Another diagnosed case of Diabetes

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Alan Eade

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I wasn't sure whether to add to one of the other new cases this month or start a new thread.

Our Birman, Jack has just been diagnosed with diabetes (on Saturday). He is still at the vet being stabilised. I plan to visit him in the morning to see how he is but do not expect to bring him home until Thursday. I felt dreadful all day Saturday, thinking of Jack's future knowing that I wanted to care for him (he's 12.5 years old - his brother died in 2000 at 3 years of Cryptococcosis). I also spent the day looking at websites and learning about diabetes. The vet rang me that night to advise that Jack was stable but that there was no guarantee he will pull through. His symptoms seemed to appear quite suddenly, slight loss of weight (from 5.0 kg to 4.6 kg) eating all his food in one go and drinking lots of water and urinating a lot sometimes on the doona were occurring for two weeks until last Wednesday when his walking became wonky and and he flopped when he jumped down from the table or bed (we have one of those old high Edwardian ones) and then on Friday he started to walk on his wrists. I hope I can ask you some questions in the future, but I am sure our vet will be helpful as well (He has already rung twice). The previous vet retired last August and I have only seen this one twice (the other time was six weeks ago when he got his program injection).

I imagine from looking at the feline diabetes website (which has amazing and helpful information) that I will have to consider what food to give him, learning to inject needles (do you use epi-pens) and watching out for any signs of hyperglycaemia. I have heard that some cats can be weaned off the insulin if they get better.

Regards Alan
 
Hi Alan, and welcome!

I see you have already started down the research road. It's the right place to be while Jack is hospitalized. Did the vet say he was in diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA)? Is anything else wrong?

There are two elements to treating diabetes; food, as you noted, and for that the bible is at www.catinfo.org, and insulin, which you will learn about at several sources. I suggest you start with our FAQs, then get familiar with the various types of insulin available by reading about each kind in the pet diabetes wiki, then visiting the support fora here for more detailed information and a look at how cats are doing on each of the choices.

Are you in Australia? We have people down under and we'll alert them if you want.

In the meantime, very best wishes to Jack, and congratulations to you for climbing the learning curve!

Gia & Quirk (GA)

Guilt trips are a detour from life
 
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