New Member - Arthur the Devon Rex

Status
Not open for further replies.
Arthur

Arthur

Member Since 2022
Hey! I'm new here. I joined the FB group over the weekend.

Arthur is a 9 year old Devon Rex. I've had him for 4 years, along with his brother (different litter) Dexter. He was diagnosed in December 2021. I originally looked at the forums when he first got diagnosed but found it very overwhelming! In our initial vet visit, he had a blood test and given Lantus, 1U twice a day. He's been on this dose ever since. His last blood curve results from 3 days ago were very good, the vet was really impressed.

He's eating LC Wet (Tiki Cat) - I'm having trouble with finding the Fancy Feast as they all seem to be different in Australia. A lot of the names on Dr Lisa's list have different names to ours and a lot of our varieties seem to be gravy styles. There's this pate pack which looks right? Can anyone confirm?

The other thing I can't sort out is a glucose monitor - I've scoured the amazing Aussie guide from Bron and Sheba, but I'm struggling to find the items online. A lot are out of stock or they have the meter/strips and not the lancelets etc. I really want to get a monitor asap to start checking his levels at home.

Anyway, thank you for having me :p
 
oh sweet, a Queenslander bananabender! Welcome to the forum mate. My wife is from Mackay QLD but lives here in the states with me now. I've been there 5 times now, would be 6 if not for the pandemic.

anyway, glad to see you made it here this is the best place you could be to get Arthur help. We have a few other members from Down Under around, maybe they can help with finding food. I can't recall off the top of my head who they are but maybe @Bron and Sheba (GA) will recall and we can request their input. Sorry, I just woke up, need a cuppa.

bloody hell do I miss QLD. Can't wait to get back.
 
Hi Arthur's mum/dad.
I will tag in @Bron and Sheba (GA) as she's in Australia and maybe able to help with ordering supplies etc.
Thanks Bron :)
I have checked the food on this carb calculator.
https://secure.balanceit.com/tools/_gaconverter/index.php
The Beef is 8.8% carbs
The Chicken Feast is 9.4% carbs
The Turkey is 6% carbs
All three are ok to feed as they are below the recommended 10% although the Beef and the Chicken are on the higher end of the low carb scale.
 
Hi and welcome to you and Arthur.
I’m glad you found us.
Fancy Feast has been a bit hard to get here of late. It’s all to do with the supply chain. I really need to update this food information I have on Australia…it’s all about getting the time…sigh.
There are other options…have you looked at the K9 naturals and the ZiwiPeak brands? They are in some of the pet food stores.
Weruva no longer ships to Australia unfortunately.
Woolworths has a few brands you could use ….have a look at the Gourmet Delight range.
Tiki cat I think you can get at Petbarn that has a large range of cat food. I haven’t looked there for a while so not sure about how much of it is low carb as I feed a raw diet.
Woolworths also has a raw food diet called Open Paddock which is very good. Here is a link https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/productdetails/173950?googleshop=true&store_code=woolworths_supermarkets_1262&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=WW-0001&cq_net=u&cq_src=GOOGLE&cq_cmp=Woolies_8458_BAU_Shopping_Smart_Pet_WW-0001&cq_med=71700000067284342&cq_con=Ad group&cq_plac=&cq_term=PRODUCT_GROUP&ds_adt=&cq_plt=gp&cq_gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_t-91NX1-AIV2X8rCh0CrwsQEAQYBCABEgK3wfD_BwE&ds_de=c&ds_pc=local&ds_cr=585714478049&ds_tid=pla-1281296317598&ds_locphys=9071650&ds_pid=173950&cmpid=smsm:ds:GOOGLE:Woolies_8458_BAU_Shopping_Smart_Pet_WW-0001RODUCT_GROUP&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_t-91NX1-AIV2X8rCh0CrwsQEAQYBCABEgK3wfD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Which of the glucose meters are you having trouble finding.? this meter from Abbott is a good one
https://www.pharmacydirect.com.au/a...MIrcGVp9b1-AIV6SGtBh3ZEwrzEAQYBCABEgIcHfD_BwE

With the lancets, you might have to get them at another pharmacy. Where have you been trying to get them. ? If you look at the Pharmacy Direct link I sent you above ….scroll down and you will see lancets as well

@Teetee (UK) i got those three cans of FF to be around 6 or 7% carbs ..

would you like to set up a spreadsheet so we can help you with Will find the link for the SPREADSHEET HERE
 
Last edited:
Thank you Hendrick and Teetee for the help :)

Hey Bron! Yes, I've noticed that with FF, although I'm also having trouble matching up the names on Dr. Lisa list to the names of what's here - everything here seems to have gravy on it now

I grabbed a couple of Ziwi Peak tins for the boys last week but they didn't touch it. They are both so incredibly fussy so I'm glad that I didn't order a big pack for them. I do want to grab some of the dried Ziwi Peak and see if that interests him. They are eating Tiki and loving it.

Thank you for the woolies link. Its not in my local so I've never seen it, but I'll get some of that.

There's a brand on petcircle called open farm which looks good but I can't find much info about it in terms of carbs etc

I've only been looking online for the glucose meters, that abbott one looks great so I'll look into that. Chemist Warehouse has the Accu-check listed but its on clearance and out of stock. And I couldn't find the matching lancets for it.

I've set up my spreadsheet, but its empty for now
 
Hi Bron,
I was just going by the analytical constituents shown on the box and using the https://secure.balanceit.com/tools/_gaconverter/index.php convertor and i have double checked the values.
Unless the values have changed from the box shown on the Petbarn site.
30998_138530_fancy-feast-polutry-_-beef-classics-pate-ingredients-list_1.jpg
 
Accuchek is another good one.
I used an abbott Optium meter and after the first lot of Test strips I used to buy the strips online as it was cheaper.
The open farm says some of the cans are 3-4% carbs but they have carrot, red lentils and something else so I find it hard to believe they are low carb but I think worth looking at…they certainly are not high carb.
Can you link your spreadsheet to your signature? If you can’t I will ask @Bandit's Mom to help you.
 
Arthur said:
I've only been looking online for the glucose meters, that abbott one looks great so I'll look into that. Chemist Warehouse has the Accu-check listed but its on clearance and out of stock. And I couldn't find the matching lancets for it.
Click to expand...
Just to add, there is no need to get matching lancets for your meter, you can use any make of 26 or 28 gauge lancet.
 
Arthur said:
Hey! I'm new here. I joined the FB group over the weekend.

Arthur is a 9 year old Devon Rex. I've had him for 4 years, along with his brother (different litter) Dexter. He was diagnosed in December 2021. I originally looked at the forums when he first got diagnosed but found it very overwhelming! In our initial vet visit, he had a blood test and given Lantus, 1U twice a day. He's been on this dose ever since. His last blood curve results from 3 days ago were very good, the vet was really impressed.

He's eating LC Wet (Tiki Cat) - I'm having trouble with finding the Fancy Feast as they all seem to be different in Australia. A lot of the names on Dr Lisa's list have different names to ours and a lot of our varieties seem to be gravy styles. There's this pate pack which looks right? Can anyone confirm?

The other thing I can't sort out is a glucose monitor - I've scoured the amazing Aussie guide from Bron and Sheba, but I'm struggling to find the items online. A lot are out of stock or they have the meter/strips and not the lancelets etc. I really want to get a monitor asap to start checking his levels at home.

Anyway, thank you for having me :p
Click to expand...
Welcome!! Glad you found this fantastic group!
 
Big day today. I stocked up Tiki, Fancy Feast Pate and got some Ziwi Peak Dry for Arthur.
After 3 chemist trips I managed to get a meter and all things needed for testing him, so will start that tonight. Still have to look up the dosing methods (I got halfway through the info)
I also have started his hypo toolkit with some med and high carb FF, and some maple syrup. I'm going to order more strips/lancets as well.

I really wish I did all this in Dec when he was diagnosed but my mental health was in the toilet because of work and its taken me a long time to get back to somewhat normal.

ETA: I just realised my sig said "Home Dosing WIP" - I've been giving him 1.0U Lantus 12 hours apart since Dec. I meant to write "Home TESTING WIP" - oops!
 
Arthur said:
Big day today. I stocked up Tiki, Fancy Feast Pate and got some Ziwi Peak Dry for Arthur.
After 3 chemist trips I managed to get a meter and all things needed for testing him, so will start that tonight. Still have to look up the dosing methods (I got halfway through the info)
I also have started his hypo toolkit with some med and high carb FF, and some maple syrup. I'm going to order more strips/lancets as well.

I really wish I did all this in Dec when he was diagnosed but my mental health was in the toilet because of work and its taken me a long time to get back to somewhat normal.

