TaylorAndSmash
Member Since 2020
My name is Taylor, and my cat is named Smash, and he is 12 years old. He was diagnosed 8/18/2020, after Smash got so ill one night he wouldn't eat, so I rushed him to emergency. The emergency vet noticed his blood sugar was in the 300's, and asked me to see my regular vet. My regular vet was so positive that a diet change would help, that I didn't even consider the possibility of us having to inject him with insulin.
So 60 days after a diet change of Purina OM, his blood sugar was in the high 400's, even though he did lose some weight. I've been wondering if the vet just thought my cat was so fat (16 pounds at the time, now 14) that being less fat would heal him. I was completely taken off guard, and now I feel like I could have used those 60 days to feed him a lower carb diet and test him myself at home.
So we started with 1 unit of Lantus after he had an all day glucose test at the vet, a test where they told me "he wouldn't eat" (this cat never misses a meal so much that he only ended up in emergency that night because he didn't), so they let my diabetic cat have 8 hours of insulin testing without food in his stomach for 24 hours. I honestly don't even think they fed him the wet food, because it wasn't that precious Purina OM they prescribed me.
His levels stayed pretty high in the beginning, and when I called my vet to discuss my test results, they directed me to switch to 2 units. They originally wanted me to go to 1.5, but since the Lantus pen does not do half units, they bumped it up to 2. A short bit after the bump to 2, he had a low sugar episode.
I just feel like my veterinarian has hurt me every step of this process. I missed out on 60 days of testing because my vet had just the highest confidence that the Purina OM would fix him. They wouldn't talk to me about testing, and when I have called with scary numbers, they are either closed (only open 4 days a week), or I talk to the person who answers phones that puts me on hold to ask the vet questions to get back to me (I have literally not even spoken to the vet since diagnosis), or they doubled his dose because they wouldn't entertain the idea of me getting syringes with half unit markings. They originally tried to get me to try vetsulin, and I am so thankful I at least read a few posts on these forums before I had to pressure them to prescribe Lantus. Why do I even have a vet, when they wanted me to blindly give this cat 2 units a day, and my testing was what saved his life? Even the day that I demanded to be shown how to give him insulin, they just brought me in for two minutes so she could show me the skin tent for the cat and that was it, and I called out of work to do it. I've just been really frustrated with his care, and I am thankful that I quit taking the vet for their word, because they almost killed my cat.
So 60 days after a diet change of Purina OM, his blood sugar was in the high 400's, even though he did lose some weight. I've been wondering if the vet just thought my cat was so fat (16 pounds at the time, now 14) that being less fat would heal him. I was completely taken off guard, and now I feel like I could have used those 60 days to feed him a lower carb diet and test him myself at home.
So we started with 1 unit of Lantus after he had an all day glucose test at the vet, a test where they told me "he wouldn't eat" (this cat never misses a meal so much that he only ended up in emergency that night because he didn't), so they let my diabetic cat have 8 hours of insulin testing without food in his stomach for 24 hours. I honestly don't even think they fed him the wet food, because it wasn't that precious Purina OM they prescribed me.
His levels stayed pretty high in the beginning, and when I called my vet to discuss my test results, they directed me to switch to 2 units. They originally wanted me to go to 1.5, but since the Lantus pen does not do half units, they bumped it up to 2. A short bit after the bump to 2, he had a low sugar episode.
I just feel like my veterinarian has hurt me every step of this process. I missed out on 60 days of testing because my vet had just the highest confidence that the Purina OM would fix him. They wouldn't talk to me about testing, and when I have called with scary numbers, they are either closed (only open 4 days a week), or I talk to the person who answers phones that puts me on hold to ask the vet questions to get back to me (I have literally not even spoken to the vet since diagnosis), or they doubled his dose because they wouldn't entertain the idea of me getting syringes with half unit markings. They originally tried to get me to try vetsulin, and I am so thankful I at least read a few posts on these forums before I had to pressure them to prescribe Lantus. Why do I even have a vet, when they wanted me to blindly give this cat 2 units a day, and my testing was what saved his life? Even the day that I demanded to be shown how to give him insulin, they just brought me in for two minutes so she could show me the skin tent for the cat and that was it, and I called out of work to do it. I've just been really frustrated with his care, and I am thankful that I quit taking the vet for their word, because they almost killed my cat.
