Xuxu hadn't really eaten much since yesterday morning, so I was watching him carefully. At 2 am I was still awake and heard him peeing, so rushed over to do ketones, 80! I immediately gave him 100 cc fluids and .5 R. At 6 am, Ketones were down to 40. He was coughing badly, so I called the vet office @ 7:30 and said I was bringing him in and wanted IV antibiotics because I was concerned he was getting pneumonia. They put him on IV fluids with some sulfanomides (sp?) antibiotic. We were waiting for Dr. Nichols with Antech to call back, he was the one suggesting steroids last Monday. My vet wanted to run the insulinoma past him before starting them. She said his lungs were still clear, the URI was all in his head and he had a very sore throat. I was just hanging around the back with Xuxu, and my vet rushed through and said if I was going to be there all the time, I might as well start training as a vet tech. I said I thought I could probably already test out of the exam!
Finally @ noon, he called. It was the same thing, his talking to vet, who was asking me questions. The jist from Dr. Nichols was: it's possible to have insulimona and DM, extremely rare, 5 known cases, but you can't diagnosis it with any test, all you can do is suspect that it's happening. The tumor might be microscopic and even ultrasound would't see them. With all Xuxu's yoyoing, it's possible. If he has it, he will never get regulated, he will always be bouncing around. He said he saw no reason for me to drive 4 hours to VTech because they couldn't do anything that I wasn't already doing (other than repeat all tests and ultrasounds and cost me more money). He said my home testing 2-4 times a day and micromanaging the insulin was the best that could be done for him on that score. He did say the prednisolone would be make him feel better, be good for the pancreatitis and the insulinoma, should make him put on some weight and possibly smooth out his curves a bit. He also recommended cerenia (which we did have him on before) and stop the orbax, clavamox, and metronidazole. Xuxu will appreciate not having anything but Tumil K shoved down his throat.
Since Xuxu had lost another .25 pound since last Fri, he is officially 1/2 of his original weight. It seemed we have nothing to loose in trying the steroids. :sad:
Finally @ noon, he called. It was the same thing, his talking to vet, who was asking me questions. The jist from Dr. Nichols was: it's possible to have insulimona and DM, extremely rare, 5 known cases, but you can't diagnosis it with any test, all you can do is suspect that it's happening. The tumor might be microscopic and even ultrasound would't see them. With all Xuxu's yoyoing, it's possible. If he has it, he will never get regulated, he will always be bouncing around. He said he saw no reason for me to drive 4 hours to VTech because they couldn't do anything that I wasn't already doing (other than repeat all tests and ultrasounds and cost me more money). He said my home testing 2-4 times a day and micromanaging the insulin was the best that could be done for him on that score. He did say the prednisolone would be make him feel better, be good for the pancreatitis and the insulinoma, should make him put on some weight and possibly smooth out his curves a bit. He also recommended cerenia (which we did have him on before) and stop the orbax, clavamox, and metronidazole. Xuxu will appreciate not having anything but Tumil K shoved down his throat.
Since Xuxu had lost another .25 pound since last Fri, he is officially 1/2 of his original weight. It seemed we have nothing to loose in trying the steroids. :sad:
