs - so we can add a little food to her diet with a third meal before bed. Her gums are good, her teeth perfect, but her eyes show a little sign of cataract.

Overall, she presented as a perfectly healthy little kitty - good reflexes, pupils interactive and evenly dilated. She talked through the whole visit, telling us what she thought, and she even jumped independently from the chair to the exam table easily with no signs of stiffness. For a 15 year old cat, particularly one who was diagnosed with diabetes in 2006, she is perfect.

So we'll start taking her bgs twice per day to chart her reaction. All the vet could think was exactly what we have - this was a weird hypoglycemic incident, possibly the result of having gotten into some kibble or other high carb food which spiked her sugars and led to a debilitating crash. I don't know WHAT she would have eaten - we're very careful with kibble in this house - but there you have it. More food at bedtime, checking sugars regularly, and we'll see where she's at.

At least it wasn't a stroke.
 
Glad it wasn't a stroke.

Watchful waiting, not so much fun. I like answers, d*mn it!
 
I like answers, unless the answer is "She's in renal failure, is in congestive heart failure, has cancer or a cancerous mass on her liver, she's seizing and will continue seizing until she dies," etc.

In those cases, I can live with ambiguity.
 
Hroswitha said:
She would not recover like this so quickly. She can now walk, her head stays level.

Mala has always had a poor stomach. She pukes up some of her food - sometimes a lot. We give her some stuff to help her send it the right direction, but she's been refusing it lately. If she lost part or all of her food recently, she might have fallen into hypo.
Click to expand...

Had she vomited before this happened to her? I remember years ago my non diabetic kitty had a bad vomiting episode and then was acting so badly I almost took her to the ER. I dont remember her symptoms now, it was a long time ago, but the I called the ER and they told me to give her some sugar water as the vomiting could have made her go hypo. I did that and she got better immediately.
 
To my knowledge, she did not vomit. She might have in the night, but someone else ate up her leavings. (ick) I found no puke anywhere around the bed.

Since this incident, I'm making doubly sure she gets a solid meal at bedtime. She was getting 6 ounces of wet food per day, supplemented by a half meal around midnight - another 1.5 ounces. Now, she's getting a full 3 ounces at bedtime and might get supplemental non-carb treats - a little chicken, some ham, fish, something like that. She's fully recovered to her normal self.

She's also back to getting regular doses of laxative. It's the only thing that consistently keeps food moving in the right direction for her. She's a pukey beast, so she might struggle with hair balls or some kind of complication in her guts. The paste makes everything go down a slippery passage rather than getting stuck.

I'm still perplexed with this girl. I'm just so grateful she's better, though. You'd never know to look at her that she's 15 - no arthritis, no stiffness, her gums and teeth are excellent, no mucus around her nose, her coat is soft and well hydrated, she's a little skinny but putting on weight, and she's active and interested. I let her sniff her annual Christmas stocking filled with toys and catnip, and her ears got all perky, her eyes dilated, and she tried to chew through the bag. All good signs of a kitty who is not in pain, curious and engaged in life, and ready to move on.
 
Hmmnn. i wonder about food allergies or inflammatory bowel disease when you say she is a pukey beast.

You might see if tracking the kind of food she's eating correlates with the episodes of vomiting.

What do you use for the constipation?
 
She's not constipated. She has regular and appropriate bowel movements (we saw one on the day of her incident - took her down to the boxes and she peed in one, then staggered to the other to poop. Her excrement was sticky, not loose, dark brown due to the high level of fish in her diet, and reasonably sized.)

We have changed her diet several times since diagnosis. She was eating 9 lives, which caused her to puke a lot more. She's currently on mostly Whiskas salmon variety in pouches, which has few fillers and mostly fish, with a low carb count. She gets a little Fancy Feast as her third meal at night. She vomits much less on this better diet, which makes us very happy.
 
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