You say you are not quite sure of the accuracy of the diagnosis, and you are right to wonder about the stress factor. As you know, stress causes the glucose level to go up, and it seems to me you would have noticed some diabetic symptoms--increased drinking, and much urination-quantity and frequency. When our cat was first diagnosed, we could not miss those signs (his litter box was the best test ever!!). Anyway, some drugs are also known for causing diabetes (prednisone is one of them.. and indeed our cat had been treated with prednisone due to asthma by an emergency vet). The good thing about it is that, if it is drug-induced, it might eventually go away with insulin treatment (our cat was treated for a year, and went into remission) or food change.

Speaking of diet, the most important diet change you can implement is taking your cat off dry food (way too much carbs in most dry foods) if she eats dry food. Switch to a all-soft diet (no gravy), low carb. If her high sugar level was due to stress, then, you should see improvement in the change of food alone -and disappearance of the source of stress, naturally.
I would be very upset too, if I saw my sick cat treated the way she is. Can you provide your own food? My long-time vet (before we moved) always asked about our food preferences, and accepted our food.

I have got to run.
Hope your poor cat can go home very soon and receive proper TLC!! How old is she, by the way?
Anne-Marie

Thanks Anne Marie- Well I just typed a nice long message and the computer froze and I lost it.

Thanks for the information.

I spoke to the vet this morning and I mentioned to her my thoughts on why the cat's sugar is high and she said she thought it was dibetes because the sugar is showing up in the urine. I don't have any experience with diabetes so I don't know if what she say is so. Before going to the hospital the cat didn't show any signs of diabetes except for weight loss, but I attributed that to the mouth hurting from stomatis that she has. She never drank a lot of water or urinated a lot.

She said the cat was doing well on 3 units so they wanted to knock it down to 2 today and see how she does. I told her the cat needs to come home. So hopefully they'll get her on track.

I do want to try to control this with just diet as it would be easier for me and the cat. She is not going to take to injections everyday and the routine will turn into a session of chase which will only cause her more stress.

Oh, by the way, the cat is 15. She did receive a cortisonze injection when she was first admitted to the hospital for her stomatitis.

I'll keep you posted on the cat's progress. Thanks again.

She said the cat was doing well on 3 units so they wanted to knock it down to 2 today and see how she does. I told her the cat needs to come home. So hopefully they'll get her on track.
3 units of what?? insulin?? (a high dose to start with!) If so, this should have been discussed with you... Is the vet doing a glucose curve to check on the sugar level in between injections? If it is insulin, I can't imagine you would not have to go on with it once she gets home! And by the way, you'll get the hang of it.. Still, a diet change would be my first option, at least to see if that helps...

Or was it injections of cortizone?
I don't know much about stomatitis, except dental cleaning might be necessary (hope not, at her age, but safe if done under the right precautions)

Yes, sugar in the urine is usually a good sign of diabetes, but again, a very stressed cat could have sugar in urine, I think. It might quite likely have been caused by the drug. Again, the surest, most obvious sign of diabetes is excessive drinking/urinating. You would have noticed if the condition had been present before her hospitalization..

To go back to the diet for diabetes, the best way to summarize it is: low carb, quality protein

Please keep us posted, and I do hope you get to bring your 'baby' home very soon.
Anne-Marie

Ask your vet to run a fructosamine test on your girl. From my understanding, that should give you a definitive answer about diabetes one way or the other because it is not affected by stress, pain, or unrelated illness.

Several years ago one of my cats was diagnosed with diabetes based solely on his blood glucose level during an emergency visit when he was both extraordinarily stressed (MAJOR panic in the car) and in a great deal of pain (partial urinary blockage). The vet immediately put him on insulin. Once the blockage cleared and he was back home and relaxed, I continued to administer insulin per the vet's instructions. I was still trying to work up my nerve to do at-home glucose testing on him when he suffered his first episode of hypoglycemia, and it was a bad one. He was very nearly unconscious when I checked on him after his insulin shot. Fortunately, my housemate at the time was a diabetic, so I knew exactly what was happening to my cat and how to reverse it. The next day he became hypoglycemic again. This time I caught it when he was just starting to get wobbly. That was the last insulin I gave him. I started checking his blood glucose at home, and it never got close to being out of normal range.

My recommendation is to get the fructosamine test, and if it comes back positive for diabetes, do home glucose testing regularly to make sure you aren't administering too much insulin. A cat can die of hypoglycemia a lot more quickly than she will of hyperglycemia. Always remember, too, that cats can and do go into spontaneous remission from diabetes, more often than most folks realize. Even if your girl is diabetic, you need to check glucose frequently to make sure she hasn't gone into remission before her next insulin shot.

Laurie

laurie,thanks so much for the information on that specific test. I will definitely have my vet run it if she hasn't already.

I am the most concerned with giving her too much insulin. How do you test a cat at home?

These two links will provide you with information about testing fructosamine (it's just another blood test for your cat):

http://www.felinediabetes.com/managingFDM.htm
http://www.southpaws.com/news/96-4-fructosamine.html

And this link will take you to a comprehensive site on feline diabetes which includes a very useful tutorial on home monitoring of blood glucose:

http://www.felinediabetes.com

I just read that the fructosamine test result can be skewed in cats with hyperthyroidism, so if your girl is hyperT, fructosamine might not be an accurate test for diabetes.

