Mr. Mew and His Diabetic Neuropathy, Continued

July 10th 2008, At 9:00 AM, Mew's BG was 440. He didn't eat much, and usually it's not recommended to give a cat insulin when they have not eaten, but his numbers were high so I gave him his insulin. That day, we switched him over to Wellness ( we had given him some for the past few days before). Wellness was said to be a better food than Friskies for diabetic cats. Katie (my vet) said Mew's diabetes might eventually reverse since he got it from steroids.

On July 11th I did another curve.
1:00 AM 144
9:15 AM 468
3 units of Vetsulin given
11:45 AM 187
1:45 PM 63
3:00 PM 42
7:00 PM 136
9:15 PM 235
2.5 units Vetsulin given
1:15 AM 54
At this point I was still learning how to curve and how much insulin to give. I read an interesting article by a vet familiar with diabetes in cats, that mentioned doing a tight regulation schedule, which basically means giving smaller doses more often, which essentially helps the body re-learn to regulate itself. This took me quite a bit of experimentation to get Mew's numbers and units correct. There was a chart in the article as an example of insulin to BG numbers, but I found it was too high for Mew. So, I developed my own chart based on his numbers.

While I was working on this, Mr. Mew developed a new problem: constipation. Because of his lack of movement, his bowels did not move well. I had him on several medications for this problem, but it just wasn't enough.

July 12th. Per the vet's recommendation I gave him fiber and pumpkin to help his bowels move along. His BG numbers were all over the place, but I had yet to start the tight regulation I read about for fear of doing something wrong. On July 13th, he was perky and even produced one small stool. The next day, the 14th of July, he was down. I did another curve to see what was going on:
5:30 AM 136
10:00 AM 134
12:30 PM 140
3:30 PM 129
6:30 PM 295
10:00 PM 401
2.5 units Vetsulin given
1:30 AM 274
As you can see by the above numbers, he stayed pretty good all day without insulin and his number rose in the PM. So, his BG was not the cause of his being down.

He saw the vet (my regular vet, Katy) on the 15th July. She taught me how to give Mr. Mew an enema at home so he wouldn't have to be brought in every time he got blocked or was not passing enough stool. To this day that has proven successful.

On the 16th is about when I started to notice the first signs of a more regular, lower BG. I had discussed tight regulation with Katy and she agreed. She let me work out the details based on the experiences I had had thus far. At 10:45 AM that day he was at 257, was given 2 units Vetsulin. He was 109 at 4:30 PM (+5.5, which means 5 and a half hours after his shot). That's VERY good. He remained in the 100's all day and needed no more insulin that day.

At 10:30 AM on the 17th, he was at 399. I gave him 2.5 units. At 10:30 PM, 12 hours later, he was only at 186. He didn't get any more insulin until 1 AM when his numbers showed 266, so I gave only 1 unit. This was the beginning of his regulation and not going above 2 units at any given time (except on occasion his numbers have spiked up, but it's rare).

By near the end of July he was perkier more often and using his legs more. I had him mostly on Fancy Feast canned cat food by this time, which I found is one of the few commercial foods that has all carnivorous ingredients and little or no unnecessaries like corn of any kind, carrots, potatoes or any of the other stuff cats do NOT need. Those ingredients are put there for the sake of the owners, so they will see what is percived by humans as a "complete and balanced" diet and buy the food. The fact is, cats need MEAT and taurine to survive, not carrots and potatoes. Dogs are omnivores, but cats are true carnivores. Even meat by-products are better for a cat than those fillers! And since Mew LOVES Fancy Feast, that became his sole food (until recently, I discovered Newman's Organic cat food, which had great ingredients in it, but it is expensive and he doesn't like it as much as he likes Fancy Feast).

Around this time he also started to use his hind legs more. That is odd, because neuropic cats can generally use their fronts but the back end is weak. He actually grew stronger in the back and not in the front. I was still giving regular enemas and subcu fluids along with all his regular meds, but his numbers were getting better, and there were days here and there where he got no insulin at all... On the 23rd July his numbers stayed in the 100's with no insulin all day. On the 25th he took his first couple steps with his back legs on his own before flopping over again. This was great progress at this point.

On July 27th he was doing fantastic, but I noticed something wrong with his left eye. The inner, or third, eyelid was half closed, covering half his eye. He was put on antibiotics. To this day, his eye is still half covered by that eyelid; some days worse than others, so it has been demed part of the neuropathy (or a tumor in the brain, but no tests have been done to verify). Many meds and antibiotic eye ointments all proved fruitless.

On August 3rd he "walked" for the first time. I held one hand under his body to keep him off the floor, but he propelled himself alone with his hind legs. Food became a very good motivator to get him moving. By August 8th, he was crawling around so much on his own that he actually fell off the bed.I worried about injury, but he fell off the side of the bed near the wall and I had pillows stored over there so he landed on them. Around August 10th his numbers started to rise into the 400s again, I have no idea why, so I upped his insulin temporarily.

On August 11th we had another improvement. He began to use his front paws to wash his own face. He also began to prop himself up on his front elbows so he could "sit up" and look around, instead of always laying on his side. By August 12th his BG numbers were back down to the 200s and 100s regularly. By lte in August he was crawling all over the place and I never knew where I would find him each time I got home. His progress had me ecstatically happy at this point in time.