At a loss.............

Hi,

My cat Chase was diagnosed with Diabetes in November. Like all Diabetic cats he is eating, drinking and peeing not stop. He is currently up to 5 units of insulin twice a day and we are still trying to get him regulated. He is eating wet cat food and he is staring to gain some weight back. In addition to chase we have another cat and a dog. Its been challenging for my son and I too keep up with Chase and quite honestly it is disgusting. The litter is somehow stuck to his paws and he tracks it throughout the house. He pees in the litter box while it is being cleaned. Then today, to top it all off, now he is peeing in the main house area (on the dogs bed) even though his litter box is clean. I am at a loss. I have tried to be patient and keep up with him but I am not will to live in filth. If I am not able to resolve this I will either need to find him another home or have him put down. Does anyone have any suggestions to help this type of situation?

Thanks

 

Welcome to FDMB. I'm so sorry to hear you are having these problems and I can understand how frustrating it all is but I think we can help. While inappropriate urination could just be an inability for him to make it to the litter box on time, it could also be that he has a urinary tract infection, quite common in diabetic cats. I'd suggest you have Chase checked by a vet to rule out an infection.

If you post over on the Health board HERE, here is a lot more traffic there ensuring more response and suggestions.
If you include the following information we'll be able to help you out more.
What insulin are you giving Chase?
What dose did you start at?
How quickly was dose increased? Was it 1 unit at a time or less?
What wet food is he eating?
Does he have any other medical problems or any history of DKA?
Does he have any signs of neuropathy like walking funny or inability to jump?
Are you home testing Chase or taking him to the vet for dose adjustments?

We strongly advocate home testing because vet monitoring often leads to the dose of insulin being too high because of stress elevating the BG while at the vet's office. This often leads the vet to think the cat needs more insulin when in fact they need less. 5 units of insulin is a high dose. While there are conditions that cause a cat to need higher doses, it's far more likely that the insulin dose has been increased too quickly and too much which could explain a lot of the problems you are dealing with.

 

No cat or dog wants to live in a dirty environment, the advice you get here can be very helpful. Most of us have had cats that make a mess, we know how bad it smells and how hard it can be to clean but there is always a reason.

 

Thanks for your responses:

What insulin are you giving Chase? Lantus 100 units/ml
What dose did you start at? he started at 1, then 2, then 3 until yesterday. He is skittish so I also think it might be higher when he is at the vets due to that stress level. They kept him for the day to evaluate his progress and upped it to 5. Should we try it at 4?
How quickly was dose increased? Was it 1 unit at a time or less? 1>2>3>5
What wet food is he eating? I just started them on wet food about 7 days ago. Friskies. They also have dry food available during the day Purina Pro Plan - Urinary Tract Health formula
Does he have any other medical problems or any history of DKA? No
Does he have any signs of neuropathy like walking funny or inability to jump? No, he is active and jumps and plays with the other animals when he is feeling well.
Are you home testing Chase or taking him to the vet for dose adjustments? My son takes him to the vet for the dose adjustments. I watched a video on how to test him at home, but how would we know how much insulin to give him based on that information? He was in the mid 900s when we started taking him to the vet. Yesterday they said they were able to get him down to the mid 300's.

Thanks

 

Hi and welcome. Lantus is a depot insulin and is usually increased slowly, by only .25units at a time. It's possible Chase was increased too quickly. If you are willing to learn to home test, not only will it save you money since you won't have to pay the vet for curves, but it will also save Chase stress. If you test and use our Spreadsheet to record your numbers, we will be glad to help you with dosing. Please post on the Main Health Forum with any more questions, and go to the Lantus Forum and read the yellow stickies. There is a lot of info in them that will help you.

 

Just looked up the Purina Pro Plan Urinary Health food. It is very high carb. It's possible that if you change to a lower carb food, Chases insulin needs will decrease. For this reason DO NOT stop feeding the dry until you are home testing. If you do you will risk a hypo. Please post in Health so we can help you get Chase on a good low carb feeding program, learn to test and help with dosing.

 

Thanks for sharing those details. Given the info you have provided it's possible that part if not all of your issues are due to Chase getting too much rather than too little insulin but without seeing some data it's impossible to come to any real conclusion. Please join us over on Health so we can help you get things sorted out and get both of you back to a much happier and healthier place! We can help you learn how to home test if you are willing. It really is the best way to keep Chase safe, to keep vet expenses to a minimum and to give you a better sense of what's going on with Chase on a day to day basis. With home testing you can choose to determine dose yourself with our help based on the methods used here or you can share your readings with the vet and have him do the dose adjustments. That decision is up to you entirely but we are always here to help when needed no matter what you decide if we can see some data on which to offer suggestions/opinions.
Hope to see you over in Health. When you post over in Health, please just copy and paste the answers to my questions so everyone there will have that info too.

 

That is a really fast increase and I can't believe your vet didn't give you food advice.... Food is 50% of the battle.


If your cat was a diabetic person basically it would be a person taking insulin, not testing, and eating donuts all day!

Honestly your vet doesn't really seem to know what he's doing as far as dosing.


I would start over. Go back to 1 unit, but switch to an all wet low carb food like fancy feast classic or Friskies pate. Learn to home test. (We can help with this!!!) MUCH cheaper and less stressful than vet trips.
Start a spreadsheet to track readings. We can help with this too. This will help determine if a dose increase is needed. Increases should be made in 0.25-0.5 increments. Increasing full units risks passing the ideal dose. Too much insulin can sometimes look like not enough.

Have more than 1 litterbox.

What litter do you use? Some are better than others. A larger grain may track less. I like Dr. Elsley's.

My favorite cleaner is Anti Icky poo.... Unscented. Leaves no scent behind.

Please remember your cat isn't peeing outside the box to make you mad.... He isn't feeling well.

We can help you.

 

Great advice from Janet! I use Dr. Elsey's litter too and they have a type called "Cat Attract" that can help with litter box issues.

 

Hi there. I'm new here too and feel your frustration. I can't say much about the diabetes as I'm just figuring it all out myself, but I do have a few tricks for cats going outside the litter box.

First, as someone said above, the number one reason cat's urinate outside the box is because they don't feel well. It's gross and annoying, but remember it's your kitty trying to tell you that something is wrong.

From what you've mentioned, trying a new litter with a different texture might be a simple fix. Some cats, especially sensitive kitties with health issues, become irritated by the litter. You mentioned it sticks to his paws and that he has peed on the dog bed. Maybe it's hurting/irritating his paws and he's just looking for a softer place to do his business. I've even heard of cats developing allergies to some of the ingredients in cat litters. The fact that he'll use the box while you're trying to clean it also seems to support that. He wants to use the box, which is GREAT!, he's just having a hard time for some reason or another. Try a new brand with a different texture, or maybe even smell, and see what happens.

Good luck and stay strong. Send some love to that kitty friend!