2 weeks and no progress

My 5 month old kitten was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes about two weeks ago. The vet started him on 0.5 of Lantus and we saw no difference and his numbers were still in the 300-400s even going up to 500 at the vets office. The vet then increased his dose to 1.5, it’s almost been a week and his numbers before insulin are 360,370,380 and I test 6 hours later and they jump up to 430,440. I’m testing every 6 hours because I’m still trying to get a hang of testing and sometimes I don’t get blood. My kitty is very young and has become so weak and skinny. So I also get scared that I’m going to hurt him by checking for blood too often. My kitten eats Friskies Pate (mixed grill, turkey giblets, salmon, poultry, oceanfish). He’s still eating a lot and drinking/ urinating even more. My real concern is why are his numbers still so high? It’s almost been two weeks on insulin and he’s still the same in terms of numbers and behavior. Should we look into increasing his dose? The vet has called us back for a glucose check on Monday to see if he needs an increase.

 

Hi Welcome!

Hang in there the testing gets easier after a while really !!. I'm guessing you are testing in his ear, don't worry too much they heal really quickly and I think it bothers them more the handling of the ear than the actual pricking, but you can use some Neosporin with pain relief in his ear it will help him a lot.

Looking at his spreadsheet I couldn't see the preshots tests are you testing before shooting? Do you have any test results from when you were giving 0.5 units?

Getting a kitty regulated takes time so you'll need A LOT OF PATIENCE, you shouldn't rush the process

It was a very big increment from 0.5 to 1.5 since even a drop can be a lot for some kitties incrementes are done usually in 0.25 units increments because when you raise the dose too much you can pass the good dose sort of speak and giving too much insulin can look just as giving too little, right now with only a few days of data is hard to know what's going it may be he needs a little bit more insulin, if you could maybe do a curve in the next days maybe during the weekend and post your results here we could take a look at them and with that information maybe we could have a better idea of what's going on.

One of the symptoms of an unregulated cat is that he is hungry all the time, they eat a lot and still lose weight , this is because the glucose in the blood does not allow his cells to get the proper nutrition and drinks a lot of water, is his body response to try and get rid of the extra suggar he will get back to eating and drinking normally as his blood glucose gets closer to normal values .

 

Thank you for your reply! This helps a lot!

I have not been testing regularly, I’m kind of all over the place right now in terms of testing regularly. However I do want to get more confident in testing him so I can see exactly what’s going on.

I did not create a spreadsheet for the one week he was on 0.5 units. It was our first week and everything was alittle overwhelming. I’m finally getting alittle better hang of giving insulin and testing. But I have a long way to go.

I think I’ll do a curve in the Next few days. Instead of going to the vet which is costing me a lot. Especially when the vet is doing the exact same thing I am doing at home.

I will post my glucose curve results once I complete it and will follow up for more advice!

Thanks!

 

Hi,

I’m new at this too. How often are you going to the vet? My cat was in the vet for 3 weeks and since she’s come out, her levels have dropped, even though she was on a much higher dose in the vets. I’m not advising against it, just the stress could be making the BG levels rise. Poor little kitten I hope he is stabilised soon.

 

The vet calls us in every 7 days. We go in the morning at 8am test him pre shot and then the vet tells me to increase the dose and sends me home with my cat to give him his new dose.

 

Oh ok. I dont feel that I’m experienced enough to help. Are you testing for ketones at all? I’m sure someone else will be along soon.

 

Testing done at the vet's office is pretty much useless.....just the stress of being there can raise the blood glucose by up to 200 points

The vet see's those high numbers, tells you to increase the dose and you go home. Kitty relaxes, the BG comes down and you have the recipe for a tragedy.

There's absolutely nothing a curve at the vet's office can tell you that you can't find out at home...and for a lot less money as well as being a lot more accurate.

 

I agree. You will have more accurate numbers at home.

Did your vet check for an infection? It is rare that you see diabetes in a kitten. Not impossible, it just does not happen very often. An infection can also raise glucose levels significantly If your kitten is being treated for an infection, you need to test before every shot and it is possible the dose will need to be reduced as he heals

 

It's ok we get it is hard at the beginning but they do get used to the testing and it gets easier, try warming his ear before poking that helps get some blood. But do try to ALWAYS test before shooting is the only way you can know is safe to shoot, because if he is low and you give him insulin it can be seriously dangerous

I do suggest you read about hypos ( too low blood sugar ) and that you keep some high carbs and corn syrup (Karo) at hand just in case

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/how-to-treat-hypos-they-can-kill-print-this-out.15887/

Absolutely doing it at home is best, more accurate and much much cheaper.
Once you have the numbers post here or in the Lantus Forum (http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/forums/lantus-glargine-levemir-detemir.9/) and ask for dosing advice

 

Why not just send an email with a link to your spreadsheet? Once I started home testing my cat didnt go back to the vet for a year.