Last thread: https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB...-1-404-2-370-3-365-4-339.253086/#post-2854813 Harvey is currently in his sixth cycle of 8 units, so we go to 8.5 tonight. I almost took him to 8.5 last night two cycles early. I'm just so frustrated by the lack of downward movement in his numbers.
I recall somebody posting on one of my earlier posts, maybe when we were going up from 5 units, about whether it would be safe to go up in whole units given that we are dealing with larger numbers now. Is that a thing? Would going to 9 units tonight instead of 8.5 be unreasonable?
Between 5U and 10U, increases and decreases are in multiples of 0.5U. Over 10U, they're in multiples of 1U. Let me tag @Wendy&Neko about whether you can increase every 4 cycles rather than 6 cycles, given his numbers.
Thank you, I appreciate it. Also, I have to be honest--I feel like we are coming to the end. I don't think he has much quality of life, and we've been at this for over 2 months now. I just don't know how much longer I can watch him like this. At the same time though, we aren't in any greater crisis right now than we were at the beginning. It's more a matter of the cumulative effects of having him be like this for so long. It's just super hard to make that call.
Believe me, I know how you feel! We kept wondering what we were doing with Bandit for the first few months. Whether we were doing the right thing by treating her - she seemed miserable - sleeping all the time and the neuropathy affecting her movement. But we are glad we persevered - she took her time, but she got back to her old self once she consistently started seeing lower numbers. I understand that no two circumstances are the same, but just wanted to say that it can take a little time and to hang in there!
I remember that it took her neuropathy almost 6 months to resolve. Neuropathy was the last symptom to go. I don't remember how long before that she started feeling better in general. The excess urination, thirst and hunger were resolved much earlier.
It's odd. Of excess urination, thirst, and hunger, the only one I really see in Harvey is hunger. He has remained an enthusiastic eater for the most part, although sometimes he gets tired halfway through and goes back to bed. We just move his plate into his bed, and he generally finishes it off there. I had a cat who spent a couple years in chronic kidney failure though, and I remember the constant thirst (we wound up getting him a fountain because any time you turned on a sink, there was Eddie!) and huge balls of clumping litter. I haven't really seen that with Harvey. Mostly it's the way he walks and his chronic exhaustion. This is from yesterday. Whenever possible he likes to stay right up against a wall when he walks. And I've noticed he often lies down in the litterbox after he pees, like he's trying to get it together enough to make it back to bed.
Bandit had begun to hold her pee in so that she didn't have to walk to the litterbox multiple times. We would carry her and deposit her in the litter box so she could go.
Harvey was doing that. We normally kept our litterbox in the laundry room in the basement, but he has staked out being underneath our dining room table on the main floor as his preferred place. So he was just going down once a day and peeing his little heart out. Since we moved the litterbox to the bathroom on the main floor, he's going like he always did.
Getting to better numbers makes a huge difference in how they feel. I wish we had the results of the acro/IAA testing already to help guide the dosing, but at 8/8.5 units, and looking at the video, I can guess something is up besides his BG's. Although we'd normally say go up by 0.5 units at a time, I think it'd be safe to try 9.0 units this time. Note for any lurkers, this is only for Bonnie and Harvey with special circumstances.
Last night my husband and I made the difficult decision to let Harvey go. I picked him up to take pictures with him, and he squawked like he was in pain. In looking through other photos to post to Facebook later, I could really see the stark changes in him over the past few months. I have so many pictures of him hanging out with us watching TV at night, and somewhere along the way he stopped doing that. My vet came at 9:00 this morning. It was very peaceful; he didn't even have to get out of bed. She gave him a shot to sedate him, and we all sat on the floor around him, petting him and telling him what a good kitty he was. She gave that 15 minutes or so to put him in a deep sleep before administering the euthanasia shot. I feel totally wrung out, but I think it was the right thing to do for him. Thank you all so much for sharing your experiences and expertise with me. I have so appreciated the support I've felt here as we have tried to get his diabetes under control.
Bonnie, I am very very sorry for your loss. I am sure it must not have been an easy decision to make. One can only take comfort in knowing that he was peaceful at the end and is flying free of pain.
Thank you. It was really hard, but I feel like we tried our best and had to set him free. I went home to my parents for a couple weeks afterwards and seeing their 5 healthy cats really brought out the contrast for me as to just how miserable he had been in those last weeks.
