Mara and Mitzi
Member Since 2014
Hi everyone! I'm Mitzi May's mom and loooooooooooooooooooove her more than anything in this whole wide world! I got Mitzi for my 6th birthday and it was the best day of my life so far! She will be 17 in June and was diagnosed with Diabetes a year and a half ago. My vet said she had/has extremely high blood sugar and it's higher than anything he's ever seen. He then did a bunch of tests on her to make sure nothing else was wrong. He took blood samples, urine samples, did xrays and ultrasounds and said she's as healthy as a horse for her age, minus the fact that she has Diabetes. Nothing was wrong with her thyroid and she had no ketones either. I do believe she had an enlarged bladder but he said that was normal since she was Diabetic and consuming abnormally large amounts of water...and I'm talking OVER A GALLON A DAY at the time. She then got some curves done and it was immediately determined that she needed more insulin than most cats do because 1, 2, 3, and 4 units twice a day weren't doing much. She was very lethargic and still drinking/peeing A LOT! She got moved up to 5 and so on. She's now at 7.5 units of Lantus twice a day and she still seems very lethargic and the last few days has been living at her water dish like she used to, which isn't a good sign. I know that she is a geriatric so she's not gonna be super lively anyways but she literally only gets up to eat, drink and go potty...and has enough energy to wake up up every morning when I don't hear the alarm go off (how fricken cute and smart is that?! she literally sits by my bed and howls like a coon hound/beagle until I wake up and feed her Fancy Feast LOL). But, she used to be a little more active than that, even just a couple months ago. I took her first BG test tonight at 8:34 PM and it read 552 mg/dL. From what I hear, that's not good and is extremely high. I had fed her a spoonful of Fancy Feast at about 7 because I've been slowly switching her over completely to wet food so she eats multiple times a day, whenever she's hungry that is. And that doesn't mean she overeats by any means, she just prefers multiple meals versus 2 or something like that. And I don't want her hungry all day so I will feed her little amounts at a time. Plus, multiple meals throughout the day keeps her from grazing at the dry food dish. I'm currently feeding my cats Simply Nourish Chicken and Rice Recipe dry food. I downloaded that app for android phones where you can type in the ingredients or whatever and it says 35% carbs, which is extremely high cos I read today on this page somewhere that it should be lower than 10% for cats. I know dry food is bad so I'll be getting Mitzi off of that as soon as possible but just have to figure out how because one of my other babies, Mimi, has Cerebral Hypoplasia and would have difficulties getting to food high up if I were to attempt keeping it away from Mitzi. That being said, it would probably be best to get all my babes on wet food completely and I'd be fine doing that eventually but don't know how many times to feed them a day and how much as they are all different sizes and Mitzi is 17 soon, and the rest under 2 years of age. And I know age and weight does determine how much they need to eat. My other cats are all very healthy size, literally no fat because I limit the dry food and they get wet food throughout the day along with Mitzi's feedings. Mitzi has never been tiny but she's not fat. She's a good sized cat at about 12.5 pounds...last I checked anyways...should really weigh her again as it's been a while. But she can get fat fast if she eats the wrong stuff so she's always been watched on what she eats and how much cos back in the day she used to be a little chunky monkey, which she now has saggy boobs from being chubby years ago. Anyways, I'm told she's getting a lot of Insulin, possible too much?! Should I cut her down? My vet doesn't know a whole Hell of a lot when it comes to Diabetes in cats and I saw 2 other vets as well and they literally knew nothing so I just do what I can on my own as far as research, etc. Even with all that I do though I know I don't know as much as some of you and I'd really like to learn, get advice/help, and get her on the right dosage. She gets her shots every 11-12 hours and I feed her Fancy Feast mixed with water while she gets her shot. She is fed/given her shot at 10-1030 every morning/night but sometimes it's off an hour cos I have classes (I'm a full-time student) and have to give a morning shot an hour late or an hour early, but I don't think that would hurt too much, would it?! My vet didn't seem to think so. Well, I think this is all I've got for now. It was a lot of rambling but I can't wait to hear from someone/people! Thanks for reading my novel!
Ha, ha!
Ha, ha!