Sushi's Hypo incident

[Mandy West]

A week ago tomorrow my Sushi cat had a hypoglycaemic incident getting to a low of 3.6. I fed him and rubbed corn syrup on gums a few times and after a couple hrs his bs was within normal range. ( I was in contact with vet the whole time, they are 1.5 hrs away) He had this incident because I raised his insulin that morning.
My question is, I have read and heard that cats can become more sensitive to insulin after such incident and can potentially go into remission. I am wondering what your thoughts are on this. Since he his bs was so low, I have had to dose insulin based on his bs before he eats and gets insulin. Mainly because his BS has been lower and more in normal range than it has ever been since diagnosed. And if I gave his normal amount of insulin he would go too low most of the time. Before the incident he was in the high 20's and even 30 and he would never go lower than 20(which is why we increased insulin) Hoping we are gonna finally get this under control!

 

[Andy & Pimp]

3.6mmol is equal to 65mg/dl which is not hypo. If you're using a pet meter, it's a little lower than we'd like, but it's still not hypo. On a human meter, 3.6 is perfect.

Are you getting any mid-cycle tests? Lantus dosing is based on nadir, not preshot.

Can you start a spreadsheet so we can help you with dosing?

 

[Mandy West]

My vet says his normal should be 7-10. And yes I'm using a human meter. But it's been calibrated with my vets pet meter. Sushi is on caninsulin. He was on lantus but it wasn't working for him at all. and on both caninsulin and lantus I wasn't getting any low numbers. Then I increased and he got that low 3.6.... And again a low the next day 4.2. Since then he's been more regular and having normal bs levels and highs are not high considering what they had been. Done lots of curves and test and at different times. This last week has been his best numbers since he was diagnosed. sorry if I'm
Being confusing

 

[Mandy West]

My vet says his normal should be 7-10. And yes I'm using a human meter. But it's been calibrated with my vets pet meter. Sushi is on caninsulin. He was on lantus but it wasn't working for him at all. and on both caninsulin and lantus I wasn't getting any low numbers. Then I increased and he got that low 3.6.... And again a low the next day 4.2. Since then he's been more regular and having normal bs levels and highs are high considering what they had been. Done lots of curves and test and different times. This last week has been his best numbers since he was diagnosed. sodry if I'm
Being confusing

Highs are not high that's supposed to say.

 

[Andy & Pimp]

My vet says his normal should be 7-10. And yes I'm using a human meter. But it's been calibrated with my vets pet meter. Sushi is on caninsulin. He was on lantus but it wasn't working for him at all. and on both caninsulin and lantus I wasn't getting any low numbers. Then I increased and he got that low 3.6.... And again a low the next day 4.2. Since then he's been more regular and having normal bs levels and highs are not high considering what they had been. Done lots of curves and test and at different times. This last week has been his best numbers since he was diagnosed. sorry if I'm
Being confusing

Sorry, your last post said he was on Lantus.

To answer your original question, it was not a (symptomatic and/or nominal) hypoglycemic episode so no increased insulin sensitivity would be expected. That would be likely with a symptomatic hypo, i.e. numbers in the 20's confusion, lethargy, possibly seizure etc.

 

[jayla-n-Drevon]

A week ago tomorrow my Sushi cat had a hypoglycaemic incident getting to a low of 3.6. I fed him and rubbed corn syrup on gums a few times and after a couple hrs his bs was within normal range. ( I was in contact with vet the whole time, they are 1.5 hrs away) He had this incident because I raised his insulin that morning.
My question is, I have read and heard that cats can become more sensitive to insulin after such incident and can potentially go into remission. I am wondering what your thoughts are on this. Since he his bs was so low, I have had to dose insulin based on his bs before he eats and gets insulin. Mainly because his BS has been lower and more in normal range than it has ever been since diagnosed. And if I gave his normal amount of insulin he would go too low most of the time. Before the incident he was in the high 20's and even 30 and he would never go lower than 20(which is why we increased insulin) Hoping we are gonna finally get this under control!

