Charlie just diagnosed on Saturday, I just found you guys!

Michi&Charlie

Michi&Charlie

Member Since 2026
Hello everyone. I found you guys today while doing some research and have already found more info than the vet gave me. Charlie is almost 19 years old, and was just diagnosed after some significant weight loss and an eye infection. We’re now on Lantus, and he already seems like he’s feeling better. We’re making some food adjustments, as the vet told us that he should only be getting fed twice daily, which he’s not impressed by. Since he stopped eating kibble about a year or two ago (he is the proud owner of only four teeth including one fang) he’s been getting three meals a day.

Biggest problems so far- ear pokes that don’t bleed so then he needs multiple pokes. Going to look into getting larger lancets, don’t know which gauge came with his monitor (alphatrak). He doesn’t like the food the vet sold me, good thing I only bought a couple of cans, so I’m looking into diabetic friendly foods (and got some very limited carb ones from PetSmart) and treats. He adores his temptations cups and delectables, but at least the delectables are grain free. The vet didn’t explain much about getting his curve so I initially tried it way too early but after a very brief perusal on your forum I’ve figured out why, just wish the vet had explained it better. I have an emergency medical background, so was approaching the problem from that perspective and that was confusing me. After all, if we had a BGL of 36.7 in a human, I’d immediately treat that with another shot, but I sorta understand what’s going on now, more or less.

I’m happy this forum is here, and am always open to suggestions.

~michi.
 

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Welcome to FDMB
It is overwhelming when you hear your precious fur baby is diagnosed with FD, we have all been there, but the good news is that is quite manageable, you are starting with the right insulin, Lantus or ProZinc are the best insulin for cats they are a 12-hour insulin easy on the cat, Lantus being a Depot insulin, feeding several small meals or snacks during the day is very important aside from the main meals prior to shot, it is important to test before each shot to avoid a hypoglycemic episode. a diabetic cat needs to have a diet of wet can or raw food between 0-10% carbs, be on a feeding schedule is important, so no grazing or dry foods, dry foods or kibbles contain between 20-30% carbs, cats cannot digest carbs, so Temptations are OUT, there are many low carb treats, also, as you begin home testing with time, in about 2 weeks the capillaries in the ear will swell and it will be easier to draw blood it will be easier to draw blood Hometesting Links and Tips if you continue to have trouble testing you may want to consider CGM the LIBRE, but you will still need to manually test if the Libre reads low numbers (two digits), since the Libre tends to read low number much lower than reality, we would like to know more about your cat, we are very numbers oriented, so we would like you to create your signature and spreadsheet, links below, tell us what country you are from and we can send you a food list, from your country, in the Main menu we have sticky notes with much valuable information, I will also tag a member that can help you with Lantus dosing, a curve is simply testing every 2-3 hours for a cycle (12 hours) you do not need a vet for that, cats are very sensitive to stress and a curve at the vet will cause for higher glucose levels that can cause an unnecessary increase in dose, it is unfortunately that some vets don't explain too well if not at all, so you make sure to ask questions, you know your cat better than the vet, if you have doubts, ask questions follow your instincts, keep posting your concerns, we are here for you 🤗

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

@Sienne and Gabby (GA)
 
I’m in Alberta, Canada. He’s been off dry kibble for years now, only getting canned and raw foods. He doesn’t get the temptations dry treats, he is in love with the little cups (they’re sorta like the delectables but in a cup shaped container), I haven’t been able to look up the nutritional info as of yet because I only had a few loose ones around and not the outer box. We do have a bunch of other treats, freeze dried and other low carb at home. I definitely found the instruction to only feed him twice daily very odd, after all you’d never tell a human diabetic that, so I’m glad to hear that you guys are also finding that suspect. The vet gave me instructions to do a home curve next week and email it to the office, for right now he’s getting one unit of the lantus solo star twice daily twenty minutes after meals. Also, he said nothing about rotating sites and Charlie already seems to be getting sore in the scruff. I also find it strange that he didn’t mention using any sort of antiseptic wipes for either the testing or injections, like you would for a person. I’ve already checked out the spreadsheet on foods and am happy that most of the food I’ve gotten him is appropriate, and I only need to cut out a few of his usual selections. I’m going to switch from using the solostar pen like a pen and go with the syringes, because I want to stretch his supply as long as I can. Also, I’m wondering what folks are using as a home treatment if there is a hypoglycemic episode? Right now he’s consistently very high, highest reading so far was 36.7mmol, lowest 19.
 
