cat update
Chris has posted about this, but here's an update for anyone who doesn't also read his journal and is following the saga of my diabetic kitty. Gateway's appetite came back with a vengeance over the weekend, he's been shovelling down the food nearly as fast as we put it out for him for a few days. Chris finally found a glucose meter that required a small enough amount of blood that we could use it on the cat and took a measurement last night. It was around 70-72, more than twelve hours after his insulin injection. That's about right for a normal cat, but it's low for a diabetic, especially one who's taking as little insulin as he is (a unit and a half of glargine every 24 hours) and it would be very easy for the insulin to send him into hypoglycemic seizures again**. Tonight's reading, again many hours after his injection, was 65. We'll test again tomorrow morning, but at this rate it looks like there's a good possibility that he might be able to come off insulin and be managed through diet alone. He'll still be upset that he can't have any more of the crackScience Diet dry food, but he'll get over it. Anyone local want a bit more than half of an 8 lb. bag of Science Diet Senior dry food? I think all three of us would be perfectly happy not to have to deal with daily injections, although I don't think the poor little guy is going to be able to get out of the more painful glucose testing.
** I don't remember if I mentioned this here or not. When we took Gateway in for his original glucose curve, they gave him the prescribed dose of five units of insulin based on his current glucose reading, which was noticeably over 400 (!!). Many, many hours later, his glucose dipped so low as a result that he went into hypoglycemic seizures, much to everyone's surprise. He was put on a dextrose drip overnight, which got his levels back up into closer to normal range eventually. He ended up spending three days at the vet so that they could keep an eye on him. Luckily it happened while he was still there instead of after they sent him home; if it had happened at home overnight or while we were out, we could've lost him.
** I don't remember if I mentioned this here or not. When we took Gateway in for his original glucose curve, they gave him the prescribed dose of five units of insulin based on his current glucose reading, which was noticeably over 400 (!!). Many, many hours later, his glucose dipped so low as a result that he went into hypoglycemic seizures, much to everyone's surprise. He was put on a dextrose drip overnight, which got his levels back up into closer to normal range eventually. He ended up spending three days at the vet so that they could keep an eye on him. Luckily it happened while he was still there instead of after they sent him home; if it had happened at home overnight or while we were out, we could've lost him.