Diagnosing diabetes

Hi all,

I have a 13 year old cat, Franny, who has mild pancreatitis and kidney disease. We are treating these issues with meds and fluids. The last visit to the vet included 12 hour fast blood work. Franny’s glucose was 260 the highest it’s ever been. Usually it’s elevated but not to that extent. The vet used that blood work to do a fructosamine test. This came back at 254 (normal range 191-349). Today she had to go in for constipation. They did an enema. At the end of the day they did urinalysis. She had one glucose present but the vet said this could be from the stress of the day and that they shouldn’t have done at after an enema. She said we would retest in two weeks.

Does this seem like we’re heading toward diabetes? My cat is overweight 13 lbs and has had dry food her entire life. I didn’t know any better and she’s addicted to it. She also might have IBD. I’m very overwhelmed with all of these issues.

Is it normal to have diabetes with conflicting lab results?

Thank you,

Patty and Franny

 

It's normal for the blood glucose to be higher at the vet due to stress.....and add the enema to that and I'm surprised it wasn't higher!!

What you can do right now to help prevent the slide into diabetes is to get off the dry food completely and onto a low carb canned or raw diet. All kibble is high carb and also very hard on kidneys, so switching to a low carb canned food will help both the kidneys and the possible diabetes.

Lots of great information in this "Feeding your cat...know the basics of feline nutrition" website . It includes some help with transitioning the hard core kibble addict too.

In the meantime, you can get a home glucose meter and start checking her at home while she's relaxed. That will give you a much better idea of her real blood glucose numbers and you'll be able to keep an eye on her for the rest of her life. Treating early is the key to possibly getting into remission, so it's a win/win to start testing now.

Most of us here us human meters like the Relion Confirm or Micro from WalMart. They take the tiniest sample size and the strips are affordable