Esme, queen of health issues. Diabetic for four months, IMHA for 2.5 years

Hi all.
Somewhat unconventional diabetic baby here. Esme, 6 year old domestic shorthair rescue and the sweetest thing ever. She was diagnosed with Immune Mediated Hemolytic Anemia two and a half years ago, was put on steroid treatment to reduce her immune response, this included Prednisolone along with Cyclosporine. Fast forward to two years later, and she started drinking excessively and developed bulging, painful corneas. We are pretty sure the Cyclosporine caused both the diabetes and the Bullous Keratopathy in both eyes. Two months of weaning her off the meds, putting her on new ones, starting insulin therapy, and having her third eyelids stitched closed as a living bandage (and two months of mommy sleeping on an air mattress to monitor her), and she's back to normal for her (her eyes are okay!). The vet who handled the meds change is also hopeful she has a chance at going into remission since her diabetes was possibly drug-related.

Sadly, I did not receive advisement to start home monitoring, so I have only started today after an instance where we think she was mildly to moderately hypo. So we start a new adventure with the ReliOn micro!

Thanks so much everyone contributing here, pouring through this site has been a huge help!

 

Welcome! I am glad her eyes recovered, poor thing. Good thing you started testing, those numbers went pretty low. Why kind of insulin is she on?

 

She certainly gave me a scare last night. Just poked her at +8 and it's at 128, so I feel a lot better.

She's on ProZinc at two units twice a day.

We also drew blood yesterday to get her IMHA related values and her Fructosamine, Liver and Kidney values, just waiting on those results to come back! (hopefully today)

 

You may want to add the insulin type to your signature.

 

Good morning and welcome. That's quite a story. I am so glad Esme's eyes are healed. It's terrific that you have already created your spreadsheet and signature. I look forward to following Esme's progress.

 

Just heard back about Esme's lab results and her Fructosamine was 200, so we're gonna start scaling her insulin back. This is a good thing! We'll also be doing urine strips since we use a non-absorbent litter system with a tray for urine collection anyways.

 

Hi There!

I am glad to hear her eyes healed. I am assuming that there is no indication of her going into remission for her IMHA? My drooler had IMHA, 7 months of meds and anxious moments and she ended up going off all meds and it never returned!

 

Actually, there is hope for remission. The new internist that saw her back in February and adjusted her meds has hope that the new meds (specifically Chlorambucil) may help to force it back to remission. And today's lab report lends some credence to that, as her RBC was the highest we've ever seen since this whole mess started.

 

That is great to hear! I was always anxious during the blood tests....she had to have a transfusion and her PCV was 8% should be 30%.

Vines for a recovery in the near future.