New to all this My Furry Best friend has diabetes

So my 12 year old cats (who is my furry child used as a therapy cat for 7 years). Was diagnosed with diabetes after two weeks of hell. I am glad to see I am not the only crazy person who spent over a thousand $ I can't afford on my cat and now is spending every waking moment nursing him LOL . I have owned sam for 10 years he started rapidly losing weight two weeks ago he lost almost 10lbs since then. He was first eating like crazy then stopped completely. There was a day last week I thought we would lose him his potassium was at 2.2 and he was unable to use his hind legs or lift his head.

now we are doing 2 units pro z twice daily, giving oral potassium, and sub q fluids twice a day,nutri-cal twice a day and force feeding however he ate on his own this am for the first time hope it keeps up. He also was extremely constipated and vet had to extract.(after 9 days no bm)...I am starting miralax for him tonight as vet recommended. His blood sugars even on the pro z are 300-600 vet uped the proz a few days ago but does not seem to be making a difference. our big prob right now is getting him to eat ANYTHING...and keeping him hydrated......I have bought everything on the market even cooked him a whole chicked LOl but the only thing he will eat is whiskas moist treats and some 9 lives canned this am....I know not good for diabetes but vet says eating anything better than nothing so until eating reg on his own I am feeding whatever as he is severely underweight at 8lbs (very large cat). When I force I mix ad,dm,nurti-cal and bab food (the baby food is wonderful consitency for syringe feeding with very little water)

How do you all encourage your cat to drink more? I have a handle on most everything else I feel like but I hate doing thee sub Q I wish he would just drink LOL
Also do your cats seem to be hot all the time....now he finds any cool surface in the house and lays there

I am lucky he is such a good boy like I said he is a therapy cat so he tolerates EVERYHING without a movement or a cry......vet extracted feces and he was not sedated nor did he seem to be really bothered. Also I am trying to research doses of pro z vet says he doesnt want to rock the boat for a few weeks since he is improving but the numbers are really HI!!! thank you for this board and wishing you all the best of luck!! - Jen and Sam

 

It sounds like it's been a very hard couple of weeks for you and Sam. But you've come to the best place to learn all about Feline Diabetes. You should read the FAQs and then ask questions. Home testing can save your sanity and your cat's life, so please consider it. We can help you with it.

One way to encourage water intake is a fountain. So many cats love to drink from the faucet, and a water fountain mimics that. You can get one at most pet stores.

I've never used your insulin. Sorry I can't help with that. Someone else will come along soon.

 

Your vet is right that eating something is better than eating nothing. At this point, give your kitty anything he will eat. You can worry about suitable foods for a diabetic later.

I only know what I've read about ProZinc, so I won't try to give dosage advice. I do know that it takes some time for most insulins to work. Raising the dose too aggressively to control high BGs can be a recipe for disaster.

I have also read that some diabetic cats seem to be hot all the time.

Absolutely *do* think about doing home testing if you aren't already. If those numbers are from the vet, your kitty's "real" numbers may be quite a bit lower. Or they may not be, since your kitty sounds like a particularly calm one. But in any case, you can't know without testing.

Good luck to you! You have quite a load.

 

So sorry to hear that your little guy isn't doing so well. We will do our best to help you out where we can!

Did he start at 2u of the prozinc or was there a lower dose before this? Especially if there are other health problems in the mix, it is good to hold a dose for several days while all the medicines and treatments start to take effect. Sometimes numbers can drop a lot once other problems are taken care of. This is also only done if ketones are not present. Did your vet test your kitty for ketones? (some do not, so don't worry) If not, most pharmacies sell ketostixs which are little sticks that you put in the urine to see the level of ketones that have spilled over into the urine. If there are any, then that is a reason to think about adjusting the dose every 3-4 days instead of every 5-7 days in the beginning.

ProZinc, especially, takes some time to settle in. It is not a miracle insulin, and you will see varying numbers in the first few weeks.

The most important thing right now is keeping insulin in kitty and getting kitty to eat. Once kitty is eating regularly, then you can worry about switching over to a high protein/low carb food.

As was mentioned before - hometesting is really important. All of these treatments and food changes can drastically change the amount of insulin that is needed. Many vets out there will tell you to look for hypo symptoms (when blood sugar is too low) but if you hometest, you can often avoid ever having to deal with that - saving you and kitty the stress of a hypo episode and ER visit.

