Mister Mistopheles - 19yo, Diabetes, CKD, Thyroid, Arthritis

Hey Everyone!
So much has happened in the last 8 weeks that it's hard to remember exactly when things happened. So, I'll do my best to recall everything accurately.

Mister has had thyroid problems for many many years. Managed by c/d dry kibble and pills. It has gotten slowly worse as he has gotten older. But our vet expected that as it is a progressive disease.

Approximately April 12, 2016 I took him into the vet because I thought had lost a bit of weight. He in fact had. He lost approximately 3 pounds in less than 3 months. The blood work in regards to his thyroid looked normal but they would send out his blood work to check on everything else. The next day, they called and said 'His kidney values are really elevated. Bring him in this morning and we will do an ultrasound". After the ultrasound the diagnosed him with a kidney infection and/or kidney failure as well as dehydration. They hospitalized him for 3 days with antibiotics and IV fluids. We got to bring him home on April 15th with the instructions of continue to give him antibiotics twice a day, change his food to k/d or NF (kidney special diet), encourage him to drink as much as possible.

For the next few weeks, I had some medical issues and made multiple trips out of town. We did our best to make sure he got his medication and supervised him as much as possible.

April 29, 2016 -- Took Mister in for a check up. His weight was almost stable. We decided to try to find a food that was yummy and would increase his weight.

May 1, 2016 -- Mister started falling over. His back legs started giving out and he looked like he was dizzy.

May 2, 2016 -- At the vet appointment the kidney values were almost the same as they were before. No improvement, but not worse. They checked blood pressure, normal. Thinking the back legs giving out could be small blood clots or possibly arthritis. Started giving him gabapentin.

It seemed to be working. His legs sorta stopped falling out from under him and he seemed to not be so dizzy any more. But overall we felt his health was 'not great'. He was still a little stumbly...

May 25, 2016 -- Took Mister to the vet because he was acting weird. I was worried he was "head pressing". The vet took his blood. The kidney values seemed to be a little worse, but not significantly so. He had gained .8 pounds in 3 weeks. But his glucose was off the charts! It was over 600! The vet we saw had only met Mister once before and was not our normal vet. She didn't want to change anything about his medication until she conferenced with the other vets on staff who were more familiar with Mister's health history.

At this point we got really worried that we wouldn't have him around for many more days.

By May 28, 2016 -- the vet had still not called back with a treatment plan or more information. Husband called and insisted they do something right away. Luckily our normal vet was in that day. We brought Mister in to the vet in the morning. They dosed him with 1 unit of Prozinc. Monitored him for 6 hours. Then sent us home with the treatment of 1 unit every 12 hours.

We had officially become Diabetic Cat Parents!​

We were so worried that we would lose him any day that we asked our neighbor to have a photo shoot with him... Beautiful pictures I will treasure forever!

So to recap --- Mister is now on 1 unit of Prozinc twice daily, antibiotics twice daily, thyroid pills twice daily, and gabapentin once daily... his legs stop falling out from underneath him.

June 2, 2016 -- The blood glucose curve done at the vet's office was a bust. His BG levels were above 600 the entire time. Increase dose to 2 units every 12 hours. His weight is being maintained. We purchase a BG meter kit online and it is going to be delivered.

June 4, 2016 -- We do enough research and decide to make a drastic change in his food. We remove the dry food, and replace it with diabetic friendly Fancy Feast and Weruva. Blood glucose readings for the day are 571 at 3 am, 521 @ 8 am pre shot, 462 at 1 pm, 363 (preshot pm). We are encouraged by the change in readings.

About this time, I get worried about his kidneys. I know we are balancing two very opposing diagnoses and treatments. I really feel the need to see how his kidneys are doing because I get the feeling the kidneys are more of a concern than the blood glucose. I call the vet and ask for a checkup.

June 6, 2016 -- We go back in for a checkup. The doctor does bloodwork. Is encouraged by his weight gain / maintenance. The kidney values are Creatinine - 7.8 ; BUN 105; Phosphorus 4.1. She really insists that the kidneys are more important to treat. The plan is to give him kidney food because she called his kidney problems Advanced. So, after hard discussion hubby and I decide to do mostly kidney food and give the insulin more time to work.