Hi Michi and Charlie, waving from Southern Alberta 👋 🙂

Just wanted to welcome you to the forum. The folks here are amazing and have a wealth of knowledge and experience that will help you and Charlie on this new journey.

Since you are using Lantus, I would suggest you read the pinned sticky notes at the top of the Lantus board. Tons of helpful information. You can find it here:
Lantus / Levemir / Biosimilars

Please ask all the questions you can, we’re all here to help!
 
awww Charlie is adorable. He looks just like my boy Chester, except Chester is 9. Welcome to the FDMB! The experts here are living angels. they helped me get my boy Hendrick into diabetic remission and for that I will be forever grateful. It is a debt I can never hope to repay.

getting the hang of ear pokes and then milking the ear a little to squeeze out a large enough drop for whatever meter you're using is quite the learning curve for most. I know I thought it was going to be completely impossible. Some of the tips that REALLY helped me were:

using a dab of Vaseline before poking
using a pair of jewler magnifying lenses with light, or a headlamp, so I could really see what I was doing
making sure to orient the lancet with the pointy part down, and making sure to poke at a 45 degree angle on the very edge of the ear

but also, the more you do it the more the capillary bed will grow and the easier it will get. So that's good.
 
Kat & Trixie said:
Also to follow up to your question about how to treat a hypoglycaemic episode, this link has lots of helpful information as well.

Sticky - Don't Panic! or How to Handle Low Numbers

You want to have medium carb wet food 10-15% and high carb 15% and above on hand. You can also use a small amount of honey if needed.
Click to expand...
Also add to that HYPO KIT Karo syrup or honey this is in case of any lime green BGs are present anything below 50, however when the the BG is low or you are not comfortable at least 1 hour before shot, we can guide you on how hike up th levels with medium food, high carbs would then follow if necessary, they syrup and honey is just a quick fix, so only used if necessary
 
all cats are different, some show signs some do not, it’s better they never get to a stage of hypo is not pleasant and bad for the cat, that’s why home testing especially after each shot and 2 hours after are very important
 
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Welcome to FDMB!

Any medical background can be helpful especially if you're diving into reading about feline diabetes. There is a ton of information on the Health Links page. As Kat mentioned, there is good information about Lantus in the sticky notes at the top of that insulin support group page that she linked.

As for food and feeding....
Remember that Lantus/glargine doesn't onset immediately. It takes roughly 2 hours to see the insulin start to work. Also, that's on average -- some cats have an early or a late nadir and onset is similarly early or late. Nadir "should" be at around 6 hours after shot time. Practically, what this means is you can test, feed, and shoot back-to-back. Most Lantus users will give a shot while their cat's head is in their food bowl. And, as you've been reading, feeding only twice a day is silly. Spreading out meals during the more active, pre-nadir period allows for a smoother curve and can help to prevent crashes. We suggest not feeding in the 2 hour period before shot time so your pre-shot test isn't influenced by food. However, even that is variable -- if your cat drops into very low numbers immediately prior to shot time, feed your cat and get the numbers into a safe zone.

This is a link to a food chart that contains Canadian brands. We consider low carb as under 10% carbohydrate. However, many people here feed their cat a food that's in the neighborhood of 5%. You do want to have some higher carb food in the house should you need to bump up the numbers.

Please ask questions! We're here to help.
 
I’ve been reading as much as I possibly can and hopefully absorbing some of it 😅. Such a wealth of info here! Here, I thought I knew so much about diabetes from my job, but apparently there was an absolute crap-load that I didn’t know about.
I’ve put together my hypo kit, and luckily my cat loving boss even let me take some supplies home (including oral glucose) so that’s a good start.

I was looking at several of my cans of food at home and noticed that several of them say the percentage of “fiber” instead of carbs. Are these freely interchangeable?

