AlphaCat
Member Since 2017
Hi!
First, thank you for having this forum. Today has been a whirlwind of a day, and this site along with the forum has been a great comfort.
I'm here because Fabalous was diagnosed diabetic officially today. We brought her to the vet due to uncharacteristic weight loss on Monday. I thought it might be her thyroid as I had another cat that was hypothyroid.
The vet tech took her back to draw blood for labs and the vet brought her back and said, "Did you know your cat is blind?", well... Not what we were expecting. We said "No". He then proceeded to drop a cotton ball in front of her face and she wouldn't follow it. Her pupils wouldn't undialate. He said he thought it was diabetes, but he was going to run a full panel to make sure the extra glucose wasn't from another cause. So we took Fabalous home.
She has all the signs of diabetes... Weight loss over the last 4 months of about 4 pounds. (She's a big kitty. She weighed 16 - 17 lbs regularly.) She looks like she's stopped grooming. She sits in front of the water dish most days, and she had become extra agressive over people food. She has also begun peeing beside the litter box on occasion, which in 14 years she's never done.
So last night we were eating french fries and she was being her new normal aggressive self and stalking the plate of fries, pawing at my hand. So I used this opportunity to test her eyesight. I moved the fry back and forth. She followed it with her eyes and head. I set the french fry down thinking maybe she was smelling it... But then she followed my hand without anything in it. So she's not blind, lol, just stubborn. She refused to give the vet any time of day on his eyesight test. I'm a bit stubborn myself, so her antics make me smirk a bit. (She may still have sight/eye problems, but she is definitely not blind like the doc thought.)
Well, the full panel of blood work cane back today and the doc called to bring her back in. So I'm home without my Fabalous for a few days while the vet tests and trys insulin to see if he can get her numbers stabilized. I think he said her initial blood glucose number was 450. I didn't get any of the testing records, I'll get those when we go back to pick her up.
Right now the plan is stabilize glucose, then try to maintain via new diet of high protein, high fat, low carbs.
My vet even gave me a printout to the same table on food qualities linked from this forum. I had been nosing around earlier without creating an account and found the chat before I took her back in. But I'm glad to know what I've found (through here) and the vet is the same info!
Overall, I'm a bit overwhelmed, and I wish my kitty was home, but we know diabetes is manageable... we just need to make a few changes.
Reading through this forum today before I even had all the information from my vet helped keep me calm and in "learning mode".
So hello from me and my clowder, and of course, Fabalous.
First, thank you for having this forum. Today has been a whirlwind of a day, and this site along with the forum has been a great comfort.
I'm here because Fabalous was diagnosed diabetic officially today. We brought her to the vet due to uncharacteristic weight loss on Monday. I thought it might be her thyroid as I had another cat that was hypothyroid.
The vet tech took her back to draw blood for labs and the vet brought her back and said, "Did you know your cat is blind?", well... Not what we were expecting. We said "No". He then proceeded to drop a cotton ball in front of her face and she wouldn't follow it. Her pupils wouldn't undialate. He said he thought it was diabetes, but he was going to run a full panel to make sure the extra glucose wasn't from another cause. So we took Fabalous home.
She has all the signs of diabetes... Weight loss over the last 4 months of about 4 pounds. (She's a big kitty. She weighed 16 - 17 lbs regularly.) She looks like she's stopped grooming. She sits in front of the water dish most days, and she had become extra agressive over people food. She has also begun peeing beside the litter box on occasion, which in 14 years she's never done.
So last night we were eating french fries and she was being her new normal aggressive self and stalking the plate of fries, pawing at my hand. So I used this opportunity to test her eyesight. I moved the fry back and forth. She followed it with her eyes and head. I set the french fry down thinking maybe she was smelling it... But then she followed my hand without anything in it. So she's not blind, lol, just stubborn. She refused to give the vet any time of day on his eyesight test. I'm a bit stubborn myself, so her antics make me smirk a bit. (She may still have sight/eye problems, but she is definitely not blind like the doc thought.)
Well, the full panel of blood work cane back today and the doc called to bring her back in. So I'm home without my Fabalous for a few days while the vet tests and trys insulin to see if he can get her numbers stabilized. I think he said her initial blood glucose number was 450. I didn't get any of the testing records, I'll get those when we go back to pick her up.
Right now the plan is stabilize glucose, then try to maintain via new diet of high protein, high fat, low carbs.
My vet even gave me a printout to the same table on food qualities linked from this forum. I had been nosing around earlier without creating an account and found the chat before I took her back in. But I'm glad to know what I've found (through here) and the vet is the same info!
Overall, I'm a bit overwhelmed, and I wish my kitty was home, but we know diabetes is manageable... we just need to make a few changes.
Reading through this forum today before I even had all the information from my vet helped keep me calm and in "learning mode".
So hello from me and my clowder, and of course, Fabalous.
. Not sure how your budget is but Vet may suggest the pet meter, Alpha Trak 2, if you can afford the test strips by all means go for it. For those of us who cannot, many use the human glucometer Walmart brand ReliOn Confirm or Micro.
