A long overdue Taz update.

Sometime last fall, when we took him in for glucose testing, his reading was too low for comfort (although he appeared to feel fine). At that point the vet cut his insulin in half, down to two units twice a day. This turned out to be a bad move, since Taz’s sugar went back up with a vengeance, and his diabetic neuropathy, which had been fairly mild, got a lot worse. He was walking flat on his heels in back, slipping on smooth surfaces, and even was showing signs of a little hock-walking on his front legs too. So we took his insulin back up, but had quite a time getting his sugar down again. It was pretty frustrating, especially since the vet had no suggestions whatsoever for improving the neuropathy—“It might get better, or it might not”, he said.

So I decided to do some research. It has been my experience with medical personnel of all kinds that they do not necessarily know about everything that might be helpful in a particular situation. Googling on “feline diabetic neuropathy” brought up Jasper’s story.  Jasper was a diabetic cat who had neuropathy so severe that he couldn’t walk, and he was greatly helped by supplemental methylcobalamin (a form of Vitamin B-12). The site references a study that was done on humans with diabetic neuropathy, but there were also a number of anecdotal reports about it being good for diabetic cats too. Since this site wasn’t selling anything, and the risk of toxicity seemed to be low, I decided to find some of this inexpensive supplement and give it a try.

B-12 is normally given by injection for better absorption, I think, but I got methylcobalamin in tablets, cherry-flavored tablets to be exact. I grind them up and mix them in with his food, and fortunately Taz doesn’t seem to mind the taste. Of course, this is the kitty boy who eats brandy-soaked fruitcake. I mean, “used to”. (Probably not on the “good list” for diabetics.)

I started giving him methylcobalamin right around New Year’s. At first there wasn’t much change except perhaps more energy, but in the past week especially I have been blown away by the improvement. Taz is pussyfooting around, back up on his toes in fine cat style! It is so wonderful to see. He keeps his footing on the linoleum just fine, and he has even stood up tall on his hind legs to paw at me while I was preparing his dinner.

So today, we went in for his first glucose check since the holidays, and it’s 98! Maybe we can actually get this boy regulated after all!