Tucker is 250ish all the time w/no insulin -advice needed

[Jen and Boo]

I asked this a week ago when I knew less info. I did not really get answers then but my question is still the same.

My Tucker cat may be diabetic but I need some expert advice on what to do given his BG levels.

As some backround, I have sucessfully managed my other cat Boo's diabetes since 11/09 and she is now on 1/2 the insulin that she once was on. So I'm not a newbie. I home test Boo. She is on Lantus. All my cats eat low carb food because Boo is diabetic. Boo has gone from 5.5 lbs to 9 lbs since 11/09 and the whole cat perspective on her is really good. I'm proud of Boo's progress.

Now as far as Tucker goes.......

We were on vacation for two weeks and left him home with the other healthy cats (7 cats) who were all taken care of by my mom. We took Boo with us. When we go away we leave EVO dry Turkey (purple label) and low carb wet food so the non-diabetic cats can get enough to eat even if the caretaker can not come over as much as we wish they would. It's unrealistic for us to expect my mom to come over 2X per day and healthy cats can handle fresh wet food and water 1X per day with EVO dry to graze on for a few weks. Apparently our cats ate a lot of EVO because mom did not feed enough wet food. There were a few days she could not come by at all. So the EVO ran out. Mom went and bought Friskies indoor dry food (high carb) as a substitue as she really does not understand how bad it is.

Backround on Tucker......He has steadily lost weight from his high of 21 lbs before we started feeding low carb to a weight of 16+lbs today. We changed food to low carb 11/09 except for Mom's mistake last week. Up until this month the weight loss seemed healthy and his body tone looked good. He has been friskier as he has lost weight and we congratulated ourselves on helping him be healthier. However, when we got home from vacation I thought that Tucker looked a little like he had lost some body tone. My gut told me he was not 100% and I figured I would test his BG since I can. In the back of my mind was the idea that the high carb my mom fed him last week might have hurt him.

I have tested him about 1-2X per day for 6 days now. We free feed wet food and he grazes so I can assume all the tests were with food on board. His sugar has ranged from 180 to 279 with the majority right around 240-260. The first time I tested he was 279. I freaked out and gave him .25 of Lantus and by 6 hours out he was 70.

We have not been giving him insulin except the one time when I first tested him because I realy wanted to know what his sugar was on his own this week. I also realized that we should let the hi carb food clear his system before we jumped to conclusions. I'm guessing the hi carb food is out of his system now since we have been home 6 days and he's back eating low carb. We have been feeding Tucker 9 lives chicken dinner (pate) and Friskies Turkey (pate) and a little Companion mixed grill (Pate).

(Note:Our serious diabetic, Boo, gets Fancy Feast but we have 8 cats and can't affrord to feed 8 cats the 20 cans/day that we would need to feed them all FF)

My question really is........Should we be giving Tucker insulin even though he stays around 250 all the time without it and is sometimes under 200 on his own?

I'm used to a cat (Boo) that would be HI without insulin. I really don't know what to do about Tucker. Should we give insulin or not? I have heard that one option might be to set a threshold, test daily and shoot tiny doses when he is over the threshold. Obviously he reacts strongly to insulin as he went from 279 to 70 in 6 hours on .25 of Lantus that one time I gave it to him. The dose I gave him that one time was only 1/2 the space to the 1st line of a U-100 low dose syringe.

I know collectively this group has seen it all and may have knowledge of a similar situation in the past. Do you guys have any advise please?

Please refrain from emphasising the importance of home testing or low carb food as I know all that. I'm really looking for dosing or no dosing advise.

Thanks

Jen

 

[chriscleo]

there may be other reasons for a higher number, such as infection.
recommend you take tucker to the vet to make sure he's diabetic (and to make sure nothing else is wrong that's causing higher blood sugar).
if you get a diabetes diagnosis, it might be best to give only a tiny drop of insulin to see how that works for him. if he is diabetic, it sure doesn't seem like he will be for long! personally, especially with lantus or levemir, i'd want him under 130 for as much of the time as possible. some vets don't wait to start treatment til the cat is in the 300s but the longer you can keep him in a nondiabetic range with insulin the greater the chance his pancreas will heal and he'll go into remission.

 

[tuckers mom]

Nice to see another Tucker

Can I clarify that the syringe you have has the 1/2 Unit markings. Just want to make sure it was 0.25 and 0.5 Units, although being an FD bean, I'm sure you know your syringes

I have to agree with Chris, there could be something else, something as simple as a straight dental that needs to be done.

The fact that Tucker dropped so much on a 1/4U of Lantus makes me think he's not going to be insulin dependent. As you've learned, Lantus needs to fill the shed before the insulin gets used by the body, so was Tucker's shed already filled, meaning not diabetic, just stressed and therefore showing the higher BGs?

If this were my cat, I'd have the vet check him out.

 

[Jen and Boo]

Thanks for your advice. The shed comment made a lot of sense. Tucker must be producing his own insulin. It's probably battling something else that is a problem for him. I wish I had a really good vet. If I bring Tucker to my vet they will just give him a covenia shot and send him on his way. No need to explain to me the hazards of Covenia. I have read all the posts. I just know what they would do. I will post another post asking about vets in my area. Its time I switched. Boo has bad looking teeth and my vet explained that maybe in the fall she would just pull them out. She said we would save money if she did it. She does not take Xays because they have no machine. That seemed odd to me. It's funny that there are two Tuckers with two beans named Jennifer!

 

[Kelly & Oscar]

My Oscar had numbers in that range - but so far he remains insulin dependent. Since he dropped so much on that one shot of 0.25u, it could be an infection somewhere, and he might only need insulin for a very short amount of time. I really do believe my Oscar had borderline diabetic numbers for many years (in hindsight) and I really believe that is why he is still insulin dependent. Even those numbers can cause pancreas damage that is harder to reverse the longer it goes on unfortunately.

 

[Jen and Boo]

Thanks for responding. I think that's probably the thing. Maybe like people can be, Tucker's been borderline high sugar and now his body is getting tired. I testted within 2 hours of food this AM and he was 318. That sealed it for me. He's diabetic and needs insulin with the hope of saving his Pancreas and getting to remission. I had not really thought about the idea of insulin resting the pancreas until lately after reading the boad. I'm still hoping someone knows a good vet in the Northern Connecticut area so i can have vet guidance rather than being mostly on my own.

Thanks again!

 

[Taline & Bibo]

Hi Jen,
I'm a new mom for a diabetic cat Bibo, and for what I understand there is another prper way to find out if your cat is diabetic or not. Blood alone won't tell for sure, it's the urine analysis that would be more dependable because, blood glucose can fluctuate and the glucose in the urine would allow the vet ot diagnose but not to rely for measuring the dosage. One thing you can do is to get Keto-Diastix and collect little of his urine and test, or better if you can, cover the litter with plastic wrap and have him urinate in it, and with a syringe you can collect the urine and take it to he vet for analysis, that way Tucker doesn't need to go to the vet. These are just ideas, that I did before my cat was diagnosed. I hope Tucker has nothing than a little tooth infection and all our worries are notning! Good luck Jen.