? 5/6 Chicamonkey +11.5 65

Anyone awake??
Chicamonkey is 65 and 67 (recheck), on a human meter at amps.
She is acting totally fine. Laying here with me purring and grooming herself.
She’s currently on 5.5 levemir.
I did just give her some ff pate and she is now at 78 .
I’ll keep checking her numbers... she’s been reduced in dose 3 times now. She was up to 7 units.
Dx acro/IAA in February 188 and 80% respectively.

 

Wow. I can’t believe how low Monkey is going. What did you shoot? Or did you? I’m sure that you were heading off to work today so that’s such a worry.

 

I would definitely have left her some high carb food to eat if I had to leave the house!

 

Oh, and I think you probably would have gotten a reply this morning if you had posted this over on the Lantus/Levemir forum. Lots of eyes on that forum but not as many over here except those of us with Acromegaly or IAA cats.

 

And without a spreadsheet, we can't give concrete help. Levemir gives later nadirs, it wasn't uncommon for me to give insulin in those numbers, but it depends on many things, hence the spreadsheet to guide us.

 

I would have but how many people on the regular forum have experience with acros?
I wasn’t sure.
I’ve learned that acros have a functional pancreas and can spontaneously not need insulin or not need as much.
With her rising , 101 from 65 2 hours after normal shot time without insulin and knowing nadirs are later with levemir, I felt safe giving her 2units. Especially because I knew I’d be home by 3pm or +8 in her cycle . I got home and her + 8 was 134.
She’s acting great , purring preening.....
so now I’ll see how she does .... and we will go from there.... whew.

 

See my note below. I know I’m getting that ss up again soon I promise!!! Thank you @Wendy&Neko

 

heres what I have so far , it’s just a snap shot but I’ll have it up and running soon

 

I pretty much followed TR for Neko. The only difference is that after SRT treatment, I raised the reduction point to 70, and lowered it back to 50 when the fast reductions were over. I didn't follow the "long term diabetic" rule of reducing at under 40. When Neko went under 50, she held her reductions. But that's something I figured out with experimentation with my cat. Knowing thy cat is even more important with a cat with acromegaly and IAA. There are a few people on the LBL forum with IAA/acro experience, but you don't really need that. Someone who knows TR could have helped you.

That "can spontaneously not need insulin or not need as much" is garbage, just not true. Yes their dose needs can go down, but they don't just drop down to nothing, especially if there has been no treatment, as in Chicamonkey's case. It's a more gradual drop. The only cats I've seen dose dive otherwise had cancer. Plus not all acros have a functioning pancreas, just some do.

Let us know if you need help with that spreadsheet. We have people who can help. That screen shot is too small and fuzzy for me.

 

Please help me understand your response.

thank you, I appreciate that but I just need to finish entering data .
The other thing I’ve learned is that acromegaly combined with IAA.... plays by its own rules . Which is why it’s so *interesting, especially when you can’t afford treatment. I envy those that can.
Monkey will go for a check up and bloodwork in a few months and I do have a consult at UF with dr Gilor coming up as well.
There have been instances of cats not needing insulin , according to dr refsal at MSU and sometimes it is because of cancer. ECID.
And this is becoming more prevalent (Acro/IAA/HST).... as more people are trying to gain knowledge for the understanding of disease processes .
As I’m finding though, even the experts can be perplexed at times.

 

In my case, I have been “thinking” that my Darcy’s pancreas works at least on some level. With Cabergoline (which isn’t really very expensive by the way - mine averages out to less than $50 per month) he is now able to respond better to the insulin that I give him as well as the insulin that I think he is producing. Now that I have him in much better numbers on much less insulin, hopefully his pancreas can continue to heal. I’ve been speculating that his pancreas must have been pretty stressed by all the excess growth hormone in his body while his pancreas kept trying to dump insulin to reduce blood glucose. But he couldn’t use the insulin. Now, I see that his numbers aren’t greatly affected by high carb food. Even with karo syrup I only see about a 10 point increase these days (last year I saw a bigger jump after both high carb food and karo). Looking back over time, I see that he must have been struggling with this tumor for a long time but was compensating for it. Because of COVID and my husband setting up an office where Darcy spent a lot of time hanging out during the day, he started noticing that Darcy was not doing well. I started noticing his greasy fur and the water drinking too. Anyway, I am going on too long. I am so happy that Chicamonkey is doing so well. Looks like yesterday ended up being a good day for her. I hope things have slowed down at work and some of the snowbirds have flown back up north!

 

What questions do you have? Neko also had IAA and acromegaly. I followed the Tight Regulation protocol for dosing with just a couple small changes as described. Since I started here, there have been dozens (at least) of acros follow Tight Regulation.

We have had more than one cat with IAA and acromegaly see improvements with cabergoline. As Suzanne says, it's not expensive. Take a look at Darcy's spreadsheet, you'll be amazed.

We had one cat, Lily, go from over 50 units down down to OTJ, but it was gradual over time. Plus there have been a few cases of cats that were on insulin, went OTJ after just getting to a few units (and not high enough for us to suggest testing), then out of remission and test positive for acromegaly. Were they acro the first time? Who knows as testing wasn't done then, but given that there are acros on just a few units, it's possible the tumour pulsed down for a while, then back up. IAA is easier as it's more predictable. In the literature there are also cases of non diabetic cats with acromegaly. Diabetes is thought to be a later stage symptom.

How carb sensitive a cat is really depends on the cat. Even with "regular" diabetics, the same is true. I don't think it has anything to do with acromegaly, as I've seen both carb sensitive and not carb sensitive acros.