Oscar diabetic cat recently diagnosed with heart disease

I am a new poster. I have a seven year old cat named Oscar. He's been battling diabetes for about 1 1/2 years now. Recently his blood glucose levels started jumping all over the place. One minute it would be up above 440 and a few hours later it would drop to 35. Originally the vet said he may be going into remission and adjusted his insulin dosage. This went on for a couple of weeks. I would do a curve and the vet would adjust the dosage but we'd get the same outcome with his meter readings jumping all over the place. I took him in yesterday when he couldn't walk and didn't have enough energy to hold his head up to eat. The vet heard a heart murmur and did an x-ray. The diagnosis was that he has heart disease. His potassium is also low and his kidneys are not functioning at the level that they would like to see. I was told that it would be best to put him to sleep. I don't want him to suffer so we are considering it but I would like to know if anyone else has ever ran into this situation and if there is any way possible the two major issues could be addressed (diabetes and heart disease) and possibly managed to get him back to good health. Thank you for your help.

 

Hi Oscar's Mom. I have no advice, but wanted to welcome you and give you and your sweet Oscar a big cyber hug. :YMHUG: I can imagine how scared you are.

 

Hi Oscarkitty

I'm sorry Oscar isn't doing well. Can you get a second opinion? Is there another vet in your area that you trust, or do you live near a specialty/referral center where you can see an internist? Or a feline-only vet, maybe? He may be weak from the potassium and he needs to have that addressed ASAP. Dehydration and too much urination from the diabetes can cause low potassium.

Chest x-rays can be unreliable in terms of diagnosing heart disease. If you can get to a specialty hospital with a cardiologist on staff, that would be ideal. You can look for specialists by doing a search at acvim.org .

 

Hi folks,

I can't advise you on heart disease but I can tell you that Jess, who answered you just above, is a veteran vet tech at the emergency and specialty hospital I use. The value of a second opinion is often underestimated. In my experience that second set of eyes makes all the difference. Good luck to you!

 

Hi,
And welcome

My kitty Tananda also has heart disease, and she is the second cat I am dealing with that has Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy. Unfortunatly an x-ray is not reliable, it basically shows kitty has a heart with an abnormality. Kitty should be seen be a cardiolegist (pardon my spelling), and have an echocardiogram performed. A little pricey, but this will give a much more accurate picture, and greatly assist in diagnosis and treatment. Many cats respond well to Atenenol (a human medication) and or Enalipril. My cat Mishap was on both as well baby asprin, and she survived for 13 years with this condition.

Good Luck and keep us postsed.

Terri

 

Please take Oscar to a board certified cardiologist. They are the only ones that can do an ECG and echocardiogram and tell you exactly what is going on with his heart. Maybe just a murmur, maybe HCM, or RCM, etc. and there are many meds that help the heart. Hope actually went off needing insulin and her internal specialist heard a weird beat so we went to the cardiologist. She has restrictive cardiomyopathy and is doing fantastic....... 3 years later. Don't let any vet that is not specialized in the heart tell you there is nothing you can do. I would also get that potassium level taken care of.......cats with low levels of potassium actually will have their head tucked down almost like a stallion would do.....they just cannot keep the head up. Oscar is young and has so many years ahead of him if treated by specialists.

 

I'd like to address the potassium problem. I adopted a cat with a severe potassium level. It would take 4 scoops of potassium supplement to get him so he could hold his head up or even turn it back and forth. It took him about 3 days of supplementation before I saw an improvement. While you seek a second opinion, ask for the powdered potassium supplement from your vet and start treatment. It made a world of difference in Batley's quality of life (qol).

 

Slight tangent here ...

FOr anyone's future reference, severe potassium deficiency is often paired with low magnesium ... Magnesium isn't in most blood chemistry tests so it goes undiagnosed if deficient. If your animal has low potassium and the vet says it is not going up despite reasonable supplementation, ask about supplementing magnesium. (These cases will be few and far between, as animals should get magnesium from their food, but if they have a prolonged illness with inappetence this may occur.)

PS Dale I'm not saying this in reference to your kitty specifically, just throwing the info out there since it's an important thing to keep in the back of one's mind when dealing with hypokalemia.

 

You bring up good points. Does it work the other way around? If your kitty has low magnesium, do they probably have low potassium too? Would diabetes in general cause initial low magnesium readings?

 

No, not necessarily. Generally speaking, endocrine disorders and other major sources of electrolyte derangement can cause potassium, phosphorous, and magnesium abnormalities but not always in strict relation to each other, if that makes sense.

The only study on magnesium and diabetes that I know of was done in dogs, and there was no correlation. THere was some magnesium wonkiness in dogs with DKA, but not in "DK" dogs. The metabolic acidosis often causes a range of issues.

Overall I wouldn't worry about magnesium levels unless my cat had refractory (hard to correct) hypokalemia (low potassium) or a disease that caused calcium issues, since a lot of magnesium is stored in bone.