Gabrielle, I'm so sorry to hear about the stress with the vet. It's very disappointing and brings up a lot of anxiety when we have to confront "authority" that are supposed to be on our side.
I want to share with you my experience both with vets and in here. As both
@Bron and Sheba (GA) and
@Wendy&Neko and
@Bandit's Mom were very active in my case and said similar things. I don't share any advice but solely my experience which hopefully will be helpful.
My vets had zero appreciation or even an interest in what I was doing. none! if anything, I got either very typical neutral looking faces or judgments that were difficult to disguise. I too was told that raising the dose too quickly will lead to smoggy, that Fistuk will get insulin resistance, that I should be using pet meters bc the meter I'm using is not reliable and there are no research blah blah blah and that after they put a libra sensor on Fistuk which is also human meter. When I brought that out I got silence as a response.
Mind you, even when he started being in green I was told "...when he gets to good numbers..." and when I posted out he's in normal range, that even showed I blood tests they conducted, I got the silence again.
They basically used scared tactics to show me how wrong I am and obv being novice to FD I was afraid I'll do the wrong thing.
Fistuk BG was constantly high. Here's what I can tell in reflection when looking at Fistuk's SS now: If I had waited a week each time to raise a dose Fistuk would have been
4 weeks!! behind. His body probably would have gotten too used to staying in glucose toxic and who knows if I'd had ever the chance to go down in dosing like we do now after he broke glucose toxicity tanks to TR and the guidance I've received here.
I was quite hesitant to using anti nausea medications but I did follow Wendy's and Bron's suggestions as well as for dose with Ondansetron and Mirtazapin and eventual Fistuk broke through his nausea and he's eating really well now.
The vet raised a very high eye brow to my Onda dose and almost didn't give me more when I asked for. Same for insulin!! I started looking for alternative ways to get insulin bc they made sounds of not giving it to me bc I'm going my way (TR)
Also, thanks to the advice and guidance here I knew what tests to ask for, what questions to ask and what to demand for. Being completely at their mercy they have missed on a lot, misguided me, even when they did diagnose chronic pancreatitis I was told his pancreas was fine!
I become an angry lioness when vets are abusing their power and trying to scare me or offer ridiculous advice for how to treat Fistuk. Might not be everyone's style but I do agree that we are our kitties mouth and at the end of the day the vet is being paid to give a service which I assure you they would love to be kept on your bills. I know the feeling of running out of vets. I learned to use them for what they can offer and not what they can't - which is tests. The interpretation and guidance I do here.
Where Fistuk is now is the greatest testament for the advice we're getting here. There were many times I was afraid to simply follow and how happy I am that I did.
You're doing a great job with Cooper. Keep it up Gabrielle. You're a great mum. Take time to destress from that episode and keep on with what you're doing here. Cooper will turn a corner
this morning
All he needs to do is read a few articles on causes of insulin resistance. Having a high dose is not on that list, but a few conditions that can require a cat to need more insulin are on the list. And by the way, bouncing is NOT a sign that he's on too much insulin.
