Laura and Quincy
Active Member
Since 98 is close to blue, I decided to stick with 0.10 for this morning. Quincy did a really good job clearing out the stress from yesterday's vet visit. Seems like all has been forgiven. I hope his blood and urine work comes back normal, for many reasons of course, but in part so we can avoid going back sooner than 3 months from now. I had noticed Quincy was urinating more - not so much more often but just greater volume. I'm hoping it's because I've been mixing water into his food to make it soupy and slow him down.
So, on to the vet report. Quincy weighed in at 12.6 pounds, just 0.2 pounds less than 3 months ago. While he probably could stand to lose a pound or so, I was glad to see him hold steady since his last visit given all the vomiting and BM problems he had, esp. in Nov and Dec. My vet was very pleased with Quincy's progress on the diabetes front. When I said he was down to 0.10, he said that was next to nothing. To which I replied, maybe so, but it got him down to 36 3 hours after his evening shot on Mon night. Especially given then, my vet encouraged me to do an OTJ trial. He thinks it's ok to stop the insulin now. I don't think the OTJ trial practice of testing AM and PM for 14 days occurred to him, but when I told him, he though it was a good idea. But as I've discussed over the last couple of days, I think I'm going to do one more dose shave, to whatever's less than 0.10 ("some" insulin or just a couple drops) to see if Quincy's AMPS numbers will hit green more often before going into a bonafide OTJ trial. I asked my vet if he had other cats on lantus that had experienced remission, and he said about 20% of them do. He said no one does the home testing that I do, though. I left Quincy's BG log with him. Maybe my experience with Quincy will influence him to suggest hometesting to his other clients. I suspect a lot of them aren't willing to do it, so he just keeps their animals at a higher BG level for their safety.
We spent more time discussing Quincy's lymphoma. Given his improvement over the past month (i.e., fewer GI problems - anti-jinx!) we tentatively decided to sit tight for now and stick with MWF leukeran dosing. We talked about budenoside again, including how powerful it is, that the more inflammation there is the more likely absorption is, and the possibility that if Quincy goes on it, it might derail his potential for diabetes remission. I explained that I didn't want to push Quincy onto such a strong drug if it could do more harm than good, but was fearful to do nothing more if it was warranted. We also discussed cyclosporine as a complement to the leukeran, and I asked him about B-12 injections too. He said he usually goes with B-12 injections when there are bowel issues, but we did see some of that recently. He also mentioned that the B-12 and B-complex injections sting, which could present a problem with Quincy, who really fights with the vet staff there for blood and urine draws. I didn't think they were a daily thing, though. We decided to test his cobalamin and folate levels along with doing the regular full panel blood work. So by next week I should know if B-12 deficiency is an issue for him. They also are doing urinanalysis and a urine culture - the whole nine yards.
Hopefully Quincy will get a clean bill of health (well, at least no new issues!), and the next three months will be good for him. I know if I can get him off insulin and keep his vomiting at a minimum, they will be VERY good for me. And Quincy overall seems very happy, such a good boy.
Yesterday
So, on to the vet report. Quincy weighed in at 12.6 pounds, just 0.2 pounds less than 3 months ago. While he probably could stand to lose a pound or so, I was glad to see him hold steady since his last visit given all the vomiting and BM problems he had, esp. in Nov and Dec. My vet was very pleased with Quincy's progress on the diabetes front. When I said he was down to 0.10, he said that was next to nothing. To which I replied, maybe so, but it got him down to 36 3 hours after his evening shot on Mon night. Especially given then, my vet encouraged me to do an OTJ trial. He thinks it's ok to stop the insulin now. I don't think the OTJ trial practice of testing AM and PM for 14 days occurred to him, but when I told him, he though it was a good idea. But as I've discussed over the last couple of days, I think I'm going to do one more dose shave, to whatever's less than 0.10 ("some" insulin or just a couple drops) to see if Quincy's AMPS numbers will hit green more often before going into a bonafide OTJ trial. I asked my vet if he had other cats on lantus that had experienced remission, and he said about 20% of them do. He said no one does the home testing that I do, though. I left Quincy's BG log with him. Maybe my experience with Quincy will influence him to suggest hometesting to his other clients. I suspect a lot of them aren't willing to do it, so he just keeps their animals at a higher BG level for their safety.
We spent more time discussing Quincy's lymphoma. Given his improvement over the past month (i.e., fewer GI problems - anti-jinx!) we tentatively decided to sit tight for now and stick with MWF leukeran dosing. We talked about budenoside again, including how powerful it is, that the more inflammation there is the more likely absorption is, and the possibility that if Quincy goes on it, it might derail his potential for diabetes remission. I explained that I didn't want to push Quincy onto such a strong drug if it could do more harm than good, but was fearful to do nothing more if it was warranted. We also discussed cyclosporine as a complement to the leukeran, and I asked him about B-12 injections too. He said he usually goes with B-12 injections when there are bowel issues, but we did see some of that recently. He also mentioned that the B-12 and B-complex injections sting, which could present a problem with Quincy, who really fights with the vet staff there for blood and urine draws. I didn't think they were a daily thing, though. We decided to test his cobalamin and folate levels along with doing the regular full panel blood work. So by next week I should know if B-12 deficiency is an issue for him. They also are doing urinanalysis and a urine culture - the whole nine yards.
Hopefully Quincy will get a clean bill of health (well, at least no new issues!), and the next three months will be good for him. I know if I can get him off insulin and keep his vomiting at a minimum, they will be VERY good for me. And Quincy overall seems very happy, such a good boy.
Yesterday
