BG drop to fast?

:?:
Normal BG this morning! Hooray!! or is it?

Henry had a BG 54 this morning. He's been so high for so long that I was very excited initially....but I've had time to think and become concern.

I've been aggressivily changing his food to low carb can combined with a transition to raw. I'm also regulating his food. Twice a day and he normally finishes it with 10-15 minuts. This translates into one Wellness can (5.5 oz) and 1 oz of Primal Feline. I'll start 2 oz Primal (one at each feeding) today. I believe this comes to over 300 calories a day. Henry weights 21 lbs and suffers from neuropathy and not very active. Therefore the calorie count seemed fine to me. Henry has been getting either FastTrack (probiotic) from the vet or Fortiflor each day for the last 6 days to help with his loose stools. I'm happy to say his stools are now firm, but I'm keeping him on the Fortiflor until I get him on 100% raw. He has not suffered from constipation, a reportable common condition when transitioning to raw food.
All seems good, but his Mom had a chance to think and worry.

1) Can a drop to "normal" and maintenance in that range (or close to it) be to sudden for a cat that has been high (400 range) for long period of time? Henry has shown signs of neuropathy for months...his previous vet told me it was due to his weight. I think he has been diabetic for some time. My current vet believes neuropathy develops only after a period of time when the bg is high (over 250-300) for a period of time. Therefor I estimating that Henry has been diabetic for a year or longer before he was "discovered" and started treatment.
2) Henry has always been a chow hound -- if he could get to it he ate it. His current diet to restrictive in calories?
3) Is long term neuropathy recoverable?

 

Hi there, I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to answer your questions. First I clicked on your link to Spreadsheet but I have a SS from J.D. (Chip?) I don't think that's Henry's SS.

54 is a normal number (low normal) I don't know what insulin you are using or what dose? Certainly a food change to low carb can reduce the BG quite a bit (especially if you were feed higher carb or dry before)

For info on calories etc. check out dr. Lisa's links in the Health links forum it will tell you how to calculate how many calories Henry needs.

As for neuropathy someone should be able to give you some links about it. As far as I know it can be reversable with good BG control and suppliments containing B12.

Can you give us more info about Henry and check your SS link?

 

Hi and hello.

For info on neuropathy:
http://petdiabetes.wikia.com/wiki/Neuropathy

What I read there, is that it can be cured after a while with supplements (special kind of B12).

On the other questions: I can't answer them. As Monique said, we have to have more info.
But in Spacey's case: she is on wet, low-carb only with more and more raw and dropped from 2,5 unit twice a day to less than 0.5 a day. or so... She needs less and less.
I would be worried, in your case, of giving to much insulin now and therefor getting a Somoguyi rebound, i.e. very high numbers again. But maybe I understand things the wrong way...

 

Sorry about the signiture. I've tested the new one and it now reflect's Henry's spreadsheet. Henry is on Lantus. I've place the number of units he gets on the spreadsheet.

Thank-you for pointing out the correcting needed on my signature. Even though the help is cut and past I still get confused.

Shawna

 

Well you are right, that is an interesting drop. Oliver dropped 100 points from PMPS to AMPS when we changed from dry food to wet. It would be a good day to do a curve, and see what the pattern is.

The calories seem enough - maybe a little more than average. As others have said, unregulated cats are literally starving. Another newbie this morning said her cat was getting into tomatoes and eating them! So it is okay to feed a little more than average when he is unregulated. When his numbers come down consistently, he should stop devoring food. Oliver was a real chow hound, and after we got his numbers down, he calmed down about his food.

Many cats on this site have recovered from neuropathy with the help of lower blood glucose numbers and the B12. I don't recall any long term neuropathy that wasn't eventually resolved, although some take months.

 

Ah much better! That was a good idea to skip the shot this morning. You have been giving a pretty high dose there, good that you are testing. Yes the high dose combined with the food change is why is BG has come down so low. Lantus doesn't work right away, it takes time to build up in the body before you see results. The 4 and 3 U doses were being stored up and now have gone to work, plus your food change and now his BG is falling.

You need to go here viewforum.php?f=9 and read all the Stickys (posts about Lantus) at the top of the forum. This will explain how Lantus works. You can also post in that forum for advice.

I would recommend you keep periodically checking his BG today and see what he has at shot time this evening. In any case you may need to skip again to clear out all that excess insulin from the several days of high doses. If you do need to shoot insulin I would recommend lowering the dose to 1U and keeping it there for several days before making any adjustments (unless on 1U you get a reading below 50, then you should reduce to .5U) all this will be explained in the info on the Lantus ISG