Oslo's diagnosis with questions

Hi all,
Our dear 6-year-old cat Oslo was diagnosed with diabetes in early June. Since then, we've switched from dried food to canned (Friskies pate, 1 can a.m./1 can p.m.), started him on Novolin (starting at 2 units) with a dosage increase to 3 units (no change in glucose levels), then switched to Lantus (2 units). He is still his normal, playful, affectionate self, but his appetite is out of control - he wants food pretty much all the time (he's down to 9 pounds and needs to gain weight, but it doesn't seem to be happening no matter the amount of food). We do periodic curves at home using the AlphaTrak2 meter, and they've all been kind of crazy...either high numbers throughout the day or starting low/normal at fasting, then rising to 500+ by the day's end. At first diagnosis in June, the vet also detected an UTI and Oslo did two rounds of antibiotics (amoxicillan) for that. At a re-check afterwards, bacteria was still present in his urine so they did another round of antibiotics. Oslo was in last week for another recheck...vet still saw some bacteria in urine so ordered a culture. The culture came back with nothing growing, but the vet wants to do another 2 week round of antibiotics since there was some bacteria present in the office (even though lab culture showed nothing). This will be the fourth round of antibiotics in 3 months....is this normal? Does it usually take several months to regulate a cat? What else can we do to regulate him?
Thanks for your time!
Susan

 

Hello and welcome. Glad you are home testing. Is the vet giving the same antibiotic each time?

As far as regulating. There is no time table. Infection will cause blood glucose to be elevated. It does sound from your post that Oslo is bouncing. That is when his blood level drops to what Oslo's body perceives as being to low because it is not use to it. So the body shoots the blood level back up. This is a normal part of the 'sugar dance'. There are a lot of informational readings throughout this site. Read on and ask your questions.

 

Welcome Susan,
My moms cat recently had a swollen mouth so her vet gave her antibiitics. Poor little cat had 3 rounds of antibiotics which didn't do much at all for her. My mom ended up having to take her in for a dental cleaning as her gums were bad.
I think that vets tend to give out far too many antibotics these days too quickly.
This is a great community of folks on here and they will walk with you every step of the way.

 

Welcome Susan and Oslo!
Come on over to Main Health with your questions so more eyes can see it and chime in

 

Thank you all for your welcome and replies. Woodsywife, the first two rounds of antibiotics were amoxicillin, and the third was zeniquin (I asked to try a different once since amoxicillin didn't see, to do much to help). Lisa, I was also wondering if the vet was prescribing too many rounds of antibiotics too quickly. Yong, I'm going to head over to Main Health right now and repost these questions. Thanks again!