Charlie is tolerating the poking and I’ve noticed the capillaries already becoming more obvious. I’d still like to find a slightly bigger lancet, but even at the pharmacy in the town where I work they only have the same size or smaller yet. The ones I have are a 30 gauge and while the ones I use on my human patience are larger than that, they are the trigger style ones and I suspect they’d be more appropriate if Charlie wanted some earrings as opposed to his BGL checked. Even my human patients occasionally jump and complain about them being rather aggressive.

I was reading the Lantus page here and noticed the 12 hour rule for his dosing. I work a rotating schedule where I leave town for two to four days at a time for work. While my Significant-Other-Cat-Dad-Extraordinaire is generally home, we are both neurodivergent and experience the movement of time in weird ways and tend not to have a very stringent schedule at the best of times. Generally, Charlie is the best time keeper in the house and usually insists on his supper and “elevensies” (late night meal) at around the same times, but breakfast always varied by whenever one of us got up. Could be anywhere between four am (when I go to work on my first day shift of the week) and ten am give or take a bit. Obviously, we’ll have to change that to accommodate, which will be a bit tricky with my shifts but we’ll have to figure it out. He used to free feed when he was younger and was on kibble, but since switching to only wet food years ago he’s always just pestered us if he wanted a snack, and I always feed him enough to allow him to have enough in his bowl to last for a few hours between feedings. I find it astounding that the vet would even suggest only twice a day feedings.

He’s significantly under weight, and I saw on another diabetic resource online that if I want him to gain weight I should use this formula: number of calories needed (in kcal)= 30 x body weight in kg + 70. For him (currently coming in at a measly 3.4kg) we’d be looking at 172 kcal. I’ve looked at the food chart here and am familiar with a handful of the brands, he’s a fan of the tiki cat (sometimes, other times he will completely refuse it) and definitely the BFF/Weruva, but a lot of the other brands I’ve never heard of before. I’ve been reading labels and finding lots of good options though, so I’m hoping I can bulk him up.

Anyway, thank you for all the help!😻
 
Sienne and Gabby (GA) said:
Welcome to FDMB!

Any medical background can be helpful especially if you're diving into reading about feline diabetes. There is a ton of information on the Health Links page. As Kat mentioned, there is good information about Lantus in the sticky notes at the top of that insulin support group page that she linked.

As for food and feeding....
Remember that Lantus/glargine doesn't onset immediately. It takes roughly 2 hours to see the insulin start to work. Also, that's on average -- some cats have an early or a late nadir and onset is similarly early or late. Nadir "should" be at around 6 hours after shot time. Practically, what this means is you can test, feed, and shoot back-to-back. Most Lantus users will give a shot while their cat's head is in their food bowl. And, as you've been reading, feeding only twice a day is silly. Spreading out meals during the more active, pre-nadir period allows for a smoother curve and can help to prevent crashes. We suggest not feeding in the 2 hour period before shot time so your pre-shot test isn't influenced by food. However, even that is variable -- if your cat drops into very low numbers immediately prior to shot time, feed your cat and get the numbers into a safe zone.

This is a link to a food chart that contains Canadian brands. We consider low carb as under 10% carbohydrate. However, many people here feed their cat a food that's in the neighborhood of 5%. You do want to have some higher carb food in the house should you need to bump up the numbers.

Please ask questions! We're here to help.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the Canadian chart!
 
Welcome to FDMB
well I can say you are a way ahead of most newbies, the best insulin for cats are Lantus answer ProZinc they are a 12 hour insulin easy on the cat, Sevenlgo oral , has its downfalls please read in our message board about it, diabetic cats need to have a diet of wet can foods between 0-10% carbs you can download a cat carb calculator use the nutrients on the food we are looking for the dry matter carb, it was great you switched to wet, also Charlie should have several meal/ small snacks 3-4 during the day besides the main meals before shot, grazing is not a good idea he needs a feeding schedule, glucose levels raise after eating so when you test you don’t want to have a false reading, I use the 29 olor 30 gauge lancet, also we are very numbers oriented we would like you to create your signature and spreadsheet links in our message board this way we can all be on the same page, I just got up to feed and shoot my Corky and back in bed for a bit when I saw your post, but in a couple of hours I will send you the links, we are here for you, keep posting, we have quite a few members that are in Canada as well
 