I am not a expert nor do I give dosing advice but I can tell you 1 reading in normal range is not remission.. When we start to see normal numbers we encourage a strong remission and that will vary (on how to accomplish this) depending on what insulin you use. I am a lantus user so I will bump this and hopefully someone can help you out more than myself

 

[Mandy West]

Sorry, your last post said he was on Lantus.

To answer your original question, it was not a hypoglycemic episode so no increased insulin sensitivity would be expected. That would be likely with a symptomatic hypo, i.e. numbers in the 20's and confusion, lethargy, possibly seizure etc.

 

[Mandy West]

I'm sorry, I don't understand what your saying? I've read it a few times and I'm
Confused.

 

[Mandy West]

I am not a expert nor do I give dosing advice but I can tell you 1 reading in normal range is not remission.. When we start to see normal numbers we encourage a strong remission and that will vary (on how to accomplish this) depending on what insulin you use. I am a lantus user so I will bump this and hopefully someone can help you out more than myself

I don't think he's in remission at all, just curious to why his numbers have all of a sudden been more normal on the same or lower amounts of insulin. When the weeks before he had his lows his numbers were in the high 20's and low 30's, never getting lower than 23 ish. He's on caninsulin. Tried lantus but it did nothing for him. This is all so confusing

 

[Chris & China (GA)]

There's no "pat" answer to that question, Mandy

It seems that most cats eventually hit a "magic dose" that all the sudden starts their blood glucose moving down....Looks like you may have just gotten to that dose!

 

[Mandy West]

I'm sorry, I don't understand what your saying? I've read it a few times and I'm
Confused.

Ok I get it now, sorry.... I'm so confused.

 

[Mandy West]

There's no "pat" answer to that question, Mandy

It seems that most cats eventually hit a "magic dose" that all the sudden starts their blood glucose moving down....Looks like you may have just gotten to that dose!

I sure hope so. Just curious to why the dose works now or anything in between as none of the doses worked before. He's mainly been on 3 units am and pm since he switched to caninsulin and we've tried all doses under 3 and 3..... His bs levels were always very high with no lows. Now he's anywhere from 3 to 1 unit, am and pm depending on his bs. Sometimes I can't give 3 because he's only at 6 when its feeding time. His numbers were consistently 20-30 before last Thursday.

 

[Squeaky and KT (GA)]

Hi Mandy! (Ld Squeaky/fb) Glad you made it over here.

You may also have been dealing with a bit of insulin resistance but whatever it was, looks like it's better now. Yes this is confusing but it will make sense as you continue with the sugar dance. We have no way to know what changed but something did....

Poke around and read some of the information posted here and ask questions as you run across them. If you don't understand the answer, let us know and someone will try another way to explain.

HUGS!

 

[Critter Mom]

To answer your original question, it was not a hypoglycemic episode so no increased insulin sensitivity would be expected. That would be likely with a symptomatic hypo

Not necessarily so, Andy.

For info, Saoirse had a symptomatic hypo ABOVE the hypo threshold when she was on Caninsulin after a very steep drop. She was lethargic but if you didn't know what to watch for and didn't know your cat her symptoms could easily have been mistaken for her just being very sleepy. When I tested her she was at 4.3 on Alphatrak (nominal hypo threshold 3.8mmol/L). After that incident Saoirse did become more sensitive to her insulin. Granted it was a symptomatic hypo but to the eye of a novice the symptomatic bit could easily have been missed.


Mogs
.

 

[Squalliesmom]

Granted it was a symptomatic hypo but to the eye of a novice the symptomatic bit could easily have been missed.

Quite true! Sometimes the signs are very subtle, if you don't know what you're looking at it could be extremely easy to attribute it to "just sleepy" or "just having a nap/lazy day," etc.