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What an afternoon with Duchess yesterday! She started acting weird, so I took her blood glucose and found it was
21
The number range for cats is similar to that for humans. 100 is a fine number, less than 70 is hypoglycemia, and 40 is a medical emergency.
Went right to the vet and spent the next nearly five hours there. Fed her, squirted sugar gel in her mouth, fed her again... her sugars went up a little but came down again, and eventually they put her on IV dextrose.
At 21 she should have been in a coma or seizing -- near death. The fact she was still moving says frightening things about her adaptation to this level of blood sugar. As it is, she was panting and stumbling. She was ravenous and would eat like crazy if something were offered right next to her nose, but when a bowl was in front of her she couldn't find the food in it even by smell. She would growl and hiss when she was touched. She was also completely blind, probably because her brain was starving and couldn't process data. She had a strong tendency to walk right through a water dish or a food bowl, then keep going until her nose was planted in the corner of two walls of her cage, and then stay there, probably too disoriented to know what to do next. Poor girl!
She finally achieved a glucose reading of 113 shortly before closing. (My wallet thanks you, Duchess - I sure didn't want to transfer you over to the emergency clinic.) She became her normal affectionate and aware self in a surprisingly rapid transition. As we guessed and hoped it would, her vision did come back.
She's off insulin now. I'm sure she'll need to get back on it (by 9:30PM her blood sugar was 214), but she'll certainly have a lower dose.
She's lying near me now, stretched out and purring. *sigh* Poor sweetie.
The number range for cats is similar to that for humans. 100 is a fine number, less than 70 is hypoglycemia, and 40 is a medical emergency.
Went right to the vet and spent the next nearly five hours there. Fed her, squirted sugar gel in her mouth, fed her again... her sugars went up a little but came down again, and eventually they put her on IV dextrose.
At 21 she should have been in a coma or seizing -- near death. The fact she was still moving says frightening things about her adaptation to this level of blood sugar. As it is, she was panting and stumbling. She was ravenous and would eat like crazy if something were offered right next to her nose, but when a bowl was in front of her she couldn't find the food in it even by smell. She would growl and hiss when she was touched. She was also completely blind, probably because her brain was starving and couldn't process data. She had a strong tendency to walk right through a water dish or a food bowl, then keep going until her nose was planted in the corner of two walls of her cage, and then stay there, probably too disoriented to know what to do next. Poor girl!
She finally achieved a glucose reading of 113 shortly before closing. (My wallet thanks you, Duchess - I sure didn't want to transfer you over to the emergency clinic.) She became her normal affectionate and aware self in a surprisingly rapid transition. As we guessed and hoped it would, her vision did come back.
She's off insulin now. I'm sure she'll need to get back on it (by 9:30PM her blood sugar was 214), but she'll certainly have a lower dose.
She's lying near me now, stretched out and purring. *sigh* Poor sweetie.
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