From:
reeddion
Date: 2002-06-20 02:47:00 UTC
Subject: update-insulinomic, now diabetic-please offer reasoning
My fivish year old non-MF male had insulinoma for over a year before
having surgery earlier this year, after which he had a blood glucose
of 50-60 for a couple of mionths (before surgery it was as low as 30)
and was put back on Pred, as well as pepto and amoxi for weight
loss. He then had grainy poops from too much cream in his diet (i
was giving him the pred mixed with gerbers chicken baby food, cream,
and ferretone because he was underweight) and I took the cream out of
the mixture and reduced the ferretone, and the poops cleared up.
However, he then started peeing and drinking a lot, so I tested his
blood glucose at home with my freestyle (previous numbers in this
post for tests were also from this freestyle at home) and he showed
about 450 and has remained there for about a week or two now. My vet
had me take him off the pred a week and a half ago, but his blood
sugar is still at 450ish. She's calling me back tomorrow about where
to get the insulin she is having compounded for him. I've also been
giving him some brewers yeast (and the garlic that is in the pills
with it, which I crush up) in some chicken babay food and water and
ferretone mixture, hoping the chromium might bring down his blood
glucose levels, but it's only beeen a couple days so far.
My real question is why this happened now. He spent a couple months
after the surgery with too low of blood glucose, and all the sudden
it shot up to 9 times what it was (50 to 450 in a week). Taking him
off the pred hasn't lowered it at all, even after more than a week.
I could understand if he had turned diabetic right after surgery
because it would just mean that his normal pancreas cells weren't
back up to producing insulin again after being suppressed for over a
year while his insulinoma went untreated. And him being insulinomic
after the surgery was just because we were coservative with how much
of the pancreas we took out, so maybe there were some microscopic
tumors left. But why would he switch, and why now, so long after the
surgery? Why didn't stopping the pred lower his blood glucose at
all? and why is tyhe diabetes lasting so long (3-4 weeks now)?
I am totally at a loss, and my vet is a bit confused too from what I
can tell. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Amber & Hei Jyo Shin (and fat boy & slim, the new boys)