While she thinks it's great that I'm so committed as to be testing regularly, it isn't necessary.
Are veterinary medicine students required to complete a compulsory "it isn't necessary" course module before they can be awarded their degree? I have heard vets say this so many times in relation to management of feline diabetics - both personally and in reports from other FDMB members - but I have yet to hear a valid argument* against daily home monitoring of a diabetic cat's blood glucose levels.
Taking your vet's logic to its natural conclusion, then technically it wouldn't be
necessary to test any diabetic daily. Technically, there's nothing to stop a human diabetic pulling a dosing figure out of their fundament, administering the injection, then sitting back and crossing their fingers that it doesn't kill them. While it may not be necessary to test, it is certainly unwise not to.
Vets aren't infallible. Sometimes they prescribe doses that are too high (with a frequency that is quite alarming based on the cases we see here). How else can a caregiver protect their cat from such potentially lethal errors than by daily home testing? It's easy for a vet to give testing advice of this nature but they aren't the one holding the syringe day in, day out. If a poorly-monitored cat were to have a fatal hypo, it wouldn't be the vet who had to live with the devastating emotional fallout that would inevitably accompany losing a much-loved member of the family in such circumstances. Such
avoidable circumstances.
Testing felines isn't the same as testing humans (test before inject).
I should do a curve once a week, but more testing than that is not necessary.
Why isn't 'test before you inject' the same for cats as for humans?
Why don't cats merit the same attention to their safety as humans?**
What are the pros and cons of daily testing vs. no daily testing?
(Answers came there none.)
Cats are living creatures. Their bodies are not static systems. Their insulin needs can and do fluctuate day to day, as is seen here all the time in our cats' spreadsheet records. We see a far greater quantity of cat BG data here than a typical general practice vet will ever see. Indeed, there are occasions when more newly-diagnosed cats arrive at FDMB in a couple of days than some vets see in a lifetime of practice.
Cats can't go to the cupboard to get themselves some biscuits when they're running low. Neither can human babies. Cats can't talk, so they can't tell someone how their insulin is affecting them. Neither can human babies. Would your vet advocate no daily testing for the latter?
Feline diabetics who are artificially carbed up to reduce the risk of hypos might be able to get away most of the time with weekly curves, but the price for that is a reduced chance of remission, and the very much increased risk of the cat spending a significant part of each day in diabetic numbers, perhaps causing avoidable damage to its internal organs and possibly reducing its life expectancy.
A sub-optimally regulated cat: now
that is something truly "not necessary".
Mogs
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[*] I've only been in one situation where a vet made - from where they were standing - a legitimate claim that daily home testing was a bad idea and could interfere with the caregiver-cat relationship because "it would stress the cat out"; legitimate because the testing 'technique' [*cough*] they used in the clinic was appallingly poor: 3 vet nurses needed to subdue my cat, struggling to get samples because they were pricking the cartilaginous part of her ear, ear in complete tatters by the end of the curve they were running. If all home testing experiences were like that, then they might have a case to argue. But they're not. 
[**] Some human diabetics could probably improve their overall regulation if, instead of relying solely on preshot testing, they incorporated more frequent nadir checks into their testing routines.
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What kind of doctor doesn't want extra data.
