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Glucose curve so far today: 428, 483, 490. I don't even have to run the rest of the curve to know her insulin dose is going up Very Soon Now.
Teeny tiny little additional clues: she's skinny, she drinks like a fish, and she soaks everything within a foot of the litterbox. This is her beleaguered system waving a giant glowing sign saying HELLO, HUMAN. THIS CAT HERE NEEDS SOME MEDICAL ATTENTION. WAKE UP.
(In her case, skinny is bad. A healthy weight does help keep kitty diabetes in check, but Duchess never gets skinny unless her diabetes jumps up and bites her. It does jump up, too. She'll drift into remission, but when she goes diabetic again it's quick. Weight loss is usually my first signal that she needs a glucose curve.)
Teeny tiny little additional clues: she's skinny, she drinks like a fish, and she soaks everything within a foot of the litterbox. This is her beleaguered system waving a giant glowing sign saying HELLO, HUMAN. THIS CAT HERE NEEDS SOME MEDICAL ATTENTION. WAKE UP.
(In her case, skinny is bad. A healthy weight does help keep kitty diabetes in check, but Duchess never gets skinny unless her diabetes jumps up and bites her. It does jump up, too. She'll drift into remission, but when she goes diabetic again it's quick. Weight loss is usually my first signal that she needs a glucose curve.)
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Skinny Jasmine is bad, too, because it's a sign either that her thyroid medicine isn't working, or that it's suppressing her appetite to the point that she's not eating. "Healthy weight" can have very different meanings, depending on the cat.
(Multiple cats also complicate the "What is healthy?" question. My vet would like me to put Misha on a diet, but that would require cutting off Jasmine's all-the-time-everywhere access to food, which is right now the only way I can get her to eat close to enough. Misha's a bit round, for sure, but her risk is certainly not high enough to merit further compromising Jasmine's health, or keeping either cat locked up all the time.)
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Multiple cats can definitely complicate the equation. I've got one in early-stage kidney failure and one diabetic, and the third really should have a hypoallergenic diet, but I don't have three locked rooms to feed them in. As it is, there's no all-the-time-everywhere access to food, and I suspect the reason Duchess got down to such a low dose of insulin is that she wasn't eating enough. But if I leave the diabetes food lying around, Little Girl will vacuum it up, sending her kidneys to an early grave.