25/12 Mo - AMPS 356 - Mo's vet checkup

katy and mo (GA)

katy and mo (GA)

Member Since 2020
Yesterday's post

No tests were done. The vet didn't want to do any just yet *sigh*. She also won't budge on the whole TR thing. She said we're not going to test him for insulin resistance until he gets up to 8.5 units. What she did suggest is to reduce to the amount we test him at home so we can hopefully improve his relationship with us and get him to play. So we will only test him AMPS and PMPS from day 4-7 after his dose increase.

She did send me the vet notes and there is something mentioned about referring Mo to a feline specialist 25 minutes away from us. This the blurb about her on the website I found:

"Dr Pru Galloway is New Zealand's first Registered Feline Medicine Specialist. She is dedicated to the investigation, treatment and compassionate care of non-surgical feline problems. Pru sees a wide range of patients including those with chest, neurological, dermatological, abdominal, endocrine [e.g. diabetes], nutritional, neoplastic [cancer], infectious and blood disorders. If you would like Pru to see your cat have your normal vet arrange a referral for you."

Maybe in the new year, I could ask them to refer us sooner?

Until then, I can't go against what my vet wants because she will cut me off from the insulin and we will have to find a new vet. We can only get the insulin from a vet, we can't buy it online. And Tim refuses to go against what the vet says.

So I'm feeling a bit delated. But hopefully with his dose increases we are able to bring his BG down.

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas :) :bighug:
 
If you want to use a vet for the diabetes I would find a new one this one clearly has no idea and threatening to cut you off insulin is just ridiculous! I would ring the kitty specialist before spending money on an appointment. You can get her views on TR and high dose conditions before you spend any money there. When Vyktor was first diagnosed his vet was also an idiot about diabetes so I called around to several vets to find one that was going to be on board with what I knew was the right thing to do before committing.
 
I faced a similar situation to yours and one of the best decisions I made with myself and Billo was finding another vet that has experience handling feline diabetes, luckily I found her thanks to @Tracey&Jones (GA).

You deserve peace of mind and reassurance when taking your kitty to the vet, and you're not receiving this from the current doctor. I agree with @Vyktors Mum, that's honestly the best advice!

:):bighug:
 
My vet was the same. I went through three, actually, Only speaking from my own personal experience, I suggest you find a new vet asap. One who will not withhold insulin from you especially with numbers as high as Mo's. :bighug:
 
I honestly doubt any vet in the Wellington region (where I live) would accept TR protocol. It's too "out there". My vet said that because Lantus is slow-acting, you need to wait at least a week to see what it can do. I have emailed the vet that the specialist works at so hopefully I will hear back from them. But I'm feeling incredibly stressed about this.
 
I’m glad you’ve decided to increase. You don’t even really need a vet that agrees with TR protocol (it freaks most of them out, I think mostly because they see a lot of beans that aren’t so committed to their critters) just one that knows enough about diabetes and has enough brains to see that you’re not risking his safety. Mine was never on board with the protocol but after looking at his spreadsheet and watching how I managed it he was happy I wasn’t putting Vyktor in danger and to leave the diabetes management to me.

Mum’s vet for Purrdy was the same. Mum told them I knew about diabetes and she was going to follow the same protocol I had, they watched what we were doing for a while on the spreadsheet and basically said you’ve got this you know what to do better than we do off you go. Purrdy was a Cushings kitty and got past 20U which they had never seen before but they could see from his spreadsheet that that’s what he needed. They’d also never sent bloods for IAA/acro testing and wondered if we should but I insisted so they went ahead - I was known at the vet as ‘she who must be obeyed’ lol

It’s just plain weird that your current vet won’t do the IAA/acro tests for Mo yet, it’s just a blood draw so nothing risky. Are they some sort of control freak! I’m curious - have you asked how many high dose kitties she’s dealt with in the past and what sort of results she’s had with them? I’m sure there are other vets in NZ that would at least do that for him. If it’s IAA you really want to be pushing the insulin hard to beat it into submission.
 
Last edited:
OMG! It's so disheartening to see what you're going through:( So many vets, yours included know so very little about feline diabetes...it's just awful that they're allowed to make suggestions and threaten to cut off your meds unless you comply with their less than informed decisions!

I do hope you can find another vet ASAP! Please do increase as often as necessary...try to find another resource for your insulin if you have to...your sanity and your cats' life depends on your being strong and advocating for someone else to review Mo's current issues...there's more going on that your vet can possibly begin to understand (apparent from your comments) and unfortunately this isn't the first time we've heard about this kind of thing...they simply don't know about FD because they've had very little training and no time whatsoever to invest in learning in-depth about this disease.

Please keep us posted! Best of luck to you!!!
 
katy and mo said:
She said we're not going to test him for insulin resistance until he gets up to 8.5 units.
Click to expand...
My vet said the same thing, except 10 units. And that was after consultation with the local internal medicine vet. :rolleyes: Neko was Maine Coon cross so a bigger girl. At one point (ages ago) the guidelines were not to test for acromegaly until they got to their weight in kg times 2. Side note, Neko maxed out at 8.75 lbs - she never got to that 10 unit dose. It took me a couple times of arm twisting and saying "but I am the customer and I want you do to this" before the tests were done. The recent studies from Royal Veterinary College showing one in four diabetics has acromegaly, found cats on as low as 1 unit, up to 35, and an average of 7 units. Link to a summary of the paper and link to the actual paper here. The current thinking is that cats that are not well regulated fairly quickly should be tested for it. Side note, later when Neko needed an internal medicine vet, I refused to go to the one my vet consulted, and went with a new one who had been trained in Europe and was much more on top of current endocrine issues.

I go like that Dr. Galloway did some training in England, not so much that she's a Hill's Pet food nutrition lecturer. Hopefully they just help pay for the salary, without influencing the food recommendations.

I am glad you are going to increase, at this point it should be every 3 days until you see blues. When insulin resistance is present, you do need to stay on top of it with increases because the resistance does not take a rest.

I won't even get into the topic of Levemir, which is the insulin you probably should be thinking about at this point. Lantus has an acid base that can sting at high doses. Some people see personality changes because of it. Neko used to sometimes walk away during the shot. Levemir has similar action, with onset and nadir a couple hours later. Many higher dose cats do better on it.

I know it's hard to go against the vet. :bighug: Especially with Tim saying you should follow the vet's advice. :bighug::bighug: Let us know how we can help you.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top