CORKY said:
Welcome to FDMB
well I can say you are a way ahead of most newbies, the best insulin for cats are Lantus answer ProZinc they are a 12 hour insulin easy on the cat, Sevenlgo oral , has its downfalls please read in our message board about it, diabetic cats need to have a diet of wet can foods between 0-10% carbs you can download a cat carb calculator use the nutrients on the food we are looking for the dry matter carb, it was great you switched to wet, also Charlie should have several meal/ small snacks 3-4 during the day besides the main meals before shot, grazing is not a good idea he needs a feeding schedule, glucose levels raise after eating so when you test you don’t want to have a false reading, I use the 29 olor 30 gauge lancet, also we are very numbers oriented we would like you to create your signature and spreadsheet links in our message board this way we can all be on the same page, I just got up to feed and shoot my Corky and back in bed for a bit when I saw your post, but in a couple of hours I will send you the links, we are here for you, keep posting, we have quite a few members that are in Canada as well
Click to expand...
I will get around to doing my signature at some point soon, I’ve got to take a closer ok at the spreadsheets as I found them a little overwhelming. That said, I’m currently on night shifts so a lot of things are overwhelming 😹.
 
Michi&Charlie said:
I will get around to doing my signature at some point soon, I’ve got to take a closer ok at the spreadsheets as I found them a little overwhelming. That said, I’m currently on night shifts so a lot of things are overwhelming 😹.
Click to expand...
If you like we can have a member create it for you and in that case all we need is for you to create your signature that will tell us most of what we need for the SS
 
Charlie had his first normal range BGL yesterday! The vet increased him to 2 units twice daily on Sunday and we finally saw him have a sugar of 4.2 mmol/L yesterday afternoon. Huge improvement from the 15-30 mmol/L results we had been seeing until now. He’s eating way more than he has been for a long time so I’m hopeful he’ll start gaining some weight, and he seems much more himself. Testing is still going a bit rocky, even with heating his ear up before hand it’s very difficult to stick him and have him bleed enough to get a measurement. I can see the capillaries getting a little more obvious but this boy is stingy with sharing his blood and he’s getting quite annoyed with the multiple sticks. I got a gentle but firm smack to the nose when I jabbed him yesterday and if a cat could frown, he was. I’m struggling to find a larger gauge lancet, but still looking. He’s not a fan of the lantus shots either, but he’s an overall a very tolerant cat so I’m just rewarding him well for his patience through this. This is a big change for an old boy.
 
Thank you for letting us know, it would be great of you Can create your signature and spreadsheet Charlie is now on a high dose, in case you may need assistance seeing the daily tests will be better to advice, to tests make sure the needle goes in the ear sides ways not down, tge droplet is more prominent this was and the needle won’t go thru the ear, offer a low carb treat after testing, for association
 
CORKY said:
Thank you for letting us know, it would be great of you Can create your signature and spreadsheet Charlie is now on a high dose, in case you may need assistance seeing the daily tests will be better to advice, to tests make sure the needle goes in the ear sides ways not down, tge droplet is more prominent this was and the needle won’t go thru the ear, offer a low carb treat after testing, for association
Click to expand...
Ah! Maybe that’s my problem, I tend to aim downward (sort of angled toward the skull as opposed to perpendicular) into the capillary, not sideways. I’ll try that. I’ve done the signature but still need to take a closer look at the spreadsheets to figure out how they work.
I’d like to start using syringes and needles instead of the solostar pen but I can’t wrap my head around making up for the anatomical dead space of needle when it’s such a small amount. I don’t want to waste insulin, but I feel like the pen stings more than necessary, not sure if it’s the needle gauge or something else with the pen (pressure or speed of injection maybe?) , but he seems more uncomfortable than I’m necessarily comfortable with.
 
