sugar still high

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karentigger

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hi ok just got back from the vet & after having tigger on insulin for 3 weeks sugar still high. first week she was on lantus 2 units once a day. then second & now third week she has been on it 2x a day. her sugar was still over 400 today. soo confused cause this afternoon she was lying around when i came to check on her & not acting like herself at all. her front legs were shaking as she was at the water bowl & breathing was a little off. when i took her in about 4 hours later she was more alert. vet checked her out said breathing was fine, heart, fine had slight temperature, sugar high and they are checking are urine. she did have an infection 3 weeks ago but finished her medication for that already. he said possibly they might have to change her insulin type. i will get her urine results tomorrow. just stressed out with all this. she is still drinking a lot of water & pees a lot. still changing the litter box 2 or 2x a day. is this all normal adjustments? i give her insulin 5:30 am & 5:30 pm and at those times i am certain her sugar is always high. i just don't like how she acts a couple hours later not my tigger soo sad to see her lying around & at times she barely moves. she is 11 is was always very active any advice please.
 
i assume you aren't testing her glucose levels at home yourself?

if not i would strongly encourage it as it's the only way to know what's really going on.

there is a possibility that when you saw her just laying around, not acting herself, and shaking, it very well could have been because her blood sugar was too LOW. the number obtained 4 hours later could have been so high due to her body trying to save itself and kicking out all it's reserves, causing the level to skyrocket. that is just one possibility but we can't say for sure unless you were able to test when you saw the odd behaviors.
 
i just went and looked up your prior posts and see that you were started at 2 units? and that you indeed are not testing yet. sooooooooooooo

couple things..
1. there is always the possibility that the dose is too high if you didn't start at 1 unit.
2. kitty may not be liking the shots because it makes her feel bad if the dose is wrong.
3. lantus has a cumulative type of an effect so yeah, sometimes the numbers won't substantially improve for a while. i think it took us about a month before we started seeing major improvement in the numbers.
4. drats! keep getting interrupted and losing my train of thought so i'll be back if it comes back to me
 
hi no i am not home testing just trying to deal with all this now. she is drinking a lot of water and pees a lot so i am pretty sure when i give her insulin that she is ok. i give her classic fancy feast samon. i also leave her the prescrption dry purina dm veterinary diet. i bought the wet also but she wasn't always eating that. i am nervous to home test i have a bad hand/wrist & she fights me now with her injections. i have been taking my sugar to practice & getting more comfortable also practiced on 2 friends now to take tiggers sugar ahhh.
 
Would you like us to see if a member lives anywhere close to you who might be able to get you started on hometesting? Right now you are guessing that the amount of insulin is right and that she is too high, not too low. The vet who posts here describes treating diabetes without hometesting like driving down the freeway with a bag over your head. Scary analogy.
 
The dry DM may be a big part of why you continue to have problems as well. It is very high in carbs and just isn't suitable at all for a diabetic cat, no matter what your (likely untrained in nutrition) vet or purina may try to tell you. Fancy Feast is the right idea, though I wouldn't eliminate the dry until you are up and running with hometesting... it is possible that the only thing keeping your kitty from going hypo is the carbs in the dry.

I think that once you start hometesting, you will feel so much more empowered in all of this. you will have information at your fingertips, every day, confirming your decisions of what to shoot and when on a daily basis. Nobody would think of giving a child a dose of insulin twice daily for weeks at a time with no idea on a day to day basis of what their blood sugar is. Cats are really no different.

We've been on the sugar dance for almost 3 months now, and I can tell you that the recommendations here really do work, and it is amazing how routine things are today... compared to how scary it all seemed three months ago. You have the power to turn around your kitty's health.
 
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