? Does it look like acro?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Capoo

Capoo

Member Since 2016
Hi all,

Tonight, I am very stressed after a call to my vet.
As you can see on the SS of Capoo, he was in the 300's yesterday for all the day, and today, the same.
My vet started to speak to me about insulin resistance, antibodies and acromegaly... I'm totally disappointed, as I have already lost my dog at the end of last year.

I have to precise that Capoo is fed with Orijen freely, and that his weight is 8,2 kg. So his dose of Lantus is currently 0,5 IU/kg/shot.

Could you please have a look at my spreadsheet, and tell me if it's inspire you?
Does it look like an acro?


Thanking you so much!

Sophie
 
Sophie

I think it’s a little too soon to tell that just based on his numbers. Insulin resistance can simply be that the kitty has been at higher numbers longer and so it takes a bit more work and insulin to start seeing the numbers come down. We see this frequently. IAA, however, is insulin autoimmune antibodies. This is where the kitty produces antibodies against the insulin you inject and so the insulin is not available for the kitty to use. This is usually a self limiting condition after a year or so on insulin but there are ways to also break through the antibodies. Acromegaly is caused by a tumor on the pituitary gland. The Acro/IAA/Cushing’s Forum to this board has a lot of info on these conditions.

We usually suggest you have the kitty tested for these conditions once the dose gets to 6u twice a day. One thing I see is that the dose increases for Capoo have been too much at one time. Until a cat starts getting up to 5u or more twice a day, we don’t do increases by a unit at a time. It makes it possible to miss the good dose for the kitty when doing such large increases.

You might want to leave the dose where it is for now but try to be sure and get a couple tests in during each p.m. cycle. A +2 test and a before bed test will allow us to see if Capoo is coming down anywhere in the cycle and then bouncing back up. If you are able to continue getting the spot checks during the day cycles, that is great. More info lets us know what Capoo might need in terms of insulin.

I’d take this a step at a time. It could be the dry food that is causing these numbers so you might want to consider switching Capoo to a low carb, canned diet. We’ve seen cats have numbers like these and then after the switch was made to low carb canned food, the numbers came down drastically.
 
Marje ( I suppose?)

Thanks a lot for your answer!

I have done the dose changes in accordance with my vet.

I will keep the current dose to see what happens, and try to have some tests before bed.

I have already thought about the change of food, but my main concern is that I work all day. Capoo is also really stressed when he sees an empty bowl. So, I'm afraid that if I completely switch to wet food, he will eat like an ogre his morning bowl, and then throw up. But if there is nothing left to eat in his bowl, I fear a hypo.

Do you think it's possible to mix both type wet and dry? Let say wet in the morning, then I let some dry in the bowl just in case....

Do you know some good wet food available in France?
 
You could get an auto feeder like many members do here. They freeze the wet food and put it in portions in the auto feeder and by the time it opens, it has thawed.

I don't know of foods in France, however,new have another member there and I'll see what canned food she uses.
 
Bienvenue! Marje is a very experienced member here and is giving you excellent advice. The "Sticky" posts at the top of the forum have a ton of information, too. I'm sorry about your dog. You've come to the right place to get help with Capoo.
Liz
 
Hi I am in Spain,
I get food online from zooplus, they have a french site
http://www.zooplus.fr/

I feed George
Thrive and Granata symphonie at the moment, have also tried amionda carny exotic and Catz all of which George has loved, you need to be careful of flavours as some are higher in carb than others here is a link to a food chart of LC foods, a lot of them are available through zooplus, you could use it as a starting point. Delivery is pretty good, usually takes between 3-5days.
For treats I use Thrive freeze dried chicken and tuna and cosma snackies (also freeze dried chicken) some folk sprinkle them onto wet food if they have trouble getting them to eat wet.
I also bought an autofeeder which allows me to feed 4 meals through the day when I am going out.

I think the orijen dry is about 24% carb, you want to be looking at under 10% if you make the change it can make quite a difference, so it might be best to transition to the wet gradually, you will need to be vigilant.
 
I think Marje has given you very sound suggestions. If you are increasing by 1.0u, it is very easy to miss what is a good dose for your cat. Unfortunately, too much insulin looks a lot like too little insulin. In addition, given the amount of carbohydrates in what you're feeding, you will need larger amounts of insulin to offset the effect of the food.

You may want to read the sticky note on following Tight Regulation if you work full time. There are many suggestions there that may help you to think about how to leave canned food available when you're at work.

 
Sorry it took me a bit to get back. The member to whom I was referring feeds raw but also GrantaPet Delicatessan grain free low carb food from Germany. I believe she lives in southern France near Nice. But it's great that Gill gave you some info as well since she is in Spain.
 