Please ask any more questions you feel necessary - no question is too small or silly! Welcome! cat_pet_icon

 

Prayers & Angels coming to your house to help Sam Hope all will be ok Home testing is the best way to help your boy It is not that hard to do just a little poke can save you so much stress LOL Kath :mrgreen:

 

Hi Jen and welcome to feline diabetes... we are all of us dedicated to our sugar kitties and we have a terrific success rate dealing with this. You are in the right place.
Those bg test results could be a bit high due to having the test done by the vet and kitty being stressed out. Also as you raise your dose, with what little food he's eatting we'd all like to see you learn how to test him at home. this will save you countless dollars and help get your furry back in shape. with the water...i don't know other than spoon or tube feeding the drink to him...but i do think that with the insulin he will soon get back to eatting and drinking.
Has he been tested for ketones?
Have you tried finger feeding him?
If you'd like to share the general area in which you live perhaps a member living close by could be of some help.
we have a list of low carb canned foods that would be best for him. It's under Janet and Binky's food chart. I'll try to get someone to link that for you.
Please pm me if your interested in help with the testing.
as you can see we here all know it is of upmost importance.
Keep up the good work.
Lori

 

you can try putting parmassan cheese on his food, or tuna juice...that encourages some cats. also there is an appetite stimulant that vet's can give you.

 

Hi & welcome!!!

If he is on higher carb food, odds are he may need more insulin to counteract that. Just for reference, and keeping in mind that every cat is different (ECID) and that differing medical conditions can make a difference, my cat needed around 4 units 2x/day when he was on higher carb dry food (vs. around 1.5u on LC canned). Not to say you should necessarily raise the dose, but if the #s you have are consistently high and you are getting a decent amount of higher carb food in him and he is still acting lethargic and not eating well, it might be something to consider.

If you can home-test, that will really help you be able to assess things and make dose corrections. Although it's good not to make too many changes too fast with the insulin, when you are home-testing you can move a lot faster than otherwise, as you have daily data to guide you. When I was getting tests only at the vets we waited 2 weeks between dose changes so everything could kind of settle out and we could get a good picture from the tests, vs. once I started home-testing I have been able to adjust the dose as soon as I have enough data to tell how a dose is working (more or less from 2 - 5 days with PZI). (Not trying to push you, just trying to share what has worked for us!)

I have never had success with SubQ fluids myself, but if there is a specific part of it you are struggling with, you might want to post that and see if anyone has suggestions. Lots of people here have given fluids regularly, and I have seen some great tips around on ways to make it more pleasant.

Keep us posted how things are going, and feel free to hop over to the PZI forum as well. There is less traffic there so any urgent questions are good to post on Health regardless, but we have a nice time over on PZ Island, and are always happy to have more people join the PZI party!!!

 

Hi and thank you so much for all of your suggestions. Luckily my sig other has a glucometer so we have been testing at home since the initial visit. He Is still Eating on his own....some (but two days straight YAY) which cuts down on the force feeding. We have a refilling water dish already but thank you! His home testing was only about 20pts off the one at the vets.He is really used to going places, being on a leash, and riding free in the car! Not much stresses him out! You are all right since he has been eating his BG has been over 600 several times (scary since our one touch just says hi when it gets to 600 so I have no clue of actual number) the lowest at home has been 305. he started out on one unitl of pro z and vet uped him on friday. I hate the high numbers coming from this crap food but glad he is eating!!!!

Vet knows about the numbers but again thinks its best to wait until uping it again.....he has done good this far so I won't doubt him. He suggested we cut back to one sub q a day and we tried but he was still getting dehydrated so we are back to two aday until I am comfy he will drink enough.
His ketones were done and he did have some initially he was in ketoacidosis and then he got better with insulin but crashed hard last week because no eating drove the potassium into the muscle and like I said there was a whole day of dragging his rear end behind him and not even being able to lift his head. He spent 4 overnights at the er vet (the only vet staffed overnight) and went to our vets during the day for potassium IV drip (had to go through a special regulating pump so could not do at home)...very scary

TODAY HAS BEEN THE BEST DAY YET....he has eaten (a small amount) 5 times today...but about 3/4 can overall ....caught a moth in the house (it flew really close to him but he tried and did it!!!) He has been really cudly and active!!!! Walking whole length of hall without stopping every few steps! No real problem with the sub Q I just hate putting that big of a needle in him but it really does help some of his complications were due to severe dehydration last week! So I will do for now. I WILL TRY PARM CHEESE!!!! I bet he would really like that wish I had thought of that first THANKS WE LIVE IN MAINE!!!! Thank you all so much and I will visit regulary.......hugs----Jen and Sam I'll put pics on too

 

YEAH Glad things are getting better Keep it up Sam Angels and Prayers coming to you and lots of Green light surrounding you (((((((Sam)))))))))))))))) LOL Kath :mrgreen: