Baylynn barely walking

Hi all,

I’m sort of freaking out. We took Bay for a curve today, we just brought him home. After opening up the carrier he stumbled out barely walking and his back legs and back swaying. The Vet is closed now and they said nothing of his condition. He has neuropathy in his hind legs and his front paws collapsed about two weeks ago. We took him to the vet to check on his front paws and had blood test run. All we were told is his potassium was low. He has been in methyl b12 since Jan 20 and on potassium since Feb 1. Any insight or advice is appreciated. We will be contacting the vet ASAP in the morning.

Thank you,
Nicole

 

Hi Nicole, so sorry to hear about Baylynn, I'm sorry I can't give you any advise, please let us know what the vet says in the am. That poor kitty.
I'm going to tag a few members to see what they might think, hang in there
@Deb & Wink
@Chris & China (GA)
@Wendy&Neko
@Sienne and Gabby (GA)

 

I don't know if it's an emergency vet visit or not. Is there a 24 hour vet that you could call? If you call your regular vet's office, they often give a phone number of another 24 hour vet clinic to contact.

You might try that emergency number.

 

Thanks Deb

 

Thank you Diane for tagging them and thank you Deb for responding. I am thoroughly confused what to do with him. Everything I have read Lantus and wet food is a better choice overall for cats. The Vet will not even consider it and insists he’s on Vetsulin and dry food. She keeps sending articles and messages stating his leg issues may be from toxicity from Lantus

 

I did get a response from the vet which was give him his potassium and b12, and take him to the emergency vet if he doesn’t get any better....basically she said he was fine when he was there. It was a 15 min drive home, I just don’t see it changing that quickly

 

Here is more on low potassium on Tanya's CRF web site. Gait issues are definitely a symptom. Did the vet mention whether his potassium numbers were any better today?

Can you do blood sugar tests at home? What were his numbers at the vet? A cat needs to be in better blood sugar numbers to help get over neuropathy. If the vet is insisting on dry food and Vetsulin, it may be time to think about interviewing for a new vet. I'd like to see a link to any paper linking Lantus to leg issues. We've seen hundreds of cats and not one with that problem. Would he consider Prozinc? Also a better insulin for cats. And you can always tell the vet the cat won't eat dry food.

 

They did not do bloodwork today just a curve. When he had his bloodwork last Tuesday she said the Lantus was probably causing the low potassium. She said she doesn’t know enough about it to recommend it. I have sent her some studies that people on the FDMB have shared with me as well as others but she just seems disinterested in looking at the material. We’ve decided to find another Vet after this incident as well as another with my other cat a few weeks ago. The picture is from his curve today

 

Glad you are going to find can other vet

 

Have you thought about learning to home test the blood sugars? In addition to saving a ton of money, it'll be a lot more accurate. Many kitties can be a lot higher at the vet due to stress, so you get inaccurate numbers.

Your vet is right about one thing - she doesn't know much about Lantus.

 

We do home testing, we test it 3-4 times a day, this was his first curve. We thought having the curve would be sort of a base level to see if we need to adjust his insulin up or not. Unfortunately I am all too familiar with diabetes as I have been dealing with it for 20 years with my mom, so I thought that my general knowledge would help but I think that there’s so much miss information out there for cats and it can be confusing. I wanted to believe that a vet would be open and knowledgeable but if she is so closed minded about something that could benefit him, then she’s not the Vet we need.

 

It's great you are home testing. We can help you figure out how to adjust the dose. We have a dosing methodologies that you can look at and we can help you figure out how to do dose changes on your own. Take a read of this post to get you started: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/new-how-you-can-help-us-help-you.216696/