Another new cat to the board

Discussion in 'Feline Health - (Welcome & Main Forum)' started by lovetheduns, May 4, 2010.

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  1. lovetheduns

    lovetheduns Member

    Joined:
    May 4, 2010
    Hello there

    My name is Christina and my cat in question is Little Boy or DoDo as I call him.

    DoDo is an 8 year old DSH. I actually have his entire litter and mama. My cats are fed on a raw diet.

    This past Saturday, I did not realize this but my mom allowed DoDo to eat a hushpuppy corn thing and 5 small french fries (egads-- I grind chicken or buy ground turky dutifully and he apparently inhalled those bad things). On Saturday night after he ate his raw food, he threw up sometime Sunday morning under my mother's bed. Sunday morning he refused to eat breakfast at all.

    I took him to the ER vet who thought he could have just had an adverse reaction and a little bit of garbage gut. He seemed to have some infection going on so she did some subq fluids, gave him an anti nauseua med (Cerenia) and liquid Clavamox. DoDo wouldnt eat Sunday night nor Monday morning. She was concerned that while some of his WBC was higher-- his Bands but Lymphocytes were lower. Other values were normal except for the blood was very lipemic (9.1 on their scale).

    I took him to my regular vet who noticed he was running a 104 fever, his Blood sugar was 342 both ear test and confirmed by a lab test. He did not have any ketones in the dipstick test. They gave him more fluids and kept him for the day to ensure they could get more urine for a UA exam.

    He had no ketones in the urine Analysis from the lab, his PH urine was good at 6.3 and 3+ sugars I believe in the urine. His bloodwork from the panel at the lab showed 374 glucose. The new blood test also showed his test results were lipemic. And his fructosamine came back at 480.

    My vet is diagnosing him as diabetic since she has confirmation from the fructosamine that he has been consistently above the threshold. I am freaking out that this could be genetic and I have his brothers, sister, and mother also in the same boat.

    Everything else was okay, liver panels, kidneys.

    I am headed to the vet at 5:00pm to start discussing what we do from here, but I dont know what we can really do since I can't even get my little fellow to eat. I have to jam it all down his throat in a syringe. He doesnt puke it, but he wont willingly eat it. I have been trying Hills A/D, Baby food, cottage cheese, anything.

    I am a little nervous about all of this. I travel some for work and my mom is god awful at giving any kind of medication to a cat.
     
  2. lovetheduns

    lovetheduns Member

    Joined:
    May 4, 2010
    Btw, I guess I should also include some other things.

    DoDo's weight is at 11lbs-- he used to be at 15.8 lbs when he had a severe blockage in September 2008. We have really worked on weight control.

    He has lost weight obvioulsy but no more than the other members of our pride. Besides, the weight loss we have slowly been trying to take off.

    I have not noticed more trips to the bathroom or more water drinks. But that could be that I add lots of warm water to his food and everyone's food.
     
  3. Steve & Jock

    Steve & Jock Member

    Joined:
    Dec 29, 2009
    Welcome!

    The high blood sugar (perhaps among other things) is making him feel bad, so he won't eat.

    The best possible fix for this is insulin. A unit or two of a slow-acting insulin (one that can last a full 12 hours) will do him wonders and if you find the right dose, will bring his appetite back. But it's seldom this easy at first.

    One problem is that it usually takes longer than a day or two to find the right dose. A second problem is that it's often quite difficult to get a prescription for a 12-hour insulin from the vet. The usual vet insulins are not slow-acting enough for cats (which have a faster metabolism than dogs, apparently.) Cats work through insulin about twice as fast as dogs (or people) and so need slower insulins.

    The slowest insulins available right now are Lantus (glargine) and Levemir (detemir) and they last around 12 hours in cats. ProZinc and other PZI insulins last 8 to 12 hours and so may also be okay. Vetsulin is just really unsuitable, as are other Lente and also available Humulin insulins.

    But you've got a great start by being on raw food. I wouldn't worry too much about genetics or the family -- as far as we can guess, cats get type-2 diabetes, brought on by a combination of genetics, and poor diet and/or sensitivity to certain meds. Since your diet is probably very good, you can relax for a bit and just treat your Dodo.

    It's good you haven't seen any sign of ketones yet, but with blood sugar over 300 and no insulin, and low appetite, you could begin to see that at any moment, and it's deadly. (google Diabetic Ketoacidosis) So don't delay over the insulin. Do whatever you can to get the first insulin doses into Dodo by tomorrow, even if you can't get the best kind. (Worst case, you just have to dose more often)

    Keep in touch and let us know how it goes.
     
  4. Jill and Remi

    Jill and Remi Member

    Joined:
    Dec 28, 2009
    Infections can raise the blood sugar so I would think once you figure out what is causing his other symptoms, fever, and treat it his numbers may come back down. I don't know that for sure, but I hope so. The diet you have him on is great.
    I never used clavamox but think it can upset the tummy in some cats...which may be why he doesn't want to eat. But eating is important. Will he eat anything...tuna, meat from KFC fried chicken, hamburger patty from McD's? Trying to remember the fool proof foods. Good luck and keep us posted.
    And Welcome!
     
