9/11/20 New Member: Juno

My 9 year old baby Juno was diagnosed yesterday after a week of sluggishness. He's never had any health problems prior (except for being overweight, clearly) and I'm just worried to say the least. He lost one brother last year to a coyote, and his oldest brother and best friend to kidney disease in February, so needless to say he and his one remaining brother have had a rough year emotionally. I'm sort of familiar with getting on an injection regimen (his brother needed daily IV fluid and weekly shots) but I'm overwhelmed and worried that I won't be able to give him the care he needs physically.
He's going back to his vet next week for the first evaluation (not overnight thankfully), so I hope that once I have more tailored information for him that I'll feel less helpless. It's hard not to feel responsible as well as scared. I'm so glad there's a wealth of information here but it's scary not knowing where to start in figuring out his care.
Sorry for the circular rant with no real questions, I'm just worried about my boy.

 

Oof. Sounds like you guys have had quite a year . I hope we can at least help get your baby back on his feet with the diabetes! It is super-scary at first, but it really is a manageable diagnosis.

Some questions for you:

-What insulin were you prescribed?
-What dose?
-What is Juno eating?

As for going back to the vet for a re-check, it sounds like the vet wants to do a curve? If you are willing to learn to home-test blood glucose, you may not have to do that (saving some money, plus home-testing is a much better way to manage FD). It means more pokes, but most cats do great with it (so do the caregivers, after a somewhat steep learning curve )

In any case, welcome to you and Juno!

 

Thank you!! I really appreciate your message.

Juno was prescribed .1ml of Lantus every 12 hours. We're switching him over from Fancy Feast wet and Iam's dry food to Purina DM wet food. Luckily he enjoys the Purina but he misses his dry food. Since he started his insulin his appetite is a lot better as well.

I definitely plan on doing home tests, but I thought an initial vet supervised curve was ideal to get a super clear breakdown of how his body's responding to the insulin? But I know he's more likely to be stressed and therefore raise his blood sugar levels so I'm torn :/

 

Welcome to FDMB.

All of us were overwhelmed when we first got here. We've had vets, vet techs, MDs and everyone with all sorts of experience who are overwhelmed at first. It truly does get easier.

I'm copying this from another members thread where I posted....

There are also a few other things that will be helpful to consider. Number one is diet. In order to maximize Kirby's chances for remission (and yes, diabetic cats can go into remission), he will do best on a low carb, canned food diet. Actually, all of your cats will do best on the same food as Kirby. Cats are obligate carnivores and do not need all of the fruits and veggies that are often added to cat food. Lisa Pierson, DVM has an excellent website on feline nutrition along with a chart of canned foods available in the US along with information on the carbohydrate count. (It sounds like you have the food under control. The DM is about 7% carb but it's not a particularly high quality food -- look at the ingredients. The chart that I linked has lots of options. Below 10% is low carb but most of us feed arguing 5%.)

We also strongly encourage members to home test. Insulin is not a trivial drug and too much can cause a symptomatic hypoglycemic event. By home testing, you can monitor your cat's response to insulin and know if you need to intervene as well as when to adjust your cat's dose. Since most cats are stressed at the vet's office, reading that are taken there are often artificially elevated due to stress. As a result, the vet increases the dose and your cat is at risk for numbers bottoming out. We have lots of information, including videos on home testing and the members here will offer lots of suggestions. Vets will often suggest you purchase a pet specific meter. They are good meters but the strips are pricey. Many people here use a human meter -- often the Walmart Relion brand meter.

I'm also including a link on helping us to help you. There's information on materials you should have on hand, setting up your signature, and setting up a spreadsheet.

Sorry for all of the links and extra reading. There's a lot to know and it is overwhelming at the beginning. It will become routine in a surprisingly short period of time. Please let us know if your have questions.

 

Do you mean 1 unit? Could you take a picture of a syringe with the stopper drawn up to your usual dose and post it here?

 

To add some more detail: 0.1ml of a U-100 insulin like Lantus would be 10 units, which would be an absolutely enormous starting dose. Really hoping it's just 1U...

 

Yes! You're completely right, typo on my part! That would be enormous indeed. He's had 1 unit every 12 hours since Thursday and seems so much more like himself, which gives me so much more hope for the future

 

Thank you!! The help us help you link is amazing, I'll start setting up a spreadsheet. Thank you for all of your reassurance, it means so much!