Hey, So it's been a while since I last posted, but wanted to provide an update as it might be helpful to other owners whose cat was having similar issues. So when Crockett was first diagnosed and we started administering caninsulin, he quite quickly developed diabetic neuropathy with the classic rabbit feet - he had trouble walking on slippy surfaces and sat like a rabbit while eating. We were told by the vet that it was irreversible......we were also told that it was not advisable to test his BG at home. I'm glad I never listened to the vet. One of the issues we had was that both our cats had been brought up on dry food and trying to convert them to wet food in the past had never worked. On top of this, once he started caninsulin, he started getting constant diarrhoea and that combined with his neuropathy (and the fact that he is long haired) meant that he was constantly stepping through his diarrhoea and traipsing it around the house......it was an absolute nightmare, especially since we had to keep bathing him because he would get it on his fur - he hated it just as much as we did. So, we bought a human glucometer - the one I use (in the UK) is the Freestyle Insulink - I have to say, I am extremely lucky that I have access to a ton of free test strips because my dad is diabetic and here in Scotland, he gets them on prescription for free!!! We also started giving him wet food (both cats now love wet food) and we started testing him right away to make sure he had just the right amount of caninsulin to keep him well regulated and for 1.5 years now, that magic number has always been 2.5 units. Having the glucometer is amazing - it stops you from having to guess....but more importantly, it saves you costly visits to the vet. We took the advice on this board, to start giving Crockett a daily dose of Methyl B12. Now Crocketts neuropathy was advanced, his legs were fully flat. Within 3 or 4 weeks, we did start to notice a difference and I would say about 12 weeks in, he was fully cured! His legs have returned to 100% normal and he walks no problem at all. We also started giving him a probiotic every day and sure enough, within a few days his diarrhoea had cleared up entirely and even though he only had the probiotic for a few months (I think there must have been a taste to it because he stopped eating his food with it mixed in), he still hasn't had diarrhoea since. So everything was going great until last Sunday - he started walking around like he couldn't see and we thought he'd went blind. Long story short, he was having his first hypo!!! After a panic and giving him plenty of honey we took him to the vets and they gave him a shot of glucose mixed with saline and brought his BG right back up. When we tested him at home before we gave him the honey, his BG was down at 2.0mmol. He hadn't missed a meal or vomitted, or anything would explain a seriously low BG reading. So this week we dropped his dose to 0.5 units from 2.5 (because we weren't in the house all day to do a proper curve). Today however, we have been doing a curve - we gave him 2.0 units and as it stands it dropped right down to 1.8 within a couple of hours so we have given him a healthy dose of honey and its starting to rise again. We don't know if he is starting to go into remission, we will need to do a lot more curves over the following weeks to figure out exactly what is going on, but he certainly no longer requires such a large dose. Anyway, I just wanted to provide an update, because I know there will probably be someone else out there with a cat with similar symptoms who might benefit from our experiences. Fingers crossed Crockett is heading for remission - that would great!
It's great that his neuropathy is gone! However ... Those lime greens tell you that the 2 u dose is too high for him at this point in time. Thank heavens you're testing him at home! I would drop the dose to 1.5 u immediately and make a point of setting up a daily testing routine. If his insulin need is reducing quickly you need to see data to keep him safe. That means an AM and PM pre shot BG test every day and at least one test in the +4 to +6 range as well as before bed. A severe hypo can be life threatening.
Thanks Yes, as soon as we saw the low readings, we pumped him full of honey. We started another curve today and have dropped him to 1.0 unit (we didn't give him any insulin last night because his last reading was already lower than normal) - his BG levels today are much better. We will make sure to keep test him daily - hopefully he is heading for remission!
I'm very glad you dropped the dose even lower than what I recommended. So far his BGs today are excellent.