June 8, 2016 -- I call the vet again because Mister is almost refusing to eat the kidney diet. I need advice on what to do. We are having a hard time emotionally deciding what to do. I talk to a more experienced vet. She suggests that "Any food is better than no food", "you should do a blood glucose curve at home", "we should start him on fluids". So we go in that morning for a tech appointment. They start him on 100 ml fluids daily. The vet is really surprised that the other vet started him on such a low dose of insulin. She wants us to do a blood glucose curve, probably increase the insulin. And she agrees that the kidneys should probably be controlled by diet and do the best we can with controlling his BG with insulin.

June 9, 2016 -- The fluids at home are fine. Our kitty is a lion and he is taking it like a champ.

June 9, 2016 -- We do a blood glucose curve at home.

June 10, 2016 -- We are doing everything we can to get this cat to eat wet kidney food. Tricks include heating the food up, mixing the food with other types of kidney and diabetic food, mashing up dry kibble and putting it on top like a crunchy crust.

June 10, 2016 -- Vet calls and increased his dose to 3 units twice daily.

As of June 14, 2016 -- His BG levels seem to continue decreasing. Today we gave him 1.5 units at nighttime instead of 3 because his BG was 145. We are scared about his BG being so low and giving him 3 units. Tomorrow he has his follow up renal ultrasound. Today on the phone I asked them to add on a full CBC, Nutritional Panel, Chemistry, T4, Urinalysis, and asked them to send the blood out to get a SDMA.

So... That's where we are! Crazy as ever. Most of our friends thought we were crazy at first to be doing this for a pet.... But they all have children and we don't. Our cats are our children for now. When you adopt a pet, no matter what age, you are in it for the long haul. Mister Mistopheles has been in my husband's life longer than I have. He is approximately 93 years old in human years. He deserves this level of respect, care and love.

We know that our time might be short with Mister. We are treasuring every minute we have with him and intend to help the remainder of his days to be healthy, hydrated, and happy.

His BG chart is here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19IL1nsnIIX2LEjAHaWjxN0owvE3rNGuAH1nCyrWvpbs/edit?usp=sharing
Email is: hyperjma@gmail.com
Facebook is: www.facebook.com/hyperjma

Photo 1 -- Family Picture (partial). We have a second cat and we are working on finding a safe way to have them both outside for a photo shoot.




Photo 2 -- Mister Mistopheles listening to the birds and enjoying the sun while we garden outside.


Photo 3 -- I thought it might be cute to take picture of Mister Mistopheles in a basket. So I added catnip and he loved it! I only wish he loved the basket when we were outside for our photo shoot. LOL. Look at that face!

 

Welcome to the FDMB Jess and Mister Mistopheles!! Glad to see you made it over here from the Facebook group!!

Great first post with lots of great info! We have lots of cats here with dual diagnosis of diabetes and CKD so you're in the right place!!

I know you've already gotten lots of great information from the group, so I'm going to ask you to go ahead and do some of the "housekeeping" here by putting some information into your Signature.

Go to the top right where you'll see your sign on name and there will be a drop down menu ....choose "Signature" and a new box will pop up. Put info like Your name/cats name, age, sex, date of diagnosis, type of insulin, type of meter, type of food, along with any other health problems (and maybe your general location if you like)

You'd also put the link to your spreadsheet in the signature.....that way anytime you need help, we can easily check your spreadsheet!

This is the "Introduction" part of the forum and since I know you already know a lot, I'd suggest when you get your signature box filled out, you might want to post on the Health forum or even move over to the ProZinc Forum.....everyone on the ProZinc forum knows your insulin well and you'll get lots of experienced eyes there (but that forum can be a little slow, so I'd start on Health tonight)

In your first post (on either forum) put the link to this post in the message so you don't have to repeat everything!

We're not supposed to get into a lot of "health issues" here on the Introduction forum, so please go ahead and post over in the Health forum so we can get you started!!

 

LOL! Can you tell I'm a little OCD about keeping records? ;-)