Banji and our new adventue

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kbjmarble

kbjmarble

Member Since 2018
Banji was diagnosed with diabetes two weeks ago after a vet visit due to a flood of urine appearing hourly in the litter boxes. Banji arrived at our house after jumping into my car last winter after a year of living on the streets at my friends house. He is my first male cat and is one of three cats in our home(Smudge and Milee). His blood sugar was at 600 when we started insulin - he is a six year old (vet guess) Maine Coon/Rag Doll so he is 18 lb of love and purrs almost all the time. He is currently at 4 units of U40 PZ twice a day and his BG with home testing have just reached the 300s. I am ready to do the hard work to change his diet from the Science Diet WD that the vet just put him on - am very thankful to find this group!
 
Hello to you and Banji! Welcome to our forum! I believe no dosing advice is supposed to be given here, so first off let me give you the link to the Prozinc forum: Prozinc Forum . You'll find that Djamila, Kris, and I hang out there frequently as well as several others and we're glad to have you join us!

Sounds like you're already in a good place with food. What are you changing his food to? I know you mentioned home testing...do you use a human or pet meter? Either is perfectly fine, we just need to know!

The other thing we'd love to have you do is set up our spreadsheet to track BG values. We're all used to reading it and it can give us up to the minute data so we can give you a fast answer if ever needed! The instructions are here: Spreadsheet Instructions . Let us know if you need help. That can be kind of confusing at first, I know! Please ask us any and all questions you have. We're more than happy to answer anything as we've all been where you are and we know it can be scary and a huge learning curve at first!
 
Rachel said:
Hello to you and Banji! Welcome to our forum! I believe no dosing advice is supposed to be given here, so first off let me give you the link to the Prozinc forum: Prozinc Forum . You'll find that Djamila, Kris, and I hang out there frequently as well as several others and we're glad to have you join us!

Sounds like you're already in a good place with food. What are you changing his food to? I know you mentioned home testing...do you use a human or pet meter? Either is perfectly fine, we just need to know!

The other thing we'd love to have you do is set up our spreadsheet to track BG values. We're all used to reading it and it can give us up to the minute data so we can give you a fast answer if ever needed! The instructions are here: Spreadsheet Instructions . Let us know if you need help. That can be kind of confusing at first, I know! Please ask us any and all questions you have. We're more than happy to answer anything as we've all been where you are and we know it can be scary and a huge learning curve at first!
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Thank you! I was looking for the link to the spreadsheet but only found references to it in posts.

I invested in the U100 syringes accidentally but it almost sounds like a good thing as we get closer to having him in the regulation zone. Hypo sounds like a scary plac that I hope Banji never visits. Hopefully his vet will be into increasing doses in less than a unit.

I have started him on the classic fancy feast (1/ 2 can in morning and at night.) Because he is one of three cats who all have their issues, giving up the free feeding of the Science Diet WD will be a future challenge. I will be checking out Dr. Lis’s New food chart.

We use a pet glucose monitor - AlphaTrak 2. Has anyone had issues with the petsure test strips? Cheap but it seems to not be as sensitive to presence of blood and machine errors out even though blood is present.

I will get on the worksheet and input the values so far. Thank you for the warm welcome - and lessening my anxiety! Banji is handling this so much better than I am...
 
Petsure test strips will not work in AlphaTrac meter. You need the Alpha Trac strips. Some people use one of the Free Style brand strips, they will work on Alpha Trac meter, I don't know the specific one though. Human meter is just fine to use, it will read a little lower than pet meter, much more cost effective and you learn the few reading that are very important.
 
You're so welcome! Trust me, this is anxiety inducing at first, but it becomes routine and not so scary over time. We've all been there and if it was too anxiety inducing, I wouldn't still be around here this many years later!

As for feeding, that does seem like a small amount of food. The fancy feast cans are the small ones, right? Is Banji a small cat? I know you mentioned Maine Coon which I thought was pretty big...is that how much the vet suggested you feed? I can say that I always free fed my cats wet food. I just put it out, added some water to make it moist, and left it out. Even now they usually eat most of it within a few hours, but that way they don't have to scarf it all at once if they don't want.

Please do feel free to come on over to Prozinc when you're ready and we can help you with dosing! :)
 
Rachel said:
You're so welcome! Trust me, this is anxiety inducing at first, but it becomes routine and not so scary over time. We've all been there and if it was too anxiety inducing, I wouldn't still be around here this many years later!

As for feeding, that does seem like a small amount of food. The fancy feast cans are the small ones, right? Is Banji a small cat? I know you mentioned Maine Coon which I thought was pretty big...is that how much the vet suggested you feed? I can say that I always free fed my cats wet food. I just put it out, added some water to make it moist, and left it out. Even now they usually eat most of it within a few hours, but that way they don't have to scarf it all at once if they don't want.

Please do feel free to come on over to Prozinc when you're ready and we can help you with dosing! :)
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Yes he is a very big cat - 18 lbs. I’m trying not to make big Changes in his diet since I just changed him out of his Blue Wilderness diet to this Science Diet W MD stuff. The cans are really small so tonight he got an entire can. I fed it to him during testing and shot. He has been waiting in his chair early since we started the wet food so it’s a good trade off for me manhandling his ear!

I will get his spreadsheet up and running and head over to ProZinc to check everything out - thanks
 
Olive & Paula said:
Petsure test strips will not work in AlphaTrac meter. You need the Alpha Trac strips. Some people use one of the Free Style brand strips, they will work on Alpha Trac meter, I don't know the specific one though. Human meter is just fine to use, it will read a little lower than pet meter, much more cost effective and you learn the few reading that are very important.
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WELCOME...to you and Banji. We noticed the "huge" clumps of urine in the litter box and his weight loss (from 20 lbs to 14) since he was always much larger than his twin brother, Trouble. The DVM put him on NPH and then I found FDMB and never consulted DVM again (for Elliott) until he went into remission. My experience with local DVM's is they do not know as much (or don't care as much) as FDMB members do. We switched (and maintain)him (and Trouble) to FF low carb 2 cans/day Elliott went into remission as a result of FDMB members helping me 24/7. after switching to Lantus over4 months. I used AlphaTrak strips always on Elliott and continue (now) to use them on Suzie (dog) who was diagnosed 8/2017. I, like others compare different strips, but for FBG, I always use AT and while comparing AT results to other strips 3-4 times/day ...I need to update my ss today but PETSURE does work in AT meter..but I use 3 AT meters..#3 (newest) for AT and #1 for Petsure and #2 for FS, InsulinX...I can't help with what I have learned about Petsure if you can't even get them to work...But for those who are still comparing strips...I changed my #1 meter for Petsure to code 4 recently and am getting very good results (2-10 point difference). If anyone is still comparing strips, I'd like info on more "tips" they have used. I am seriously even wondering about the accuracy of AT strips since venous results at DVM are always lower than AT. However, I will not stop using AT..because all we have to go by is ... all seem to be convinced it's the best accuracy measure..I am not so sure about that though.Sorry to have interrupted your conversation..will go to the Petsure thread to discuss further. The AT coding makes me wonder..exactly how they are determining to jump from a 7 to 90's..since they admit there is no cat or dog at the factory to determine the code. Zoetis claims they use an algorithm basing it on "humidity" of environment...Anyway..You have come to THE BEST PEOPLE TO ASSURE BANJI THE BEST CARE..GOOD LUCK!!!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1O1YNDHz-t4REns_tbAN6D_M3AYT6_kgqbHE7JWo6kSM/edit#gid=0
 
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