04/23/24 New Member Teja 17y female newly diagnosed as of today

Hello everyone, my name is Malia and my beloved Teja was recently diagnosed with diabetes today. Her glucose seemed high so we did the fructosamine ? test and it came back elevated. So we slapped a continous glucose monitor on her and it just came back with "HI". It scared the tar out of me.

Thankfully Teja had an amazing internal med doctor who walked me through what comes next. She had her first dose, one unit of lantus today at 3:30pm pacific time and I am currently monitoring her sugars slowly coming down and her resting comfortably for the first time in days.

Teja is a special case. She had kidney disease that is well managed. She has food allergies and suspected IBD. However, her team of vets, yes she has a team of specialists all lead by her internal med vet, are starting to change their minds about IBD and food allergies. At the end of February of this year, Teja present with gallstone blockages in her bile ducts and had to have emergency surgery. Her gallbladder was not healthy and they believe is what was causing the inflammation of her IBD. During her surgery her pancreas took a pounding, and rhe surgeon told us to expect either pancreatitis or blood sugar regulation issues, like diabetes. So here we are.

Teja just met with a veterinarian nutritionist and we are working to develop a diet for her, since she has to eat low fat due to her lack of a gallbladder, eat a novel protein due to food allergies and now, low glycemic carbohydrates due to her diabetes. I'm lucky, she's always been an eater and a bit of a chonk. So hopefully her diet will be something she will like once we get it started. For now she eats Royal Canin (RC) PR wet food and RC hydrolyzed protein for cats with kidney disease.

Yup, she's 17, but a young 17 and is the light of my small world. I'd do anything for her. Which is why I am here. I want to learn about this disease and how I can help her. I don't have any questions just yet, but I'm here for the support that I am not alone. That is what is so hard, doing this all on my own and I don't have anyone to talk to about this new lifestyle.

Thank you so much for this support group!

 

Hi Malia and Teja and welcome to the forum.
Lantus is a good insulin for cats. It needs to be given 12 hours apart so you might find the 3.30 am and pm time slot difficult. You can move it forward 15 minutes a cycle until you get to the desired time.
We have a spreadsheet you might like to set up which will help you keep track of the blood glucose levels. We can also help you with dosing if you would like.
We have 2 dosing methods for Lantus which I will link below along with the information about the spreadsheet.

diabetic cats need a low carb diet of 10% or under carbs. The RC hydrolysed protein you mention looks like it is 17% carbs which is high carb and not suitable for diabetic cats. Can you ask your nutritionist if a high protein, low carb, low phosphorus food would be suitable? Weruva cat food brand have a low phosphorus selection of cat foods which is also low carb you might like to look at.

Make sure you have a hypo kit set up with some high carb food and some honey or Karo in case of low numbers.
Here is the link to the spreadsheet, the signature and the hypo kit
HELP US HELP YOU
And here is the link to the 2 dosing methods for Lantus
LANTUS DOSING METHODS

Here is the low phosphorus Weruva cat food

We are happy to help in any way.

 

Oh my goodness, thank you! I have so much to read and look over. This is all super scary and a total unknown to me. I didn't even know what a normal cat's BG level is. I don't even know what to shoot for. I honestly know nothing.

Thank you for the diet suggestion. I have reached out to my nutritionist to see what we can do. I looked at the royal canin selected protein rabbit to find the carb content. Are we looking at the carb (NFE) on as fed basis or dry matter? Because I think this is higher carb too, 14% dry matter base. She has food allergies (which cause intense pain and inflammation for her) to pretty much most fish and farm animal food out there. So rabbit and duck are safe so far. But duck is super high in fat, which we have to work up to due to no gallbladder, and I have to watch the phosphorus levels. This is an incredible balancing act I've got before the diabetes.

I have so much to read and learn. Thank you for showing me where to start.

 

Have you looked at kangaroo meat. That is low fat and would be a novel protein.

 

Venison may also be an option. Ask your nutritionist about ZiwiPeak food. They have both Venison and a Rabbit and Lamb flavor that may be novel proteins. Another possibility may be a raw or partially cooked diet. You can source proteins if you need to or if there's a butcher in your area, some carry a wider array of protein. Pork may be an option for your cat since it's not an ingredient in many commercial cat foods. There are pre-mixes that have all of the supplements needed to make a raw diet nutritionally complete.

 

The nutritionist mentioned it when we met. I think that's the novel protein we will be starting with. I never knew it was an option.

 

Thank you so much for your suggestions. I have looked into raw, which is why I'm working with a nutritionist on this. Teja has to have a low fat diet as well because she doesn't have a gallbladder. And now, low carb, lol. Its a good thing cats are obligate carnivores. I will be making her cat food for sure, lol. She has so many conditions to work with now. The last thing I want to do is hurt her, or worse, with what she eats or the medicine she takes. Which is why I am here, to learn from all of you. Thank you again.

 

I feed my cats a home made raw diet. You have a lot more control as to what goes into the food.
to make a raw diet lower phosphorus you can add a cooked egg white each day. It is low phosphorus and high protein. I used to give Sheba 1/2 a cooked egg white mashed up in her raw diet a day.

 

This is exactly what I am looking to do myself. Make her meals and transition her safely to a raw diet. She 17 with a few conditions, so I want to make sure I do it right. I'll mention to the nutritionist the egg white suggestion. I do know that we have to watch out for certain fats as it can cause GI issues. I do know that egg whites are an amazing source of protein especially for kitties with CKD. Thank you for suggesting it!

 

Hey, I'm not sure if I can reply here or if I need to make a new post. Would you be able to guide me? It's day 3 for us with insulin. And I'm scared I'm doing everything wrong. I am looking at her libre 2 readings and I don't know how to interpret them. I am afraid of insulin and hurting her and I have no confidence in myself with this. And I need to get some fast because she is counting on me to get this regulated. I have asked her internal med vet so many questions, so many text messages I feel like I am becoming a nuisance at this point but there are so many unknowns. I am trying to read as much as I can, while also trying to take care of her correctly and work. I work from home so I can obsess over her all day. There is so much to read! I've done my fair share of medical support for my kitties, but this is my first sugar cat. And it's just her and I in this (I do have other kitties, but it's just me as a human here) and I've got to make sure we get this regulated. I feel like I'm spinning my wheels and going nowhere. Help.

 

Sure I can help you. The first thing you need to do is set up your spreadsheet and enter your BGnumbers so we can see it all. Then we can help you with dosing and anything else. Also if you can set up your signature and tell us all about Teja.
Information on how to set up the SS and signature here. If you have any trouble let us know and we will help you
HELP US HELP YOU

 

I'll get right on that!

 

Hi @Malia , this is Bhooma from the FB group. I can help set up your spreadsheet and signature. Will send you a PM with the details I need. Look for it in the Inbox at the top right corner of this page.

It's great that you are posting here and getting help from Bron!

 

Hi @Malia, I've set up the spreadsheet. Since you are using the Libre, you will have a lot of data. Don't worry about entering all of it in the SS. Mainly we need preshot values and some readings in each cycle - mainly the nadirs since Lantus dosing is based on how low a dose takes the cat.

@Staci & Ivy and @Evey also use the Libre, so you could check out their spreadsheets.