Another new member

[CarolandTigger]

Hi, I just found out today that my cat Tigger has diabetes. Of course I am devastated. He had suddenly lost weight and was drinking more water and I had a hunch about it as we have a lot of diabetes in my family so I was aware of the symptoms. Just never thought my cat would have it ! We start giving him 2 units of insulin tonight... Every 12 hours .... And then he goes back to the vet on Friday so they can test his glucose curve, I guess is called? Is that the same thing as a glucose tolerance test for humans? The tech at the vets had me give him a practice injection with sugar water so wish me luck on doing the real thing tonight! He did NOT like that! He is a highly social orange tabby cat and is 10 years old. When he was Barely a year old my husband was coming home from work in the morning hours and saw a coyote carry him across the street in his mouth. My husband honked his horn and flashed his headlights and the coyote dropped him in the street. He had a broken jaw below his lower front teeth, but other than that he made a full recovery! So he definitely has spunk! I'm more worried about myself getting through this than him! Ha ha! Also we had planned to take off in our RV next week for a vacation of several weeks, taking Tigger with us. Now I am unsure what to do as I feel since he's newly diagnosed we should stay close to the vets for a while? Thoughts?

 

[BJM]

Welcome to FDMB.
You can manage this! We've got veterinary information from experts to support what we do and guide our choices.
What insulin are you using?
If you test at home, you can avoid the stress of taking your cat in for testing. While human glucometers read lower than vet meters or vet labs, there are feline specific reference numbers for using an inexpensive human glucometer. See my signature link Glucometer Notes for more details. A curve is just taking tests every 2 hours from pre-shot to pre-shot.
It is possible to travel with a diabetic cat; maybe locate vets along the way so you have a place you know you can use.

 

[CarolandTigger]

Thanks! Our vet put him on Vetsulin to start with. Will see how he does on that. I talked to the vet tonight and she was wonderful explaining everything. She's confirmed a lot of what I've read on here as far as food etc. She suggested we get the human glucometer at Walmart and test at least once a week. She said he should be fine on our road trip as long as we test him.

 

[BJM]

The ReliOn Confirm or Confirm Micro work well and use a small drop of blood. There are new strips out for them which say Plus and they may work more easily than the older ones. The generic version of these is available as the Arkray Glucocard 01 and Glucocard 01 Mini. You can find them online at ADW.