New FD Mama

[Christina hall]

Our almost 10YO little girl was just diagnosed Sunday. She averaged about 9-11 lbs during the past decade, but since late May has dropped to 6.7 lbs. I feel like a horrible mom! I got diagnosed with breast cancer during the exact same time, so I was distracted. No excuse though. I should have taken her to the vet. I just thought she was being finicky because I switched her food. She was eating treats, urinating and drinking water normally. Her BC was 330. She was eating a combo of Purina Beyond grain free sweet potato and salmon at will, FF Broths as a snack and Sheba Cuts AM and PM feeding . The few days before we took her in she was acting famished all the time.

I can't remember what insulin the vet is putting her on. We get trained on everything tomorrow. He wants to put her on prescription dry food. We removed tbe dry food and dry treats and we had been trying FF, but she is super finicky and hates FF. I did get a response from Sheba that the majority of their cuts in gravy are 4% or so in carbs, so I think that is good and she LOVES it. I can post their response. I tried to find the thread but couldn't.

After all that, I guess my major question is about home testing. He is not running new labs before giving us the dose even though we have changed her diet. I might request him to do so anyway. How do we home test and what is the best device? What is the best gentle technique to use to stabilize her while testing? I read somewhere we test before shot in the AM and PM.

How strict do we have to be on the AM/PM shots? How much variance can we have and be safe? Normally we are always home, but sometimes we work late.

Anything else we should know?
Thank you! This forum has been a wealth of knowledge, but I also feel overwhelmed. I do not want to hurt our baby girl.

 

[Bron and Sheba (GA)]

Hi Christina and welcome to you and your kitty to fdmb. I am sorry about your breast cancer....I hope it is all going well for you now.
Definitely get your kitty onto a low carb (10% or under) carbs WET diet. Don't let your vet talk you into giving dry food. It is much higher in carbs....even the diabetic dry food is high in carbs .... and it is just not good for any cats. Wet food provides lower carbs and a lot more fluids in the diet which is what diabetic cats need.....well it is what all cats need really!!

Insulins for cats are given every 12 hours. It depends on what insulin you are being given as to how strict it has to be. There is a bit of leeway with a couple of them. The best insulins are Lantus, Levemir and Prozinc. Try and get one of these prescribed..

If you have changed over to a low carb diet already that is great....easier and safer to do before the insulin starts BUT I would definitely ask for another blood sugar reading before the dose is set by the vet. Hopefullly he will start at a low dose....1 unit..... as your kitty is not heavy. If you are unsure as to what to do post here and someone will help you.
Most vets do not know a lot about feline diabetes as they do not get much training in it.

Home testing is definitely the best thing for kitty. Here is a link to home testing. I would encourage you to start as soon as possible. It is the only real way to keep kitty safe while on insulin. Many people buy a human meter from Walmart for testing ...the Relion .....I think they are the confirm and the micro......I am not from the US so am not sure but it is the Relion meter.
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/hometesting-links-and-tips.287/

Here is a link to FAQ
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/forums/health-links-faqs-about-feline-diabetes.14/

I have to rush out now, I'm sorry but I will drop back in later to answer any more questions you might have if no one else has called by.
Bron

 

[SpotsMom]

Sounds like you have a pretty good reason! Cats are very good at hiding when they are sick, even when you aren’t distracted by your own illness. First things first, I hope YOU are doing well!

Since you just switched foods (or trying to) I wouldn’t start insulin until you start home testing. Just getting her on a low carb diet can send a lot of kitties into remission. Once she starts on insulin it is important to test before every shot just to make sure she’s in safe pre shot numbers - and that reading should be a “fasting” number with no food 2 hours before. You can free feed if that’s what she’s used to, so for the rest of the day’s tests, it’s ok if she eats before the test. The cheapest option for home testing is one of the Relion meters that you can buy at walmart. Others have videos and specific advice for testing, but the best I can say to make it as stress free as possible is have a routine and a specific testing place, so she’ll know what to expect when you sit there. If your kitty starts getting worked up, give her a low carb treat and some scratches, then walk away and try again later. At first at least it may take some patience to get her to be ok with the poking, but the more you do it and give her scratches and treats the easier it will become. Spot now jumps up into my lap whenever I sit in the testing chair because he knows he gets some loves! He also buries his face in my chest and scrunches his eyes closed when I prick him but that’s just him being him haha Home testing will also save you a lot of money on vet visits & blood glucose testing once you get started.

On this board we do not recommend dry food, even the vet diets. There is a food list in the sticky at the top of this forum, which is very helpful for finding something for finicky eaters! But if she loves the Sheba and it’s one of the low carb ones, there is no reason she can’t keep eating it!

