? Struggling to get Murray's levels down from 270-340 range since having dental work done... Help!

[Finn & Murray]

Tried to make the subject of this thread as descriptive as possible... Around a month and a half ago, I was finally able to bring Murray in to the vet to get some dental work done. I had known he needed it done since his diabetes diagnosis last July, but they had marked it as not urgent so I had waited until I could afford it before getting it done. In the time from his diagnosis to getting the dental work done, Murray's levels had been relatively good - there were a few times here and there where his numbers would get a little higher occasionally, but overall he seemed to be staying in the blue and green ranges.

Cue him going to the dentist. The first day or two after the procedure (he had five teeth removed), his levels were very low, around 74-88, looking good. And then suddenly, without warning, his levels just spiked up to 203 a few days after the procedure. They haven't gone down since. I don't think he's been below 270 in three weeks. I've been trying different foods (we tried raw food, different canned food, etc.), I've been fiddling a bit with his dose (I used to give him .75 daily, and now am giving him 1 unit), and at this point I'm really not sure what to do. I'm afraid, nothing seems to be changing this, and I don't know what could be causing this all of a sudden. When I took him in for dental work, they also did a test on him to make sure he was otherwise healthy (I'm blanking on the name of the test... but it was to check for organ failure, I believe?) and didn't seem to be concerned, so... again, I'm just at a loss. I have no idea what to do next. Any advice would be welcome - if it's a different food, higher dose for the time being, anything to get him back to those low levels he had before...

 

[Jill & Alex (GA)]

Any chance of updating Murray's spreadsheet with BG numbers for at least the last several weeks? The data will be helpful in figuring out what's going on.

One more question... you said he had five extractions. Did they take post-dental x-rays? Sometimes they don't get every bit of a tooth/teeth out. Even a small piece of a tooth can cause irritation, inflammation, infection, and/or discomfort. Any one of these things can cause BG numbers to jump and remain high.

I'm sure you'll receive more responses later in the day. Many of our members have turned in for the night.

 

[Wendy&Neko]

Hi Finn, been a while since your last post here. I like Jill's suggestion of updating the spreadsheet with the last couple weeks of data. Also please indicate on the SS which day he had the dental. Depending on when you are testing and the values, he could be either underdosed, or his dose is too high and he's bouncing. You can use the Remarks column to indicate any major food changes. It's most interesting if you switched to a food that's had significantly different carbs.

Did Murray go on antibiotics after the dental extractions? Or pain meds? Other than his blood sugar numbers, does he seem otherwise to be acting normally?

 

[Sienne and Gabby (GA)]

My thought was the same as Jill's -- if there's a fragment of tooth left after an extraction, it is a source for irritation or even infection. Wendy's point is well taken. Any time my cat had extractions, she was given antibiotics and pain meds.

 

[Finn & Murray]

My apologies for the delay on this reply! I've gone and updated Murray's spreadsheets with the newest info - unfortunately, there's about a week of missing data because I had been waiting for new test strips to come in and ran out in the meantime. Knowing his numbers had been so high recently, I wasn't too afraid of getting him too low, but I probably shouldn't have done that. 3/11 was the day of his dental work, and this is all the data I have since then.

One more question... you said he had five extractions. Did they take post-dental x-rays? Sometimes they don't get every bit of a tooth/teeth out. Even a small piece of a tooth can cause irritation, inflammation, infection, and/or discomfort. Any one of these things can cause BG numbers to jump and remain high.

When I picked him up from the vet, I was informed that I could bring him back in the next week for a "free post dental checkup", but never ended up going when I didn't get a call back about when I should go in. I'm wondering if I could still bring him in for that, possibly? I might have to pay for it, but... given that I never brought him in, I wonder if they'd just honour it and do it now?

Hi Finn, been a while since your last post here. I like Jill's suggestion of updating the spreadsheet with the last couple weeks of data. Also please indicate on the SS which day he had the dental. Depending on when you are testing and the values, he could be either underdosed, or his dose is too high and he's bouncing. You can use the Remarks column to indicate any major food changes. It's most interesting if you switched to a food that's had significantly different carbs.

Did Murray go on antibiotics after the dental extractions? Or pain meds? Other than his blood sugar numbers, does he seem otherwise to be acting normally?

Hello again! With things being so good lately, I hadn't found much to post about... but, unfortunately, this crazy spike in his numbers just had to derail what seemed to be relatively good progress. I've been testing right before feeding him, but nothing else... but, interesting that he could potentially be on too high a dose and might be bouncing. I didn't know that was a thing? I've made comments in the remarks section about when his food was changed, and can find the brand of raw food he'd been on if needed.

He did go on antibiotics after the extractions, but it was a struggle to get him to eat the whole thing each time. He did get most of it most times, but once or twice he only got half a dose because of refusal to eat the food I'd crushed the pills into. Pain meds were easier to administer, it was an oral syringe which was a lot less of a struggle.

My thought was the same as Jill's -- if there's a fragment of tooth left after an extraction, it is a source for irritation or even infection. Wendy's point is well taken. Any time my cat had extractions, she was given antibiotics and pain meds.

Yeah, it's the first time I've had a cat have any sort of dental work done, but they did give medication after the fact. Not sure if that would have helped if anything was left after an extraction, but it's something?

 

[Wendy&Neko]

I would definitely start getting some mid cycle tests, ie. other than just before you shoot. That's the main way we figure out how well a dose is doing. If you aren't home during the day, try a before bed test. And make use of those weekend! Not saying his dose is too high, just that we don't know. Increasing when we don't have that data can make things worse.

It also wouldn't hurt to get that follow up dental check. Vet's are better at seeing into a cat mouth than I am.

 

[Shawna & Davidson (GA)]

Both Harley and Davidson had recent dental and both given pain meds and ab’s.....took them off pain meds after 1 day as if they could each hard, dried chicken treats they were not in pain. However using up the entire ab’s is a must as that fights off any bacteria or infection that could still be present. Even with humans, they say finish the ab’s....I didn’t want to as it gave them both diarrhea but it had to be done. Happily, both doing well even though the tooth infection caused Davidson to come out of remission........try the pocket pills or crunch up some dried treats and out in food so he can digest the pills