Martica and Fred
Active Member
Hi
It's been a long time since I posted about Shane, the DKA kitty i rescued from the NYC animal shelter. He went straight from the kill shelter to the vet and was there for 10 days. The vet brought him out of DKA but then proceeded to nearly kill him with overdosing on insulin, first PZI, then Lantus. I asked him to start with .5 unit Lantus and within 3 days he had jacked it up to 2.5 units. They were NOT doing curves at the vet (to my shock and surprise later) and they were only doing one daytime nadir. So basically they were missing what I think were the repeated hypos they were sending him in that would then cause a rebound at the next shot and lead them to jack up the dose even more. During one of my visits I realized that not only were they increasing his dose tremendously, they were not doing curves, he was alone all night and they were purposely ONLY feeding him at shot time, so when he was in hypo--especially all alone at night he was in a tragic place--and reboudning to HI at the next PS. I took him out--and was made to sign a waiver saying I was doing so against medical advice (!!!!!!!) and ONE HOUR after I brought him home he was hypo--39--from the 2.5 units of Lantus they had given him that morning. arrrrghhh..
Anyway, that was 4 weeks ago. As you can see from my chart. I tried a couple of days at 0.75 and 0.5 U and then have settled into 0.25units for the past 3ish weeks. He seems to be having a flat curve and has been staying in the 100s and 200s. The fast 10 days or so I did not have anytime to do curves so I was just leaving it. He has been eating a lot, healthy, all low carb canned and is gaining some muscle, my guess is he's gainined one pound, maybe even 2. He was 6ish when I brought him home. He STILL has diarrhea. Fortiflora helps but he's been on it one month now and it's not gone away. I see no white tapework thingies but I guess I'm going to have to test for something else. Overall he seems healthy and doing GREAT. He's playing and bullying my cats and snuggly with me.
However, one hiccup. The past few days he has started to not only growl when I give him the shot (one he even bit and attacked me a bit), but he is not refusing the ear tests. The past 2 days I finally had to wrap him up in a towel to do the ear tests. Prior to that, he'd jump on the bed and have no problem whatsoever with them. Now he definitely avoids them.
So I sort of decided that this kitty knows his body better than I do and for some reason he is telling me that he doesn't want them and don't do them. AT the beginning he really growled when I pulled his skin up for the shot--not the shot itself--just getting ready to do it. I sort of figured that this was a bad memory from the vet--that shot was making him hypo and Somogyi every single time and he knew it was bad news. But then he was fine for a couple of weeks with the shots--but now he's started growling again. I have a teeny BD 31 gauge needle and I angle it so the hole part faces up so it's not the pain...
so anyway, I decided yesterday that I would just not give him the shot. I did manage to do some ear tests as you'll see on my chart and he has basically stayed in the low 200s for the past 36 hours, all the while eating plenty and like normal.
I'm not sure what this means. Is this the leftover shed doing his thing, or is his own insulin kicking in here? I fully realize that he is still a bit too high, but I also feel like I should heed his warnings. His dose has been SOOOOOO low...last one was LESS than 0.25 if that is even possible, a few drops. I'm wondering should I just give him a shot every couple of days? Not sure how to handle this, but he def. is not wanting the ear test or the shot and I'm thinking I should listen to what he's telling me--especially as he was ok with it before....
anyway ideas? (Also, I called him Sebastian now (or shane sebastian))
thank you!
Martica
It's been a long time since I posted about Shane, the DKA kitty i rescued from the NYC animal shelter. He went straight from the kill shelter to the vet and was there for 10 days. The vet brought him out of DKA but then proceeded to nearly kill him with overdosing on insulin, first PZI, then Lantus. I asked him to start with .5 unit Lantus and within 3 days he had jacked it up to 2.5 units. They were NOT doing curves at the vet (to my shock and surprise later) and they were only doing one daytime nadir. So basically they were missing what I think were the repeated hypos they were sending him in that would then cause a rebound at the next shot and lead them to jack up the dose even more. During one of my visits I realized that not only were they increasing his dose tremendously, they were not doing curves, he was alone all night and they were purposely ONLY feeding him at shot time, so when he was in hypo--especially all alone at night he was in a tragic place--and reboudning to HI at the next PS. I took him out--and was made to sign a waiver saying I was doing so against medical advice (!!!!!!!) and ONE HOUR after I brought him home he was hypo--39--from the 2.5 units of Lantus they had given him that morning. arrrrghhh..
Anyway, that was 4 weeks ago. As you can see from my chart. I tried a couple of days at 0.75 and 0.5 U and then have settled into 0.25units for the past 3ish weeks. He seems to be having a flat curve and has been staying in the 100s and 200s. The fast 10 days or so I did not have anytime to do curves so I was just leaving it. He has been eating a lot, healthy, all low carb canned and is gaining some muscle, my guess is he's gainined one pound, maybe even 2. He was 6ish when I brought him home. He STILL has diarrhea. Fortiflora helps but he's been on it one month now and it's not gone away. I see no white tapework thingies but I guess I'm going to have to test for something else. Overall he seems healthy and doing GREAT. He's playing and bullying my cats and snuggly with me.
However, one hiccup. The past few days he has started to not only growl when I give him the shot (one he even bit and attacked me a bit), but he is not refusing the ear tests. The past 2 days I finally had to wrap him up in a towel to do the ear tests. Prior to that, he'd jump on the bed and have no problem whatsoever with them. Now he definitely avoids them.
So I sort of decided that this kitty knows his body better than I do and for some reason he is telling me that he doesn't want them and don't do them. AT the beginning he really growled when I pulled his skin up for the shot--not the shot itself--just getting ready to do it. I sort of figured that this was a bad memory from the vet--that shot was making him hypo and Somogyi every single time and he knew it was bad news. But then he was fine for a couple of weeks with the shots--but now he's started growling again. I have a teeny BD 31 gauge needle and I angle it so the hole part faces up so it's not the pain...
so anyway, I decided yesterday that I would just not give him the shot. I did manage to do some ear tests as you'll see on my chart and he has basically stayed in the low 200s for the past 36 hours, all the while eating plenty and like normal.
I'm not sure what this means. Is this the leftover shed doing his thing, or is his own insulin kicking in here? I fully realize that he is still a bit too high, but I also feel like I should heed his warnings. His dose has been SOOOOOO low...last one was LESS than 0.25 if that is even possible, a few drops. I'm wondering should I just give him a shot every couple of days? Not sure how to handle this, but he def. is not wanting the ear test or the shot and I'm thinking I should listen to what he's telling me--especially as he was ok with it before....
anyway ideas? (Also, I called him Sebastian now (or shane sebastian))
thank you!
Martica