ETA: I just realised my sig said "Home Dosing WIP" - I've been giving him 1.0U Lantus 12 hours apart since Dec. I meant to write "Home TESTING WIP" - oops!
Click to expand...
Way to go! Congrats on getting it all lined up! Arthur is in good hands
 
Struggling with it. Hes fine - not too bothered. I just couldn't get enough blood even after warming with a heatpack and massaging his ear.
I even changed everything and tried it on myself since I want to rule out user error, and I still couldn't get enough blood from me! Any tips would be awesome, I watched two tutorials but a lot of the links from the FAQ are now dead
 
Arthur said:
These ones, I can't actually see on the box what size they are though.
Click to expand...

Hi,

I'm sort of new here too, but just a couple things I've learned about getting blood. First, I didn't use the lancet device because many people here said the noise it makes can scare the cat which may make the whole process harder in the future and it seems most people don't use the device, so I'd just hold the lancet directly in your hand. At first I was afraid of poking all the way through his ear, but I realized it doesn't bother him if you poke all the way though and it made for more successful blood drops. Now that I've done it 100 times, I rarely poke all the way through, but it takes some muscle memory to get it down to poke enough to draw sufficient blood but not so much you go all the way through the ear.

When I first started he didn't seem to mind the poke much, but he would shake his head right after the poke (he doesn't do that anymore) and make the little blood drop go everywhere, so I learned to keep a hold on his ear. Beside making sure the ear is warm, gently "milk" around the spot, it may take 20 or 30 seconds to get enough blood to do the test. Lastly it seems sometimes the pokes are just duds. It doesn't happen a lot, but sometimes you just got to make another go at it in a slightly different spot.

I looked up those lancets you posted. It's a shame they don't put the gauge on the box or the website. I did a quick google search and found this website which seems to be selling the same lancets you posted which says they're 28 gauge which is good. I started out with 31g lancets and while I was able to get enough sometimes, when I got the 28g lancets, they made a world of difference. I'm guessing you've seen the picture of where to poke on the ear, right? I was going to post it here, but I can't find it right now. Here's a thread on it if you haven't seen it: https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/hometesting-links-and-tips.287/

Good luck!
 
Thank you so much for the above John. It helped a lot.

We got a read! :D Two actually. Each ear gave a different result. 15.3 then 13.4 a min or two later. I couldn't get an AMPS this morning because he was up and ready for food, just wouldn't have a bar of it. I only got this one because he's been snoozing in the warmth. I could actually see more veins in his ear as well. Its winter here and being semi-hairless he's always quite cold. He snuggles a lot with me so I think I'll have to time the tests around when he's snuggling and warm.
 
Arthur said:
Thank you so much for the above John. It helped a lot.

We got a read! :D Two actually. Each ear gave a different result. 15.3 then 13.4 a min or two later.
Click to expand...

ah, good 'ol meter variance. If you haven't encountered this yet, now you have. Any test can have a 20% variance, so we basically consider both tests the same number when they are within 20%

Good job getting successful home tests!!! Always a great feeling to start to get the hang of it.
 
Starting to get the hang of it! Keeping him warm is the main thing. With the +4 test, should I just go by the first reading?

I'm excited to see some data, I have a feeling I've been shooting wrong so I just did his PM shot on the side of chest instead of the scruff which is where the vet recommended.
 
I've updated Arthurs Spreadsheet with his vet visit results from last week. The results are what made me join up as I know the numbers getting that low need to be monitored. However, even with my sporadic testing so far I haven't seen anything that low at home. He ate a lot less at the vet (I sent him in with two tins of tiki, and they only gave him one) whereas at home I give him food every few hours. Usually eats 2-3 tins during the day/night of Tiki and some small portions of Ziwi Peak dry food. I don't know if the lack of food is what got him into the greens though.

I am also pretty sure I wasnt getting the insulin in correctly, so I got my vet nurse friend to show me and watched some youtube vids of that and now am confident that this will be done correctly. The last 3 shots and going forward should be better. I'm giving him a rest from testing his BG today and will resume tomorrow apart from PMPS tonight, only because I've really hurt his ears and hes shying away from me. But I bought some Emla cream for him yesterday and thats been helping a lot.

Oof what a learning curve. Keen to get him out of the yellows though. I wish I did this when he got diagnosed, I feel awful for him, even though hes perfectly normal, weight back to pre DX etc
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top