Hope that helps!

Laurie

Yes, if you go the insulin route, a glucometer would be a must. Our first one-year insulin treatment went very well with only occasional fructosamine tests, and NOT a single accidents. The second time around, 8 years later (same cat), that was a very expensive 6-month experience with 2 glucose curves at first, then monthly fructosamine tests (strangely enough, the diagnosis was based only on a regular blood test and urine analysis, not fructosamine --big mistake; wish we had not rushed into insulin) and regular adjustments to the amount of insulin. His glucose level had gone down so much-around 50, that FINALLY one of the vets decided to take him off insulin. Had we been shown how to use a glucometer (and if you already give insulin injections there is nothing to using one), our cat would have had better days (and our wallet too!). But, this is the same vet who was so reluctant to show us how to administer fluids at home (loss of easy money for them). Still convinced our cat had kidney problems from the start, and not diabetes.

Sorry if I tend to go back to my personal experience.

Diabetes is very manageable as long as you have a good vet and you are well informed.

Another thing about canned food: avoid foods with sugar content (potatoes, carrots, fruits).. Go for high, quality protein.

Best of luck,
Anne-Marie

anne marie, thanks for the information. Please, I want to hear about personal experiences. I've learned that pet owners are a better source of information on most things, than the vet. Pet owners have much more experience than vets on long term treatments for chronic illnesses. I do hate having to educate my vet. Makes me feel very uncomfortable.

Brutuses, one of our kitties has asthma and had been on steroid shots for years. As a result, she came down with diabetes last year. We did have to give her insulin twice daily, but once you get in the groove, it's not a big deal.

Late last year, she went hypoglycemic after one of her shots. She was out of it, shivering and drooling, very scary. She stayed at the vets for 2 days on a drip and her insulin was lowered to a half unit. A few days later, she started acting strange again after her half-unit shot, so I gave her some corn syrup and watched her, she was back to normal within 20 mins.

Her BS has been fine without insulin since. She eats Core dry food and Evo canned. I make sure to only give her grain-free foods.

I have had a few friends whose cats had diabetes. They gave the shots while the cat ate, so it was stress-free for all involved.

brutuses, how long has your girl been hospitalized? I just downloaded a pdf document about the fructosamine test that indicates that, " ... a hyperglycemic state must exist for approximately four days before fructosamine concentration exceeds reference range."

I interpret that to mean that if your girl has been experiencing stress-induced hyperglycemia for four days or longer, the fructosamine test won't be able to differentiate between that and true diabetes. So if your girl has been hospitalized for less than four days and you want the fructosamine test done, ask your vet to draw the blood for the test immediately.

Well my girl is home as of today. Laurie, to answer your question, she has been hospitalized since March 11 due to a bad upper respiratory infection. She was too difficult for me to treat so that's why she was hospitalized to start with.

The vet said she's doing well with 2 units of insulin once a day so that's what I'm going to give her and watch her closely. I'm going to bring her in for retesting in a week just to make sure she's OK.

I'm glad that your girl is home and doing well. Did your vet explain the signs and symptoms of hypoglycemia and what to do if she does become hypoglycemic? Do you have clear Karo Syrup in the house? Did your vet caution you to check on her at least every 15 mins for at least an hour after each insulin shot to make sure she is alert and not hypoglycemic, and to NEVER administer insulin on an empty stomach or if your cat hasn't eaten much? These are critical safeguards when administering insulin to any animal, including humans, but esp. when administering insulin to animals without doing at-home blood glucose testing. Your girl isn't going to be able to tell you when she's starting to feel shaky and weak.

There's a reason why human diabetics test their glucose several times a day. It's because blood glucose is constantly rising and falling. The same is true for cats. Testing once a week is not going to safeguard your girl from wide swings in blood glucose on a daily or even hourly basis. Diabetics need close monitoring every day.

You'll learn to spot the subtle and not so subtle signs that her glucose is "off", either hyper or hypo, but unless you learn to do at home testing, you might not be able to tell which is which. Have you considered learning how to do glucose testing at home?

Laurie

So glad your girl is finally home after 11 days of hospitalization!! How is she doing after 2 days home? Hope the both of you are comfortable with the insulin injections... Did you decide about a new food? She has to eat (anything if she rejects the new diet) at insulin time.
It is still quite surprising to me that her diabetic condition would have appeared only at the hospital, unless that was caused by the medication she was given.
Keep us posted, and my very best to your brave girl!
Anne-Marie

She is doing OK. I'm giving her the injections as prescribed. She's not drinking to excess or uninating a lot. She's slowed down a lot since being hospitalized. She's old and I think age is catching up with her. She appears comfortable, eats when I offer her food, sits in her daddy's lap to watch TV at night, so I guess she's as good as she can be.

I have her on Core and EVO foods. She's not a big dry food eater, mostly wet.

I'm going to keep a close eye on her and bring her in next week to have her blood tested to make sure the numbers are where they should be.

I still have my suspicions that the high sugar level was due to the medication she was on. When she first went in the blood sugar was a little high of normal but then went up considerably after a few days of meds and living in those uncomfortable conditions.

I promise to keep you posted.

Thanks for caring.