Will Steroid Use Threaten OTJ?

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Valyn

Member Since 2010
Hi all,

My cat developed diabetes a few years ago, but with pretty drastic changes in his diet, I got him off insulin and we were all very happy.

Now he's been diagnosed with IBD and after reading through the posts, I wanted to know if any OTJ cats had to go back on insulin after starting up a steroid. My vet and I are talking about Budesonide, which seems to have a lot of advocates here. I'd love to hear any feedback or experiences.

As some background, he's a vomiter, although he's recently started to experience diarrhea. We've changed his food to a novel protein twice now to no avail, and he's losing weight so it's time for drugs we believe. (I'm up for doing the raw food thing, but my husband is not so in the interest of marital harmony...). He's 14, in generally good shape with nice normal BG levels.

Thanks for any input,
Valyn
 
yes. Steroids exacerbate or even cause diabetes. And if he has to go back on insulin he may be hard to regulate - but you do what you have to do. We have cats on here that are on steroids and just get slightly higher doses of insulin to compensate.

I am hoping other people here with IBD experience can advise other options so please change your subject line to add " cat has IBD" to see if people will comment.

Wendy
 
Have you tried a raw diet yet? Some IBD cats do better on that.

With intermittent vomiting from IBD, it will be difficult to use a depot insulin because the glucose levels can be so erratic. You may find that ProZinc is more flexible should you need to use insulin again.
 
Brie was a very well controlled diabetic for 4 years. He never went OTJ but his sugars were stable on .5 to 1 unit twice a day. He had to start on pred in November for cancer. The pred has really helped as far as the cancer. His ultrasound in Feb was much improved. Without the pred the cancer would progress faster. His insulin requirements have increased and I do check his sugar more often. For right now he is doing well and is happy. I was nervous about starting the pred but without it there is a good chance he wouldn't be here with me right now. There is a very good chance that you will need to start using insulin again. I've heard good things about budesonide.
 
I can't advise as to how a steroid will affect his remission, but if you are interested in a raw food diet without the actual mess of frozen raw food, you may want to try dehydrated raw. Nikki has an undiagnosed gastro issue that may be IBD and she's taken to dehydrated raw very well. I feed her The Honest Kitchen's Grace formula which is turkey based. It's very easy, I just scoop out the powder, mix with water, and we're all set!

Bear in mind though that dehydrated raw is not as low carb as frozen raw. According to the list on http://www.catinfo.org, Grace has 10% carbs. That might not be low enough for your cat, depending on what they are currently eating.

Good luck!
 
Poe is currently on an inhaled steroid for asthma.

I know the steroid is affecting his numbers, but not as much as an injected or oral steroid would. I've only been in the FD sugardance for about 6 weeks, so I can't really tell how much affect the steroid has.

I'm just starting another increase, on Lantus, 1.75 2x's a day. Hoping to see his numbers come down as he's still in the mid to upper 200's pretty much throughout the cycle.

I'm hoping steroid use will not threaten OTJ, but I'm thinking it might take longer to achieve that if OTJ is in the cards for him.

I'll be watching your thread cause I am curious also about other beans with kitty's that have FD and on steroids.
 
I have used Budesonide on one and maybe two of my diabetic cats. It really did not affect the BG levels or insulin needs. Budesonide stays mainly in the GI tract.
 
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