Petito

[Petito]

Hi everyone, we're new here; that's me, my girlfriend and our sweet little boy Petito.
We haven't got a lot of time tonight to post a complete introduction, so here's a quick one.
Petito is 12 years old and was diagnosed with diabetes one month ago. He had a BG level between 500 and 600. The vet put him on 2.75 IU initially, based on his weight (approximately 5kg). He ate mostly dry food and sometimes wet. We decided to give him dry food in the morning and wet in the evening, not to lower his BG too drastically. We went back to the vet after 4 days to measure his blood glucose. It was around 50, so the vet lowered his dose to 2 IU. The third time we went to the vet was after 2 weeks. His BG was again low (around 50), so his dose was lowered again; between 1.25 and 1.50 UI (or 3.5 on the U100 syringe we're using).

Because we worried a lot for a hypo and we wanted to switch completely to canned foods, we decided to test his BG ourselves. We bought an AccuChek Aviva meter and tested him for the first time on june 11 before his evening meal. His value was 118... so we decided not to give him any insulin. The following evening we tested again before his evening meal and got a value of 163. Because we read on this forum not to shoot below 150 and give a reduced dose between 150 and 200, we didn't know what to do, so we called the vet. She advised on lessening his dose again; this time to 1UI.

Since then, we measured the following values:
June 13: before evening meal: 138 - 2 hours later: 126 (no insulin given)
June 14: before morning meal: 146 (gave between 0,5 and 0,75 UI) - 5 hours later: 79 - before eveving meal: 116 (no shot)
June 15: before morning meal: 155 (gave between 0,5 and 0,75 UI) - before eveving meal: 105 (no shot)
June 16: before morning meal: 104 (no shot) - 5 hours later: 75
June 17: before morning meal: 105 (no shot) - before evening meal: 137 (gave between 0,25 and 0,50 UI)
today: 6 hours after morning meal: 118 - before evening meal: 147 (gave between 0,25 and 0,50 UI)

We are surprised to measure such low BG levels (even when sometimes we skipped the insuline altogether) and wonder if the food change already may be enough for him...? We will consult the vet at the end of the following week, but also wanted to have some feedback from this board from which we learned so much in this last month. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[srk4cats]

Hi everyone, we're new here; that's me, my girlfriend and our sweet little boy Petito.
We haven't got a lot of time tonight to post a complete introduction, so here's a quick one.
Petito is 12 years old and was diagnosed with diabetes one month ago. He had a BG level between 500 and 600. The vet put him on 2.75 IU initially, based on his weight (approximately 5kg). He ate mostly dry food and sometimes wet. We decided to give him dry food in the morning and wet in the evening, not to lower his BG too drastically. We went back to the vet after 4 days to measure his blood glucose. It was around 50, so the vet lowered his dose to 2 IU. The third time we went to the vet was after 2 weeks. His BG was again low (around 50), so his dose was lowered again; between 1.25 and 1.50 UI (or 3.5 on the U100 syringe we're using).

Because we worried a lot for a hypo and we wanted to switch completely to canned foods, we decided to test his BG ourselves. We bought an AccuChek Aviva meter and tested him for the first time on june 11 before his evening meal. His value was 118... so we decided not to give him any insulin. The following evening we tested again before his evening meal and got a value of 163. Because we read on this forum not to shoot below 150 and give a reduced dose between 150 and 200, we didn't know what to do, so we called the vet. She advised on lessening his dose again; this time to 1UI.

Since then, we measured the following values:
June 13: before evening meal: 138 - 2 hours later: 126 (no insulin given)
June 14: before morning meal: 146 (gave between 0,5 and 0,75 UI) - 5 hours later: 79 - before eveving meal: 116 (no shot)
June 15: before morning meal: 155 (gave between 0,5 and 0,75 UI) - before eveving meal: 105 (no shot)
June 16: before morning meal: 104 (no shot) - 5 hours later: 75
June 17: before morning meal: 105 (no shot) - before evening meal: 137 (gave between 0,25 and 0,50 UI)
today: 6 hours after morning meal: 118 - before evening meal: 147 (gave between 0,25 and 0,50 UI)

We are surprised to measure such low BG levels (even when sometimes we skipped the insuline altogether) and wonder if the food change already may be enough for him...? We will consult the vet at the end of the following week, but also wanted to have some feedback from this board from which we learned so much in this last month. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Welcome. Petito is such a cute name. Half French, half Spanish? Your photo doesn't show and I would love to see how Petito looks.

 

[Rachel]

Welcome Petito and beans! Wow! Petito's having some great numbers!

We certainly do have diet controlled diabetics. Generally, cats have to be on insulin for a bit at least before becoming diet controlled, but it does happen on occasion that a food switch can trigger remission. I know you said you give dry in the morning and wet in the evening...have you switched to wet all the time? If you did that, you might see him get even lower on his own so that insulin was no longer even needed! Honestly, you might not need it now, since even on days that you didn't get a shot, the next BG level is still pretty low. I think if he was mine, I'd switch to all wet food and make sure to carefully monitor if you do give insulin. I'd also keep checking him every morning and evening, and somewhere around +5 to +7 every day that you can. That way, when you do go back to the vet, you can show these numbers (maybe they won't feel the need to test him at the vet then since you have numbers).

What a beautiful kitty Petito is! Please let us know if you have other questions, and please do keep us updated!

 

[Djamila]

If you're interested, here is a link to the speadsheet that we all use here to keep our data organized. You may find it helpful in giving info to the vet, and we find it helpful in seeing patterns in the data. You can see an example by clicking on the links in any of our signatures.

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/fdmb-spreadsheet-instructions.130337/

Petito is looking great! I agree with Rachel about finishing the transition to all low-carb wet and you may well not need any insulin at all after that.

 

[Petito]

Hi everyone, it's been busy around here, but we're finally here with an update!

No, Petito isn't Spanish or French Well maybe a little French; he's from Belgium...
But now that he's on an American forum, he's feeling a little more international
In the meantime, we've added a picture of him. He's very thankful for the nice compliments and hopes to begin his American movie career shortly.

It was indeed not so clear in my first post, but we completely switched him to wet food the moment we began to measure his levels.
Since the last time we posted, his levels have been constantly around 120/130, so we didn't give him any insulin anymore. He's been off the ProZinc for 2 weeks now!
Yesterday we finally went to the vet to "calibrate" our Aviva meter. The vet took some blood and we put a drop of it on a strip. Her lab results were 152; ours was 119, so the Aviva was 30 (or 25%) off. I remember reading a topic on this forum from someone using the same meter and that person also had a margin of about 20-30. So if someone new is browsing this forum; we can confirm that kind of margin on that meter. I believe it's better to compare with a lab test, but it can give new users a first idea of the accuracy.

We showed the vet our sheet with values and these were never above 180 for the last two weeks, even when we added the margin we calculated. Based on this she decided to stop the ProZinc. Yay!
The vet was very enthusiastic about us measuring him and the permanent decrease of his levels after the insulin stop and the diet change. She even asked us if she could use his case to post on the office's facebook account. It's so nice to hear that our case will spread the message we read about on this forum!

Thanks everyone!!!!!