We had a member here, Linda, whose kitty Scooter was getting 5.5u per shot. Linda also had 12 other kitties in the house - some of them ate dry food but she fed them up high on the washing machine so Scooter couldn't get to the dry food. He only got fed canned low carb food.

When Linda got rid of all the dry food in the house, Scooter went from 5.5u to off of insulin in one and a half very, very long days. Dry food carbs are powerful. Here is the thread where this happened.

My only point in telling you this story is to demonstrate that dry food can cause a need for a lot more insulin than if the cat is on low carb canned or raw food. I wouldn't worry about this dose, combined with the dry food, at this point. Punkin had acromegaly and he got up to 15.5u per shot while eating low carb canned food.

If you can transition Capoo to low carb canned food it's very likely he'll need significantly less insulin. The key to success in this is to feeling that you can keep him safe while you're gone. If you can order timed feeders in France, then getting one can be very helpful. If not, before we had timed feeders available people often mixed the low carb canned food with water then froze it in ice cube trays and muffin tins. Store those frozen chunks in your freezer and then leave them out for Capoo when you have to go to work. The smaller chunks will thaw more quickly than the bigger chunks and hopefully, Capoo won't eat all of it before it's thawed.

It's a trial and error thing - you want to see that Capoo will go get food for himself if his blood sugar drops. Most cats will, but not all. Trying it out when you're home will be a good way to know that you can trust it when you're gone.

In the meantime, I wouldn't worry about acro or insulin resistance - i think it's very likely that the high carb dry food is the culprit.
 
Today, I'm at home, so I'm going to perform a little test (sorry, I'm a chemical engineer, and I'm fond of testing... ;)).
So, starting from 8AM, French time (AMPS : 370), I will only give to Capoo some wet food (Terrines of Whiskas), and I have already ordered an automatic feeder, that I'm supposed to receive this evening.
I have to add that he has eaten Orijen during the night.
AMPS : 370. Start of wet food
+2 : 264
+3 : 261

I will keep you posted, fingers cross...
 
BTW, I have already seen in my cat's numbers that sometimes, the AMPS+9 is higher than the PMPS.
I have read in the Basics that it is one of the quirks of Lantus, but does somebody know why?
 
We call that a double dip. I don't think anyone knows why some cats do it sometimes and some don't, I've never seen an explanation for it. Nothing to worry about though as you say it's a quirk.

Good luck with your experiement, I love a good experiement too :) Keep a close eye for the next few days, it can take several days for dry food to completely exit the system and you could see a significant drop in BG when it does.
 
Well he is 100 pts lower than ps so that's good, it'll be interesting to see with your experiment today whether he stays in the yellow for longer.

Keeping paws crossed he slides down nice and steady. He may still come down a bit still a couple of hours to go till +6 which is when we would assume the insulin reaches its peak and we would expect to have the lowest numbers in a typical lantus cycle.
That said, every cat is different ECID and we still don't have enough data to say what is normal for Capoo.
Some kitties have onset at +5 or +6 and reach nadir late at +12:rolleyes:
 
You've gotten great advise and info already, so I will just share something that the specialist at NC State University Vet School said to me. I asked Kathy Lunn (one of the leading researchers/experts of acromegaly) if she thought Grayson had Acromegaly. We had already gotten the test results back from the IGF-1, which was high enough to suggest it - but as she told me - test results are "not a slam-dunk". Not definitive unless/until they see the pituitary tumor on the MRI or CT scan. However, she told me that: with Grayson eating a proper low-carb diet, getting good insulin (ProZinc at the time), and large doses at that, AND STILL not seeing any real movement in his BG, that it was highly likely that he was.

He was getting as much as 6u TID, without response, so the diagnosis of IAA (insulin resistance), was no surprise. He didn't really start responding well to insulin until we were at an obscenely high dose.

I agree it's too early to worry about either condition. You're on a good insulin, but you're still feeding dry. Even good dry is going to affect BGs. It would be wise to transition over before getting too concerned about IAA or acro.

And I totally understand how hard it is to have one pet sick after having lost another. So sorry.

Lu-Ann
 
And finally the PMPS si 400.
That's really hopeless.
The change to wet food today didn't change anything to his numbers.
 
Capoo said:
And finally the PMPS si 400.
That's really hopeless.
The change to wet food today didn't change anything to his numbers.
Click to expand...
I think it can take a while for the effect of the dry food to work out of the system, you may not see a result straight away.