  5. Steve & Jock

    Steve & Jock Member

    Joined:
    Dec 29, 2009
    P.S. Just noticed you'd also mentioned infection.

    Now I'm quite worried about Diabetic Ketoacidosis even though he showed no sign of it at the vet's. It only takes about 2-3 hours to develop.

    The prevention for this deadly and expensive condition (which kills more newly-diagnosed diabetics than anything else I can think of) is:
    1) insulin
    2) hydration (use an oral syringe to make sure kitty gets lots and lots of water)
    3) food (even if not hungry)

    If he gets lethargic and shows signs of DKA (fruity or nail-polish breath, dehydration), don't even try to use these any more. Get him to the 24 hour vet's.

    Sorry for being alarmist, he might be fine, but he's putting up a lot of risk factors at once.

    Cheers,
    Steve
     
  6. Steve & Jock

    Steve & Jock Member

    Joined:
    Dec 29, 2009
    From wikipedia: (about humans but about the same as for cats)

    DKA may be the first symptom of previously undiagnosed diabetes, but it may also occur in known diabetics due to a variety of causes, such as intercurrent illness or poor compliance with insulin therapy. Vomiting, dehydration, deep gasping breathing, confusion and occasionally coma are typical symptoms. DKA is diagnosed with blood and urine tests; it is distinguished from other, rarer forms of ketoacidosis by the presence of high blood sugar levels. Treatment involves intravenous fluids to correct dehydration, insulin to suppress the production of ketone bodies, treatment for any underlying causes such as infections, and close observation to prevent and identify complications.
     
  7. lovetheduns

    lovetheduns Member

    Joined:
    May 4, 2010
    Hi Steve:

    So my vet, the kind soul that she is, is meeting me at her office at 5pm today. She is off this afternoon and is coming to the vet's office even though she has an engagement tonight. She knows I am stuck at the hospital all day with my mom (my mom is having a procedure) and I just can't get there any earlier.

    I have been reading about Lantus and Levemir-- all day (the VA has a free computer lab so since I can't work I figured I would go ahead and read here).

    Luckily DoDo broke his fever yesterday-- before I took him home again, they put in more fluids for him he still had the residual fluids around his front legs this morning.

    No weird breath smells, only chickeny from where I shoved food in to him which did not please him at all, but at least he is not refusing to not eat it. He is actually brighter this morning-- than what he has been.

    I am just still in shock. I worked so hard to get to a low carb diet because I didnt want my babies to get diabetes and now it is like.. really??? He is diabetic.

    I have a glucometer at home and some strips-- I test myself since I tend to veer towards hypoglycemia and I like to keep on eye on my own sugars or lack there of.

    My vet is pretty practical-- I plan to talk to her about these longer term insulins that I have read about-- I am just still so... stunted.
     
  8. lovetheduns

    lovetheduns Member

    Joined:
    May 4, 2010
    I may try to get a can of tuna today-- see if that inspires him.

    He loves cream but that didn't even get him interested the other day.

    The A/D he nibbled slightly at the vet-- no more than maybe a half a teaspoon.

    At least he doesn't look so listless as he did-- this morning he even hissed at me when I pulled him from out underneath the bed. I was pleased to see some attitude. The vet said that they could tell the fluids helped him out as well at the vet's office since he started hissing at everyone towards the end of the day when they would come and take his temperature. He is a little done with being poked and prodded. I keep whispering to him that if he didnt want all of these fun activities he should develop a fast appetite!
     
  9. sommerbethel

    sommerbethel Member

    Joined:
    Dec 28, 2009
    Welcome to the board!

    I am most familiar with the insulin Lantus so if you need help with that please let me know.

    Also, about a month ago my cat was vomiting and had a fever, not at the level yours does...but I determined it to be food poisoning. Perhaps your cat ate something bad. I was unfortunately giving mine spoiled salmon oil.
     
  10. Steve & Jock

    Steve & Jock Member

    Joined:
    Dec 29, 2009
    So how's it working out for you?
     
  11. lovetheduns

    lovetheduns Member

    Joined:
    May 4, 2010
    Re: Another new cat to the board - Update

    So--- maybe the horrible week is coming to a close!

    DoDo is now eating on his own. He ate a 1/2 can of A/D for dinner tonight. His bg was very high 428 for his PMPS. I gave him 1.5u of ProZinc.

    My vet was concerned about the high bgs, but she was more worried about DoDo refusing to eat. We did for safe measure go to the vet tonight to get some more subq fluids. He sucked up 200mls pretty easy so my vet had the vet tech to give him another 50ml. She doesn't want DoDo or me to relapse this weekend with being dehydrated.

    I am spending all day with him tomorrow and will be giving him another 1.5u in the morning if he is this high-- I want to really be able to see his nadir and see what is going on-- if the 1.5u twice a day is not working then I guess we go up to 2u.

    Other than that, he also is consistently pooping more-- before he was so constipated and just bloated uncomfortable. It seems like everything is moving along now-- he has pooped several times.

    He is also more ornery. *LOL*

    I feel like we got past the really bad turn in the road and can now focus on his sugars and getting them down.
     
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