Tania c
Member Since 2019
Dear all,
I have previously posted on here before with Stanley our diabetic cat (who is doing ok!! Need to update his thread it’s been a while) However I’m posting for advice on another one of our cats, Princess.
Princess is approx 20 years old and until recently has been doing great despite various conditions. She is hyper thyroid, stage 2 kidney disease, blind and high blood pressure, however all have been well managed.
Several months ago she started having random spikes in her glucose picked up on her regular bloods at vets so I stared home testing. Most of the time she was at the high end of normal, so BG ranging from 6-11. Then it would shoot up in the twenties for a day and then be back to normal same with her urine. I started to cut out any dry food and give her low carb diet just incase she committed to being a full blown diabetic.
She was doing great but still odd spikes in glucose, then she had a few neurological issues, confused and eyes moving to one side. I tested her bg at around the same time and it was kind of high at 16.
Anyway I got a referral for a full investigation because she really was doing great despite this and wanted to try catch anything more sinister early. Vets decided to do an MRI to rule out brain tumor and she got the all clear, I was worried if it was too much to put her through
However she seemed to come out fine and they did a fructosomine that was normal. Past few weeks she has been on great form, then unfortunately I went out for the day (a rare occurrence with all our animals) and noticed when I got back she was unable to walk on her front leg, her paw was buckled under her and she was walking on her wrist.
I thought she might have damaged it from some trauma. So tried to rest her have her some painkillers but it still did not get better. Took her to the vets who could not find any breaks, at this point she didn’t seem too painful on it but now she does. They suspected a blood clot and told me to bring her in next day for more investigations and heart scan. She does have a heart murmur that they also diagnosed.
They couldn’t find anything obvious but finally they took her bloods again (possibly should have done that straight away! But they seemed happy she had them only a few months ago) Anyway found out that her potassium was really low at 2.6 also very dehydrated, I did ask them to check if she needed fluids while she was in for the say but they didn’t, grrrr. Really didn’t want to leave her there on a drip overnight as no one checks them.
So I took her home and started oral
Potassium and plan to take her to vets in the morning to have fluids and potassium for the day and see how she gets on.
They managed to get her potassium up a little to 3.1 but basically told me she was a lost cause and to either pts now or take her home and bring her back after the wknd :-( they were not prepared to carry on with her potassium which she so desperately needed overnight, only keep her on normal fluids. Again thought this would be dangerous for her so picked her up as late as I could and bright her home, and she was great!!!
Meanwhile I had been chatting to the referral vets who also agreed with me bringing her home and starting on the oral potassium will be the best for her so I can monitor her. Then the plan was to arrange to take her there for more investigations on Monday all being well.
She seems really well after the fluids and potassium, leg still the same. However on Sunday I felt like she was crashing again, the referral vets said get my normal vet to check potassium. Which they wouldn’t do until Monday so I drove 3 hours to my referral vet (she actually loves a car trip so I wasn’t too worried about that)
Thankfully referral vets have been incredible with her!!!! And deff think we should keep trying and see if we can get her past this.
Ok so being an older lady they did find she does have multiple things going on as I knew however the main thing was to get her potassium up at the moment. Which we now have done and she has been up and down but for the past few days improving and potassium is now 4. BUT this morning her back leg went too I checked her glucose and it was 33!!! I called the referral vets and asked if they are happy for me to give her insulin as we knew she might become diabetic.
So I’ve given her .5 unit of prozinc and 3 hours after her bg was at 9.9.
So I guess my main question is does this sound like neuropathy? She is already on 500mg meth B12 once a day and B complex.
It’s really sad to see as she is struggling now to get in the litter tray etc…it’s crazy as this morning she went for an outside potter and seemed on such good form I thought we had gotten her over one of her issues at least.
There is a lot going on with her but until now her quality of life for her age has been great and I do feel confident I can help her through it. I’m just worried her glucose has been high for the past two weeks and effectively her diabetes has not been treated.
The other issues is her low potassium and I understand insulin will lower her potassium now just as I got it to the right level! Does anyone have any experience of this? I’m wondering if I need to increase her potassium dose to accommodate for the insulin.
I’m so sorry this is such a long post so much has gone on with her the past few weeks, but I’m just grateful she is still fighting and as long as she does, I will!
I’ll be so grateful for any advice or help!
oh forgot to say referral vet is treating her front leg lameness for cellulitis & possible infection so she is on antibiotics. Ofcourse the back leg is new, so wondering if both legs could be neuropathy but doesn’t explain swelling and cellulitis on front leg.
