? Diagnosed 1 month ago, bouncing, and impending travel!

Hi all,

I’ve lurked around and have gotten a lot of great information from your posts, but I’m having some trouble with my cat, Thor, and we’re running up on a difficult situation. I apologize for the length - trying to be thorough!

Thor was diagnosed with diabetes and started on Lantus in late July. At the urging of my vet, I bought an AlphaTrak 2 meter to test his blood sugar daily and perform glucose curves at home. I purchased the pet meter before coming to this board, so all numbers below are from the AlphaTrak 2. Before starting insulin while waiting for confirmation of his diagnosis, he switched from Wellness Chicken to Tiki Cat Koolina Luau (close to 0% carbs). Thor has had pancreatitis twice now, and his elevated blood sugar was caught during blood testing for acute, mild pancreatitis. Diabetes was confirmed by detecting glucose in his urine.

We’ve had a heck of a time getting him under control. Because his numbers at diagnosis were in the low 300s, our vet started him on 1u Lantus every morning. His morning measurements crept up to the 450s by the end of the first week and his curve was not great. We increased to 1u Lantus AM and PM, another curve a week later - more of the same. Similar story with 2u every 12 hours. Most recently, we moved to 3u every 12 hours with his first 3u injection on Thursday evening. After reading your posts, it seems like these are aggressive jumps.

At 3u every 12 hours, Thor’s numbers have still been inconsistent. On Friday morning, he was at 423 then 399 at night. On Saturday morning he was at 284 at 8am, then 220 at 2pm (I wanted to catch the low point). Unfortunately, my SO didn’t check his number before giving him his 8pm shot. I’m usually the one managing Thor’s meds/glucose checks but couldn’t be home to do it. On Sunday, he shot up to 423 for his 8am shot and was at 360 for his 8pm shot. When I checked this morning, he was at 126! I called the vet and withheld insulin. We’ll be checking again in the evening.

Today’s normal reading was the first time we’ve seen numbers in the normal range on the meter, so it was quite a shock. Of course, it’s great to have him in range, but this crazy bouncing comes at a really difficult time. My wedding is on Saturday and we are leaving for 11 days of travel on 9/3. We have a bonded, trustworthy cat sitter who has been trained on injecting insulin, but he won’t check blood sugar. Just finding a sitter who would give injections was tough enough. Now, we’re in a position where potentially normal readings are on the table and giving him insulin during a normal period could kill him. He is a very chill cat - whether he’s at 450 or normal, his only noticeable symptoms are extra urine, and not even to the point where he's flooding the box.

I’m a nervous mess about traveling and I don’t know how to approach this. Does anyone have advice?

 

You might check with your vet's office. Perhaps one of the techs does pet sitting on the side or knows someone who does. Seems to me if a trusted cat sitter will inject insulin, it just follows he would agree to test as well. I would hate to be blindly shooting insulin on a pet sitting job and end up causing harm. I think you just don't have the right person to sit given your pet's needs.

 

I will give that a shot, but I'm worried it might be a little too late given the one week notice. I'll be talking with my vet about these recent issues anyway, of course!

 

We had to board Josie last week (albeit only for 2 1/2 days), and the day before leaving she threw us her first hypo number completely out of the blue! It’s as if they know and are trying to make us sit home with them or something ...

We boarded her at our feline-only vet. I know that wasn’t ideal for her happiness or stress levels, but I also knew that they would take care of her properly and could take appropriate action if she threw another super-low number. It was $20/day, which was a lot of money but not for peace of mind.