Michi&Charlie said:
Ah! Maybe that’s my problem, I tend to aim downward (sort of angled toward the skull as opposed to perpendicular) into the capillary, not sideways. I’ll try that. I’ve done the signature but still need to take a closer look at the spreadsheets to figure out how they work.
I’d like to start using syringes and needles instead of the solostar pen but I can’t wrap my head around making up for the anatomical dead space of needle when it’s such a small amount. I don’t want to waste insulin, but I feel like the pen stings more than necessary, not sure if it’s the needle gauge or something else with the pen (pressure or speed of injection maybe?) , but he seems more uncomfortable than I’m necessarily comfortable with.
Click to expand...
Th pen is more upsetting it makes a noise they hear, cats ears are very sensitive to sound all so if you would to decrease the dose in 0.25 units is easier with the syringe, gat a small sock fill the end with rice large enough to cup the ear, tie it cut the rest, this will give you a better hold to prick
 
CORKY said:
Th pen is more upsetting it makes a noise they hear, cats ears are very sensitive to sound all so if you would to decrease the dose in 0.25 units is easier with the syringe, gat a small sock fill the end with rice large enough to cup the ear, tie it cut the rest, this will give you a better hold to prick
Click to expand...
I use the sock already for warming his ear and he’s very tolerant of me holding the ear, just get very little blood if any. How do you make up for the dead space of the needle?
 
I don’t understand your question, also when you prick you can lightly force the blood out with top of your fingers it does not hurt Charlie
 
I’ve started my spreadsheet but I’m at work and his notebook where I’ve been logging it all is at home, will update when I go home from my tour on Sunday.
 
CORKY said:
I don’t understand your question, also when you prick you can lightly force the blood out with top of your fingers it does not hurt Charlie
Click to expand...
Charlie hates the “milking” more than the poking, and that’s generally when he gets pissed off. With using syringes, there’s a larger amount of anatomical dead space in the needle tip and mouth of the syringe than there is fluid in 2 units of insulin, so how would I make up for that dead space to measure it accurately? For example, if I was injecting a human with medication, I could draw up a small amount of saline to make up for this space, or flush the injection with saline afterward to ensure that all the medication is out of the syringe. Obviously I can’t do that with a subcutaneous injection of this minute size, so how does one ensure that he’s getting all of the two units I’m supposed to be dosing?
 
No no mixing, before inserting the syringes in the vial press it up, when you pick up he insulin from the vial that small empty space will fill, try to get out of the vial the right amount, so pull the fluid slowly you will see the gap filling in
 
CORKY said:
No no mixing, before inserting the syringes in the vial press it up, when you pick up he insulin from the vial that small empty space will fill, try to get out of the vial the right amount, so pull the fluid slowly you will see the gap filling in
Click to expand...
I feel like we might be misunderstanding each other. Let me see if I can explain it better. When filling a syringe with such a tiny volume, only 2 units, once you attach the needle you have to make up for the empty space of the needle, otherwise when you administer it, you’re actually giving significantly less volume than intended, because of that empty “dead” space. Because you’re only pushing the plunger of the syringe that tiny amount, that needle length may still contain a significant portion of the insulin. In human beings, you’d adjust the dose to make up for the wastage, or flush with saline which obviously isn’t the right choice in this scenario (doing subcutaneous injections on a cat).
 
Just to clarify, I've never used an insulin syringe where I have to attach the needle. Are you dispensing the insulin directly from the Lantus pen? If so, we encourage you to use a syringe and not dispense from the pen. If you're using a syringe, You may want to attach a photo. I've never seen an insulin syringe that doesn't come with the needle attached.
 
I wonder if the OP is using a 1 ml slip tip or luer lock syringe and attaching a needle to that? I use those all the time at work and for Leroy's B12 injections. A 1 ml syringe does measure in 0.01 ml increments so it's possible to measure something like 2 units (0.02 ml). It's impossible to measure anything smaller than a whole unit dose.
 
Disregard, I found some very teeny, low dead space needles so I will use that. The problem with most needle/syringes is the length of the needle varies which will change your amount of dead space. Generally one shouldn’t be using the needle that you want to inject with to draw up the med because it’ll blunt slightly. I found some that would work.
 
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