New Member

J

jjacks1

Member Since 2026
Hello everyone and Happy New Year!
My name is Jeanette but more importantly, my cats name is Socrates. He is a 13 year old Siamese and right now we are having some difficulty keeping his blood sugar regulated. My Vet wants to keep him for a day and check blood glucose levels but I really can't afford that. I've decided to do home testing. Bought an Accu-Chek with all the supplies and am ready to start. I used to be a veterinary surgical technician so I'm hopeful I can handle this. This forum has already been a help so I decided to join. Thank you!
 
A vet curve won't be accurate anyways. Many cats are super stressed out at the vet's office that their blood glucose levels will be super high. Definitely test at home and just agree to disagree with the vet about it. Here's a thread with a link to a 2025 guideline for managing diabetes: Happy World Diabetes Day🎉 New diabetes guidelines and podcast episode

AccuChek is fine to use. Test strips can be expensive so shop around for prices. If you're in the US, WalMart's own line of Relion meters are inexpensive but supplies may only be sold in stores.

Some basic info we need: What insulin is your cat on and what is the current dose? How long has your cat been on the dose? When was your cat diagnosed? What do you feed your cat?
 
Welcome to FDMB Jeanette and Socrates
You are definitely in the right place,, as you being a vet surgical tech, you know that diabetes is manageable, and wayh ahead of a newbie, great idea to home test, the most important things to stabilize Socrates, are home testing, insulin, right dose, diet and lots of love, the best insulin for cats are ProZinc and Lantus these are a 12-hour insulin and easy on the cat, have you been prescribed insulin yet? what dose? also what are you feeding? Diabetic cats need to have a diet of wet can or raw food between 0-10% carbs, most members feed Fancy Feast Pates between 0-10% most feed up to 5%, where do you live? And yes you can do this! and we are here to help you in this journey by answering your concerns and dosing advice, so if Socrates thang, is just FD, save your money, besides taking Socrates to the vet for glucose check is unrealistic cats are very sensitive to stress, so the BG readings will always be higher, causing to increase the dose unnecessary, as well as doing a curve, that is best at home as well. We are very numbers oriented, so we can all be on the same page we would like you to create your signature and Socrates spreadsheet, this way we can all be on the same page and assist you with dosing, please continue to ask, post any concerns; links below 🤗

Sticky - New? How You Can Help Us Help You!
https://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/how-to-create-a-spreadsheet.241706/
 
Welcome to FDMB.

Please let us know how we can help. I'm hoping you know how to home test. (Most of our members do curves at home vs bringing our cat to the vet's office for the reasons Squeem3 noted.) We have lots of posts on a variety of topics on the Health Links page.
 
squeem3 said:
A vet curve won't be accurate anyways. Many cats are super stressed out at the vet's office that their blood glucose levels will be super high. Definitely test at home and just agree to disagree with the vet about it. Here's a thread with a link to a 2025 guideline for managing diabetes: Happy World Diabetes Day🎉 New diabetes guidelines and podcast episode

AccuChek is fine to use. Test strips can be expensive so shop around for prices. If you're in the US, WalMart's own line of Relion meters are inexpensive but supplies may only be sold in stores.

Some basic info we need: What insulin is your cat on and what is the current dose? How long has your cat been on the dose? When was your cat diagnosed? What do you feed your cat?
Click to expand...
Socs was diagnosed at 2 years old. He's now 13. I give him 1 unit twice a day at meal time of Novolin-N. I feed him Fancy Feast pate. I tried the Tiki Cat food but it made him throw up so I stick to Fancy Feast. He's been on this dose for most of his life.
He's lost most of his teeth so feeding texture is an issue. I add water to his canned food. Seems to help. He doesn't eat any dry food. He gets 2 treats at bedtime and that's it.
 
squeem3 said:
A vet curve won't be accurate anyways. Many cats are super stressed out at the vet's office that their blood glucose levels will be super high. Definitely test at home and just agree to disagree with the vet about it. Here's a thread with a link to a 2025 guideline for managing diabetes: Happy World Diabetes Day🎉 New diabetes guidelines and podcast episode

AccuChek is fine to use. Test strips can be expensive so shop around for prices. If you're in the US, WalMart's own line of Relion meters are inexpensive but supplies may only be sold in stores.

Some basic info we need: What insulin is your cat on and what is the current dose? How long has your cat been on the dose? When was your cat diagnosed? What do you feed your cat?
Click to expand...
jjacks1 said:
Socs was diagnosed at 2 years old. He's now 13. I give him 1 unit twice a day at meal time of Novolin-N. I feed him Fancy Feast pate. I tried the Tiki Cat food but it made him throw up so I stick to Fancy Feast. He's been on this dose for most of his life.
He's lost most of his teeth so feeding texture is an issue. I add water to his canned food. Seems to help. He doesn't eat any dry food. He gets 2 treats at bedtime and that's it.
Click to expand...
 
It would easier if you see Corky’s spreadsheets sheet, scroll the SS to the left to remarks
 
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