Young cat with steroid-induced diabetes

My five year old cat suffers from eosinophilic granuloma complex that she was diagnosed with at 3 months old. Since about 6 months old she has been controlled with low doses of prednisolone. She has been on and off prednisolone since that time, just about 5 years now. In April I noticed she started losing weight and took her in for blood work. Of course, the full panel showed that the thyroid was perfectly functioning, kidney function was normal, and even her blood glucose was 91. I estimated that she had lost at least a half a pound at that point.
For unrelated issues, she was in and out of the vet in May and June and her weight continued to decrease. Her blood glucose remained in the low 100s until our last visit on July 18th (after losing 3 pounds in 5 months). We have since discontinued the prednisolone (obviously) and no longer intend to treat her granuloma complex with a steroid but with an LID. She has grown up on Hill's WD because she has an older sister with fiber responsive IBD. Upon dx, we initially switched her diet to Hill's DD duck but because of the high carbs we are transitioning now to Nature's Variety limited ingredient diet canned duck food. It is 1% carb DM. I'm looking for some insight from others that have had young steroid-induced diabetic cats. I've heard that it is harder to get these patients into remission.

(I think I forgot to mention that I am also a veterinary technician in New York state currently working out of the profession. I have a glucometer at home, we've started Lantus (dosages are varying right now) and I have a scheduled feeder).

 

Hi and welcome!!

Since you are using Lantus, I think you will find this information very useful http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/the-basics-new-to-the-group-start-here.18139/

For Lantus to work properly and give you better results, you need to have consistency, and keep the same dose AM and PM for at least 3 days unless he goes under 90 (on human meter) then you reduce the dose in 0.25 units .

Here we use two protocols when using Lantus, you may want to take a look at each one and see which works better for you Tight Regulation (http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/tight-regulation-protocol-tr.1581/) or Start Low go slow (http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/start-low-go-slow-method-slgs.129446/)