3 months and I feel like a failure

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Lisa and Do Lou (GA)

Lisa and Do Lou (GA)

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Ok I have not really been on here much but Do Lou who was diagnosed on Nov 2 is just not doing well and still not regulated I had wanted to home test but cannot get his ears to bleed so I just gave up on that entirely and we have been running bk and forth to the vet he has been on 3/3 on N (novilin) and this past week his BG was 371 and my vet raised him to 31/2 which I do not think he feels good on. He has not eaten well since the increase and thrown up 2x. I was able to home test tonight with a paw pad seems the only way I can do it (is this acceptable and he was 398 so far I have not given him any insulin tonight he is supposed to go to the vet tomorrow for another BG. I did speak to another one of my vets friday while at work I am a tech about switching him to Lantus this cannot be done until after I have sx which is this monday so I do not want to make any insulin changes yet except with N at this time so I really feel like I am failing my cat should I start hometesting on his feet he seems to do better with this and I think I would have better luck this way. Also I really do not feel like I should give the 31/2 tonight after how bad he felt today any advice from the forum I feel like I am back to square one. He has been still drinking and peeing a lot and I have a smart cat box and can check his urine which I did today no ketones.
 
I'm glad to hear there are no ketones.

Without home testing you really cannot tell how well he's doing as his BG at the vets could very well be elevated due to stress. You have to trust your gut too... if you think he's not doing well with the increase, there is no harm is going back to your last level of dosing. However, I have to ask... how did you get to that dose? Did you start at 1 unit twice a day?


I think switching insulins is a great idea.

And yes... paw pad testing is perfectly acceptable. Many people do it that way. The more often you test (like before each shot and somewhere in between each cycle) the better you'll be able to regulate him.

Did the vet want you to shoot the insulin tonight or leave it until tomorrow. If you don't want to shoot at all, the N will be out of his system and you'll be able to see if he's better with less. You could even give him 1.5 u tonight and that would tell you if less is better for him.

What's he eating?
 
You're not a failure, you're still here and still trying. This is going to get easier, it just takes a little time and patience with yourself.

You can test the paw pad, there have been many others over the years that I've seen who successfully test that way.

I cannot advise on whether to dose the 3.5U of N. The BG is high and you do want to avoid ketones, but what you need to do is start collecting data. Once you see during the day how your cat is reacting to that dose, then you will be able to figure out if the dose is too high and causing rebound, or too low.

Tucker started out on N, but for him it wore off too fast. His BGs would drop, then it wore off in a matter of hours and then he got his next shot at +12. We did switch to PZI, then to Lev (similar to Lantus) over the years, simply because I could see that Tucker liked the longer lasting insulins.

What dose do you feel comfortable giving tonight? 1U, maybe 2U?
 
Please don't feel like a failure. It takes time and I think you are doing great by asking questions. It will get easier with time. As it did for me. Just remember if you need anything just ask.

David
 
He is eating raw meat nuggets from primal, fancy feast, tuna a little and when I give him dry its science diet hairball. I will start testing more on his pads and see if i can get the hang of this and I am going to be off work for a month so I may even talk to my vet next friday when I see my lantus vet about switching while I am home to test a lot. He said its 100.00 a bottle do you guys pay that much for it?
 
It took me a long time before I got good at pricking Buddha's ears. Ear temperature makes all the difference for us. What's worked for us is a baby washcloth. I get one wet, squeeze all the water out, then zap it in the microwave for 10-15 seconds. I fold it up, make sure it's not too warm, hold it underneath Buddha's ear while I hold him and scritch his head and neck. Cat ears warm up quickly, and usually the vein pops out too, and it's very easy to see, even with his black ears. Still holding the washcloth under the ear, I poke the vein with the lancet. Buddha has learned to anticipate that part, and might wiggle or put a paw up. If it's a good poke and the ear is warm I get a nice blob of blood quickly. If the ear is still warming up, often I can just wait a teeny droplet will grow. If I think I missed and poke again, I can often find I have two droplets before I'm done. When I'm done testing I fold the washcloth over the ear and gently squeeze until the bleeding stops.

Sometimes I can get a test done while he is sleeping, usually mid-day, which is coincidentally near our peak insulin time. Before morning feedings is the worst time because he's hungry and grumpy. Sometimes I have to let him have a bit of food first so he'll cooperate better.

Anyway, it took me a long time to get competent at it, but eventually we got it down. The regulation part, that's proving difficult for us too. There's no failure until you give up.

Good luck!
 
If you possibly can, get rid of all of that Science Diet light. I am convinced that is what gave Oliver diabetes. We fed him that stuff for years thinking it would help him lose weight, without realizing it was full of carbs. Even a tiny bit of dry can raise bg levels.

There is an earlier thread about the costs of Lantus/ where to buy it etc.: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3361
 
It can be that much but that's for a huge vial. It's better to get the prescription for the pens. I think you get 5 pens for just over $100... But since they are smaller and don't start to expire until you start to use them, the full amount lasts longer. That $100 should last you several months if not much longer - depending on the dose.

If you are feeding a balanced diet of mostly low carb FF... with the other stuff like meat chucks as a treat, you should be fine to cut out the dry completely. There is really nothing in that food that is better for the kitty than a proper wet food diet. A bit of butter once in a while will help with hairballs. But the dry may be what's keeping the numbers up. Don't cut it out until you are testing though... you don't want to be giving a regular dose and then cut out the carbs and have kitty go too low.
 
Ok I will work on home testing with his pads more and I am determined to win at home testing I feel like this has to be the only way we are going to get better since so far we have not gotten regulated. I will have lots of time on my hands this next month with him and I may even try the ears he just hates his ears messed with so pads may in the long run work better.
And I know I should get rid of all dry we have just not been able to yet some days I just cannot get him to eat canned or raw he was a 6 yrs of dry kibble boy overweight male neutered abyssinian so its a hard habit to break for him.
 
About the transition from dry: Don't do it cold turkey if it upset him. Give him the norm and then one or two less kibbles each day or every two days... That will bring you to one or two kibbles in a matter of weeks and he won't really miss it.
 
Lisa - I totally get the issue of removing dry food. I have three cats all of which ate dry only all their life. While I thought I was doing well, buying high quality dry, the problem is it was still dry food I was feeding.

When I came to this board and learned how bad dry food was, I tried to break the dry food addiction.

Here is a link to my story on that: Maui's dry food addiction

A previous post talking about why dry food is bad: Dry food issues

If your cat does eat the wet food, then you are ahead of the problem. If you look at Dr. Lisa's website, she has recommendations on how to transition a cat off dry food. You may find it helpful: http://www.catinfo.org/

You can break the habit, it just takes time, perserverance and creativity.

If you are able to test the paw pads, then please do that. The important thing is to to home test, no matter where you get it from, ear or paw. While yes, many of us test the ear and have trained the ears, there are a number of people who test the paw pad and are successful.

I do recommend that you warm the paw pad (if needed to get blood), use a flashlight (if the paw pad is dark in color) and see if there is an ointment similar to neosporin that you could use on the paw pad, that if ingested won't be dangerous. Maybe you can ask the vet if there is something. And if not, then petroleum is always a safe choice.

You may even want to start a new thread titled Paw pad testing need suggestions and see what the paw pad testers do for healing and such.

hope this helps, and please don't be so hard on yourself, you are doing the best you can and we are here and will help anyway we can.
 
You're not a failure! You are treating your kitty and he is being helped. It's veryhard to figure out the patterns and doses. With Fred, after 4 1/2 years on Lantus it's pretty much under control, but for the first 3 1/2 years he always had erratic numbers, even with very small dose changes (like 1/4 of a unit), BUT each testing time, his fructosamine gradually improved. Maybe I could have regulated him better, but hey, he's now 19 1/2 and on insulin almost 4 1/2 years. The past year has been really good for numbers. And at some point I decrease his dose by 40 percent or so. We went thru a high patch for a few months recently, but last month I increased his dose and now it's back under control. Unfortunately we now have heart problems and kidney problems, but don't beat yourself up about the doses and numbers. Just be conservative with the doses and even if he is high, you are still helping to regulate him over, you'll figure it out over time.
 
:smile: thanks so much everyone I have been so depressed ever since he was diagnosed and I thank all of you for your advice after his reading of 398 which I know is high I still only gave 2U tonight since he vomited today he has just not been himself since the vet bumped him to 3.5 this past wed.
 
Is the only purpose of your vet appointment tomorrow to get a BG number? If so, I would suggest that you practice tonight and skip the appointment. It may be too stressful for both of you. If the BG is high at the vet and he insists that you give a higher dose, that may upset you more. If you can, get a +2 test tonight (two hours post-shot) then a +11 (one hour before your shot tomorrow, and an AM preshot if you can. This will give you an idea of where to go...
 
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