Question: allergic response

I've been trying to figure out why River has gone so high in the last couple of days, and become really congested, and has vomited mucus. I think he may be having an allergic response to his food, which contains beef gelatin. I strongly suspect he is allergic to beef. So he's just going to get Wellness in chicken and turkey until this clears.

My question is, I just increased his insulin by .5 unit to 3.5 on Friday morning. Should I return him to 3? I am concerned that when he recovers from his allergic response he will crash. If that's in a couple of days, that will be when I am at work. I'm worried about this so I'm up at 3:30 AM wondering what to do. Thanks in advance!

I would leave the dose where it is. It's possible that there is an allergic response but you won't know that until you eliminate the beef from River's diet. It may also take a day or two (or more) for his system to calm down. You can always manage the numbers with food if you need to. It's better to not let River sit in higher numbers since you risk glucose toxicity developing (i.e., his system become "adjusted" to the higher numbers and regards them as the new normal).

In addition, I suspect that some of the higher numbers are due to his bouncing off of the green on 8/27. You may start to see the bounce clearing.

FYI: you might want to remove the 911. It's reserved for potentially life threatening emergencies.

Ok, good.

It's better to not let River sit in higher numbers since you risk glucose toxicity developing (i.e., his system become "adjusted" to the higher numbers and regards them as the new normal).

Click to expand...

Yes, exactly, that's why I added the note to yesterday's condo. He got out of 6 days of being in critical care at the hospital when he went into DKA a few weeks ago. It took every penny I had to afford the 5K vet bill.
Then he had a hypo. I'd like to avoid all this if possible, ever again.

I added the 911 because I had views but no replies. Too bad it's only for life-threatening emergencies. On the main forum there's two 911s that aren't life-threatening, so I'm not sure this rule is clear.

Sending tons of vines for River to feel better soon! Poor guy. IMHO, if you're up at 3:30 am worrying about him, then it's an emergency. I would have used the 911 icon too. It does tend to raise heart rates, though, so it's best to take it down once you have help. You have some tough questions, so I suspect that's why you had lots of views and no responses. Of course, Sienne gave her usual brilliant response.
Liz

Yes, I appreciate Sienne so much. She helps me so often, and what she said makes sense. And I hope it does to River's BG.

I was up for quite a while tossing and turning. Thank you Sienne and Liz for your help and caring.
Liz, what are vines? I see this used quite often, and keep making the mental association with Tarzan or virginia creepers.

You can always bump your thread up to the top of the list by adding a new post (even if the content is "bump"). Unfortunately, if it's busy or there are other people with more recent posts, a condo can get buried.

Health and Lantus are a bit different. It takes a while to figure out how this board operates. LL is usually busier than the Health board so we try to keep things relatively systematic. So, the 911 is for emergent health issues. For example, if River was having trouble breathing and you didn't know what to do, that would certainly be a 911. We also try to open only one condo per cat per day unless it's an issue that you don't think belongs in your kitty's condo.

You mentioned River recovered from a bout of DKA. Are you testing for ketones?

Apparently, "vines" was a typo from Jojo (a member who used to post often and was a vet tech) who wanted to send good vibes and it stuck. :lol:
Liz

Yes, Sienne, I am regularly testing for ketones, as they appear in my nightmares now!

I think that if I have another issue that I think is serious, I can tag it "please help" or something along those lines in the subject line.
Then it's greater than the question mark and less than 911. And the bump is helpful, if that's how folks prefer it to be done.

Liz, I love the vines. Typos are the best.
Recently, at work, we had a sorbet day. Someone asked when it was, and the organizer responded,
"I was the dessert in the cafeteria yesterday."

Hi, Lara(?)
I saw your comment in your previous condo about the bovine extracts in Allerplex and that you are wondering if they could make River's beef allergy worse. I worried about this with Rusty, too, because he is also allergic to beef. But he has had no allergic reactions to Allerplex. I asked my vet about this before we started on Allerplex and she said that taking something that contained bovine extracts is not the same as eating beef.

I hope you will get River's dose, etc. straightened out. Good luck with the calipers.

Ella & Rusty

Thanks Ella, that is great news. I'd be interested in hearing a bit more about Rusty's beef allergy, if you wouldn't mind, just to compare notes. I'm pretty sure that the underlying reason for River's diabetes/pancreatitis is that I caused it by feeding him a raw beef diet that he eventually became allergic to.

I use Solgar bone meal powder (derived primarily from cows, hm, I wonder what that means...) and beef gelatin in the raw food I now make, and I think his recent illness was a reaction to that. He's a lot better today, thank goodness.

Rusty's reaction to beef cat food was vomiting. We don't feed raw and we don't make our own cat food. Rusty had the "beef reaction" to Merrick Cowboy Cookout and FF tender beef classic paté. He is also allergic to fish and fish oil (bad coughing; as if his throat "closed up"). After discovering both of these allergic reactions, we simply do not feed anything containing beef or fish (fish is tricky, because many "chicken" cat foods list fish as one of the main ingredients). The fish oil he had the reaction to was a supplement in capsule form--pure fish oil. But I have noticed that cod-liver oil is very far down on the list of ingredients of NaturVet hairball gel, which Rusty gets every day and has no reaction to. Well, I guess it is all an experiment. :lol:

Good luck!!

Ella & Rusty