Thank you xxx
I have previously posted on here before with Stanley our diabetic cat (who is doing ok!! Need to update his thread it’s been a while) However I’m posting for advice on another one of our cats, Princess.
Princess is approx 20 years old and until recently has been doing great despite various conditions. She is hyper thyroid, stage 2 kidney disease, blind and high blood pressure, however all have been well managed.
Several months ago she started having random spikes in her glucose picked up on her regular bloods at vets so I stared home testing. Most of the time she was at the high end of normal, so BG ranging from 6-11. Then it would shoot up in the twenties for a day and then be back to normal same with her urine. I started to cut out any dry food and give her low carb diet just incase she committed to being a full blown diabetic.
She was doing great but still odd spikes in glucose, then she had a few neurological issues, confused and eyes moving to one side. I tested her bg at around the same time and it was kind of high at 16.
Anyway I got a referral for a full investigation because she really was doing great despite this and wanted to try catch anything more sinister early. Vets decided to do an MRI to rule out brain tumor and she got the all clear, I was worried if it was too much to put her through
However she seemed to come out fine and they did a fructosomine that was normal. Past few weeks she has been on great form, then unfortunately I went out for the day (a rare occurrence with all our animals) and noticed when I got back she was unable to walk on her front leg, her paw was buckled under her and she was walking on her wrist.
I thought she might have damaged it from some trauma. So tried to rest her have her some painkillers but it still did not get better. Took her to the vets who could not find any breaks, at this point she didn’t seem too painful on it but now she does. They suspected a blood clot and told me to bring her in next day for more investigations and heart scan. She does have a heart murmur that they also diagnosed.
They couldn’t find anything obvious but finally they took her bloods again (possibly should have done that straight away! But they seemed happy she had them only a few months ago) Anyway found out that her potassium was really low at 2.6 also very dehydrated, I did ask them to check if she needed fluids while she was in for the say but they didn’t, grrrr. Really didn’t want to leave her there on a drip overnight as no one checks them.
So I took her home and started oral
Potassium and plan to take her to vets in the morning to have fluids and potassium for the day and see how she gets on.
They managed to get her potassium up a little to 3.1 but basically told me she was a lost cause and to either pts now or take her home and bring her back after the wknd :-( they were not prepared to carry on with her potassium which she so desperately needed overnight, only keep her on normal fluids. Again thought this would be dangerous for her so picked her up as late as I could and bright her home, and she was great!!!
Meanwhile I had been chatting to the referral vets who also agreed with me bringing her home and starting on the oral potassium will be the best for her so I can monitor her. Then the plan was to arrange to take her there for more investigations on Monday all being well.
She seems really well after the fluids and potassium, leg still the same. However on Sunday I felt like she was crashing again, the referral vets said get my normal vet to check potassium. Which they wouldn’t do until Monday
so I drove 3 hours to my referral vet (she actually loves a car trip so I wasn’t too worried about that) Thankfully referral vets have been incredible with her!!!! And deff think we should keep trying and see if we can get her past this.
Ok so being an older lady they did find she does have multiple things going on as I knew however the main thing was to get her potassium up at the moment. Which we now have done and she has been up and down but for the past few days improving and potassium is now 4. BUT this morning her back leg went too I checked her glucose and it was 33!!! I called the referral vets and asked if they are happy for me to give her insulin as we knew she might become diabetic.
So I’ve given her .5 unit of prozinc and 3 hours after her bg was at 9.9.
So I guess my main question is does this sound like neuropathy? She is already on 500mg meth B12 once a day and B complex.
It’s really sad to see as she is struggling now to get in the litter tray etc…it’s crazy as this morning she went for an outside potter and seemed on such good form I thought we had gotten her over one of her issues at least.
There is a lot going on with her but until now her quality of life for her age has been great and I do feel confident I can help her through it. I’m just worried her glucose has been high for the past two weeks and effectively her diabetes has not been treated.
The other issues is her low potassium and I understand insulin will lower her potassium now just as I got it to the right level! Does anyone have any experience of this? I’m wondering if I need to increase her potassium dose to accommodate for the insulin.
I’m so sorry this is such a long post so much has gone on with her the past few weeks, but I’m just grateful she is still fighting and as long as she does, I will!
I’ll be so grateful for any advice or help!
oh forgot to say referral vet is treating her front leg lameness for cellulitis & possible infection so she is on antibiotics. Ofcourse the back leg is new, so wondering if both legs could be neuropathy but doesn’t explain swelling and cellulitis on front leg.
Thank you xxx