He didn't drop very far, but it was a bit quick this morning and that can trigger a bounce in some cats, their bodies percieve the fast drop as dangerous (even though it is not) because they are used to being in high numbers, the liver 'panics' and dumps glucose into the blood stream giving you higher numbers. Bounces can last up to 6 cycles, but they don't always last that long.
What wet food are you giving him?? do you know the carb content?? Not all wet food is low in carb.

Persevere with the wet, it so much better for cats as a whole.
You are doing a fab job Sophie! Sometimes it just takes time and a little patience to get them where we want them to be. :bighug::bighug::bighug:
 
Thanks a lot, Gill.
Today, Capoo has only eaten Whiskas: Terrine with duck.
I will continue to give him this tonight, and see what happens tomorrow morning.
I have seen somewhere that the digestion can take between 12 and 24 hours, that could explain the numbers.
Tomorrow and Friday, I work all the day, so I will let him some Orijen when I'm at the office.
I will continue my " experiments " this weekend...
 
Capoo said:
Thanks a lot, Gill.
Today, Capoo has only eaten Whiskas: Terrine with duck.
I will continue to give him this tonight, and see what happens tomorrow morning.
I have seen somewhere that the digestion can take between 12 and 24 hours, that could explain the numbers.
Tomorrow and Friday, I work all the day, so I will let him some Orijen when I'm at the office.
I will continue my " experiments " this weekend...
Click to expand...
Sounds like a good idea, to experiment when you are at home to monitor.

I don't know the carb content of that but I have used this nutrition calculator that another member recommended to help guide me as most foods don't tell you what the dry matter carb content is.
Also I should point out, that with friskies, some cats get significant sugar spikes even though some of their varieties come up low in Carb, one other European Member @Tiina and Hugo found this with friskies, and uses it as her go to food if Hugo is dropping. I seem to think it may also be an issue with some of the whiskas varieties
@Elizabeth and Bertie will explain it better, she is quite knowledgeable on the uk/european food list.
 
Carbs are different than digestion. It might only take a few hours for one to digest something, but the carbs become glucose which gets into the cells, or floats about in the bloodstream.

Not sure if you read that link I gave you about Scooter, but that day was Scooter's second day on absolutely no dry food. Not the first day without, the second day. I would expect to allow at least 1 full day before seeing a change in blood sugar from removing the dry food. Some people suggest it takes a few days - it may be one of those cat-by-cat things, where they are not all the same in how they respond.

If you can give it another day or two without any dry food at all, you may see a change. Hang in there!
 
When I transitioned Chloe, Herb and Spartacus from dry to wet, and when I realized that Grayson was hiding in the cupboards where he'd taken the lids off Tupperware canisters, and had been sneaking dry dog & cat kibble.. there was always an impact for several days thereafter. Hang in there. Just like with processed food like chicken mcnuggets, they put all kinds of things in processed pet food that makes the kitties crave it. A cold-turkey change is difficult, and if possible, it's best to do a gradual change so as not to upset their stomach, but I've always said, "Grayson would've SOLD me for a bowl of Kitt-N-Kaboodle!" He was addicted to it. And like all addictions, it's hard to break.

Give him a couple days to get it all out of his system. Then let's see where the low-carb canned takes him.
 
I have made a mistake when looking at the Whiskas composition: I have forgotten to divide the carbonate content by the dry matter.
In fact, the carbohydrate content of the Terrines of Whiskas is around 18%, same as Orijen...
Tonight, I bought Friskies with a CHO content of less than 8%.
I will do my experiments during the weekend.
 
Capoo said:
I have made a mistake when looking at the Whiskas composition: I have forgotten to divide the carbonate content by the dry matter.
In fact, the carbohydrate content of the Terrines of Whiskas is around 18%, same as Orijen...
Tonight, I bought Friskies with a CHO content of less than 8%.
I will do my experiments during the weekend.
Click to expand...
The wet is still better than the dry for him though;) But that may in part explain the higher numbers.
 
When you want to transition to wet food, do you decrease the insulin dose before, or do you just "wait and see"?
I plan to give him wet food starting from tomorrow evening (I received my auto feeder yesterday evening).
I really hope that the "benefit" will occur during the week end, and not on Monday when I'm at the office.
 
Since Capoo is not seeing low/normal numbers on this dose, I wouldn't lower the insulin dose before switching foods. And good plan to do the change while you are around to monitor.
 
I think it's a great idea to do it over the weekend.

You could start making some gradual transition now - 50% wet, 50% dry. I'd guess it might take a day or more to get rid of the dry food carbs, but I am just guessing based upon what I've seen with a few other cats. You'll have to see what happens with Capoo.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top