How much variance in time is ok really depends on the insulin. The shorter the action I think the more variance can be tolerated. With Prozinc (which is the only one I have experience with) you can go an hour past 12.... but if her numbers are close to borderline, even a slight variation in time can act as a dose increase. When you find out which insulin she’ll be on, go into the forum for that insulin and read all the stickys. There is so much useful information in the stickys!

 

[AlphaCat]

Hi Christina,
Welcome to the club.
Also, I hope you are doing well too! There's a saying that goes something like, you have to fill up your own cup first before you can fill up others. So definitely take care of you!
I think a lot of us here went through that guilt of not finding out sooner. My kitty lost 6lbs before I got her to the vet for diagnosis. (Also rationalized it with food changes...) so please don't beat yourself up over it.

When Fabby was diagnosed I knew nothing, and came here and read everything I could. I resisted the advice to set up a spreadsheet, thinking for sure there must be an app for this by now, lol. Well, I got her a spreadsheet. Lol.

We were prescribed Vetsulin for Fabby. It's more forgiving than some of the others regarding strict times.
I really wanted us to get control of this disease, so I collected as much information as possible. I tested 4 times a day, fed her wet low carb four times a day, as much as I could get in her. My Fabby LOVED at home testing, even though I was super nervous about it at first. But, as many said here, I wouldn't give insulin to a child without testing, so I'm not going to do that to my cat. So I sucked it up and with practice got better. The treats and love made me feel much better about poking her. I had the individual wrapped Fancy Feast one ingredient salmon treats. Since they were individually wrapped I kept several in her testing kit. She began to associate the testing kit with treat time, so she would begin drooling as I poked her ear, because I gave her the treat after, and she knew it was coming. She would purr in my lap at testing time because of the treats, lol. That made it tons easier.

As others above have said, the prescription dry has a lot more carbs in it than your Sheba. Stick with the Sheba. There are a couple low carb dry options out there on the market (they just aren't the prescription ones the vet has). Perhaps your vet will be grateful for the information you found on the low carb wet food.

The blood tests done in the office usually produce higher than normal blood sugar numbers because of stress of just being at the vet. Keep that in mind as your vet tests to determine dosing. And as mentioned above, start with a low dose. As you get used to testing at home you'll be able to see the differences. Especially if you're tracking on the spreadsheet used in here.

I would just email my vet my spreadsheet before any visit, and we would discuss treatment based on that, and her vet knowledge. I also asked if she had treated other diabetic cats before.

This is all going to be overwhelming at first. That's because it is... but it does get easier! Hang in there and you got this!

 

[Christina hall]

Hi Christina,
Welcome to the club.
Also, I hope you are doing well too! There's a saying that goes something like, you have to fill up your own cup first before you can fill up others. So definitely take care of you!
I think a lot of us here went through that guilt of not finding out sooner. My kitty lost 6lbs before I got her to the vet for diagnosis. (Also rationalized it with food changes...) so please don't beat yourself up over it.

When Fabby was diagnosed I knew nothing, and came here and read everything I could. I resisted the advice to set up a spreadsheet, thinking for sure there must be an app for this by now, lol. Well, I got her a spreadsheet. Lol.

We were prescribed Vetsulin for Fabby. It's more forgiving than some of the others regarding strict times.
I really wanted us to get control of this disease, so I collected as much information as possible. I tested 4 times a day, fed her wet low carb four times a day, as much as I could get in her. My Fabby LOVED at home testing, even though I was super nervous about it at first. But, as many said here, I wouldn't give insulin to a child without testing, so I'm not going to do that to my cat. So I sucked it up and with practice got better. The treats and love made me feel much better about poking her. I had the individual wrapped Fancy Feast one ingredient salmon treats. Since they were individually wrapped I kept several in her testing kit. She began to associate the testing kit with treat time, so she would begin drooling as I poked her ear, because I gave her the treat after, and she knew it was coming. She would purr in my lap at testing time because of the treats, lol. That made it tons easier.

As others above have said, the prescription dry has a lot more carbs in it than your Sheba. Stick with the Sheba. There are a couple low carb dry options out there on the market (they just aren't the prescription ones the vet has). Perhaps your vet will be grateful for the information you found on the low carb wet food.

The blood tests done in the office usually produce higher than normal blood sugar numbers because of stress of just being at the vet. Keep that in mind as your vet tests to determine dosing. And as mentioned above, start with a low dose. As you get used to testing at home you'll be able to see the differences. Especially if you're tracking on the spreadsheet used in here.

I would just email my vet my spreadsheet before any visit, and we would discuss treatment based on that, and her vet knowledge. I also asked if she had treated other diabetic cats before.

This is all going to be overwhelming at first. That's because it is... but it does get easier! Hang in there and you got this!

Thank you!

 

[Christina hall]

Sounds like you have a pretty good reason! Cats are very good at hiding when they are sick, even when you aren’t distracted by your own illness. First things first, I hope YOU are doing well!

Since you just switched foods (or trying to) I wouldn’t start insulin until you start home testing. Just getting her on a low carb diet can send a lot of kitties into remission. Once she starts on insulin it is important to test before every shot just to make sure she’s in safe pre shot numbers - and that reading should be a “fasting” number with no food 2 hours before. You can free feed if that’s what she’s used to, so for the rest of the day’s tests, it’s ok if she eats before the test. The cheapest option for home testing is one of the Relion meters that you can buy at walmart. Others have videos and specific advice for testing, but the best I can say to make it as stress free as possible is have a routine and a specific testing place, so she’ll know what to expect when you sit there. If your kitty starts getting worked up, give her a low carb treat and some scratches, then walk away and try again later. At first at least it may take some patience to get her to be ok with the poking, but the more you do it and give her scratches and treats the easier it will become. Spot now jumps up into my lap whenever I sit in the testing chair because he knows he gets some loves! He also buries his face in my chest and scrunches his eyes closed when I prick him but that’s just him being him haha Home testing will also save you a lot of money on vet visits & blood glucose testing once you get started.

On this board we do not recommend dry food, even the vet diets. There is a food list in the sticky at the top of this forum, which is very helpful for finding something for finicky eaters! But if she loves the Sheba and it’s one of the low carb ones, there is no reason she can’t keep eating it!

How much variance in time is ok really depends on the insulin. The shorter the action I think the more variance can be tolerated. With Prozinc (which is the only one I have experience with) you can go an hour past 12.... but if her numbers are close to borderline, even a slight variation in time can act as a dose increase. When you find out which insulin she’ll be on, go into the forum for that insulin and read all the stickys. There is so much useful information in the stickys!

Thank you!

 

[Christina hall]

Hi Christina and welcome to you and your kitty to fdmb. I am sorry about your breast cancer....I hope it is all going well for you now.
Definitely get your kitty onto a low carb (10% or under) carbs WET diet. Don't let your vet talk you into giving dry food. It is much higher in carbs....even the diabetic dry food is high in carbs .... and it is just not good for any cats. Wet food provides lower carbs and a lot more fluids in the diet which is what diabetic cats need.....well it is what all cats need really!!

Insulins for cats are given every 12 hours. It depends on what insulin you are being given as to how strict it has to be. There is a bit of leeway with a couple of them. The best insulins are Lantus, Levemir and Prozinc. Try and get one of these prescribed..

If you have changed over to a low carb diet already that is great....easier and safer to do before the insulin starts BUT I would definitely ask for another blood sugar reading before the dose is set by the vet. Hopefullly he will start at a low dose....1 unit..... as your kitty is not heavy. If you are unsure as to what to do post here and someone will help you.
Most vets do not know a lot about feline diabetes as they do not get much training in it.

Home testing is definitely the best thing for kitty. Here is a link to home testing. I would encourage you to start as soon as possible. It is the only real way to keep kitty safe while on insulin. Many people buy a human meter from Walmart for testing ...the Relion .....I think they are the confirm and the micro......I am not from the US so am not sure but it is the Relion meter.
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/hometesting-links-and-tips.287/

Here is a link to FAQ
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/forums/health-links-faqs-about-feline-diabetes.14/

I have to rush out now, I'm sorry but I will drop back in later to answer any more questions you might have if no one else has called by.
Bron

Thank you!

 

[Becky & Baby Girl GA]

Excellent information above... healing vines for you both!! This all becomes easy, honestly. One day at a time... it becomes routine. Ask questions anytime!

 

[Christina hall]

Excellent information above... healing vines for you both!! This all becomes easy, honestly. One day at a time... it becomes routine. Ask questions anytime!

Thank you !

 

[Christina hall]

Hi Christina,
Welcome to the club.
Also, I hope you are doing well too! There's a saying that goes something like, you have to fill up your own cup first before you can fill up others. So definitely take care of you!
I think a lot of us here went through that guilt of not finding out sooner. My kitty lost 6lbs before I got her to the vet for diagnosis. (Also rationalized it with food changes...) so please don't beat yourself up over it.

When Fabby was diagnosed I knew nothing, and came here and read everything I could. I resisted the advice to set up a spreadsheet, thinking for sure there must be an app for this by now, lol. Well, I got her a spreadsheet. Lol.

We were prescribed Vetsulin for Fabby. It's more forgiving than some of the others regarding strict times.
I really wanted us to get control of this disease, so I collected as much information as possible. I tested 4 times a day, fed her wet low carb four times a day, as much as I could get in her. My Fabby LOVED at home testing, even though I was super nervous about it at first. But, as many said here, I wouldn't give insulin to a child without testing, so I'm not going to do that to my cat. So I sucked it up and with practice got better. The treats and love made me feel much better about poking her. I had the individual wrapped Fancy Feast one ingredient salmon treats. Since they were individually wrapped I kept several in her testing kit. She began to associate the testing kit with treat time, so she would begin drooling as I poked her ear, because I gave her the treat after, and she knew it was coming. She would purr in my lap at testing time because of the treats, lol. That made it tons easier.

As others above have said, the prescription dry has a lot more carbs in it than your Sheba. Stick with the Sheba. There are a couple low carb dry options out there on the market (they just aren't the prescription ones the vet has). Perhaps your vet will be grateful for the information you found on the low carb wet food.

The blood tests done in the office usually produce higher than normal blood sugar numbers because of stress of just being at the vet. Keep that in mind as your vet tests to determine dosing. And as mentioned above, start with a low dose. As you get used to testing at home you'll be able to see the differences. Especially if you're tracking on the spreadsheet used in here.

I would just email my vet my spreadsheet before any visit, and we would discuss treatment based on that, and her vet knowledge. I also asked if she had treated other diabetic cats before.

This is all going to be overwhelming at first. That's because it is... but it does get easier! Hang in there and you got this!

Thank you! He prescribed Vetsulin. I am so glad someone else uses it and am also glad it is more forgiving. That eases my mind. He ended up saying the Sheba is fine. . I tried to get her to eat freeze dried shrimp and chicken. She wanted non of it. I did find out the Sheba sticks are pretty low carb too, except for the beef ones. What treats would you suggest?

 

[AlphaCat]

What treats would you suggest?

There are a lot of low carb treats on the market. I liked (and more important, Fabby liked) the Fancy Feast single ingredient treats. I got the salmon ones for Fabby. It's literally just a chunk of Salmon in a single serving pouch. I liked then because I could keep the pouches in my test kit. It helped her associate testing with treats.
I would pick up the kit and she would come running to our spot. I open the kit and let her stare at the treat packages in the kit while I poked. She would just purr and drool through most of the ear tests.

When we started I grabbed any treat that was low carb to find the one Fabby liked best.

I always felt bad about her losing so much weight before I caught on to there being a problem. And since the diabetes wasn't letting her use her food I would feed that cat anything she was interested in as long as it was low carb and as long as it wasn't 2 hours before her shot. That I found a treat she drooled over made me happy. So try a few to see what works best for y'all.

Call around and check prices on the vetsulin. You might be able to get it cheaper than what the vet provides. Every little bit of cost savings help!

 

[JanetNJ]

Thank you! He prescribed Vetsulin. I am so glad someone else uses it and am also glad it is more forgiving. That eases my mind. He ended up saying the Sheba is fine. . I tried to get her to eat freeze dried shrimp and chicken. She wanted non of it. I did find out the Sheba sticks are pretty low carb too, except for the beef ones. What treats would you suggest?

I have a video in my signature showing how I test my cat CC at home.

I feed a combo of ff and Tiki Cat.

There are lots of experience here... We can help you.

Treats must be low carb. Freeze dried meats or fish, fresh meat, small amounts of deli cold cuts with no fillers (boars head), cat nip, cat grass

 

[Beck and Philly]

Welcome! I echo the others' wishes for good health for you and your kitty. You're asking great questions and doing what needs to be done which shows you're a great cat mama.

My cats turn their noses up at Fancy Feast, too. They are iffy about Friskies. Have you seen the food chart sticky at the top of the main forum? I downloaded it onto my phone and use it whenever I'm at Petsmart or shopping online to try out some new options under 10% carbs. The third column shows carb count and the list is in alphabetical order so it's an easy reference.

You'll be handling all of this well in no time.

 

[Christina hall]

Thank you all! She seems to be doing well! I appreciate the video. That will help immensely. I need to post the Sheba nutritional info I received somewhere because if that is the chart I have seen, Sheba said they are much lower in carbs than in the chart for their cuts style, which is all my cat will eat. I also got the carb found for their stick treats. She is not a fan of the FF single ingredient chicken, but salmon is next on the plate.

Thank goodness for you all. My vet said my research led me to ask very informed questions. You all rock