Becoming a Diabetic Cat Mom šŸ¾šŸ’™

Toitlelady

Toitlelady

Member Since 2025
About a month ago, I officially became a diabetic cat momā€”something I never expected, but here we are. I brought my 8 year old boy Strider, to the vet because of a mouth injury. He wasnā€™t eating, he was dehydrated, and just not himself. Turns out he's got kitty Gingivitis and They ran bloodwork, and thatā€™s when we found out his blood sugar was really high.

Fast-forward to now: heā€™s been on Lantus insulin for almost 4 weeks (2 units twice a day), I've switched his food from dry food to Fancy feast Pate. He's eating 1 and a half 85g cans twice a day and I feel like he's always starving....

It hasnā€™t been the smoothest month though. Heā€™s had diarrhea pretty much the whole timeā€”probably from all the sudden changes happening at once: feeling sick, the stress of the vet visit, switching from dry to wet food, and adjusting to eating on a schedule now. At one point he even had 48 hours of random puking spells, which scared me, but thankfully heā€™s doing better again. I've been giving him Fortiflora once a day.

I was wondering for doing glucose curves at home does anyone use Human monitors? Cuz the consensus seems to be confusing on the Internet about if it's okay or not...

I think the worst part about this is these vets are horrible... they have given me little to no information at all about anything and I've been resorting to goggle and support groups for help.

Itā€™s been a learning curve, but heā€™s tough, and weā€™re getting through it together. šŸ’—šŸ±
 
Welcome to the FDMB. Most of us use human meters as the test strips are less expensive and readily available. Many use the Relion from Walmart. Sounds like you are doing all tge right things. Getting that meter asap is very important as the only way to see if your catā€™s bg is high enough to give insulin us a test before you feed and shoot. No need to feed just twice a day. Many feed several small meals and find it helps regulate them. They are often very hungry until regulated. Did your cat have ketones at diagnosis? With inflammation from gingivitis itā€™s more possible so itā€™s important to check for that. Thereā€™s lots of information on the stickies at the top of tge lantus forum with valuable information. Thereā€™s so much I suffered from information overload at first.

For the diarrhea s Boulardii with moss or without moss is good.
My Cat Has Diarrhea - What Do I Do?

Hereā€™s a good sticky on how we can best help you. You will see directions for a signature and spreadsheet.
Sticky - New? How You Can Help Us Help You!

Ask questions. There will be many. Let us know how we can help.
 
Welcome fo FDMB!

Elise's recommendation for S. boulardii, which is a probiotic, is excellent. It's great for managing diarrhea. When she mentions it with another product, it's S. boulardii and MOS (not moss). Fortiflora doesn't really have enough strains of healthy bacteria to make it an effective probiotic. It's helpful to entice a cat to eat but it's not so great for most GI issues.

Chances are that a rapid switch to a new food is what has caused the GI upset. Hopefully, it's short lived.

By any chance, did your vet do a fructosamine blood test? It's a definitive way to diagnose diabetes. (It's the equivalent of a human hemoglobin A1c.) One reason to have the fructosamine test is that the gingivitis may be responsible for raising your cat's blood glucose level. Any inflammation or infection, along with the stress of getting to and being at the vet's office can cause blood glucose levels to be artificially elevated. It's one of the reasons that home testing is so important.

If your cat is starving despite the amount your feeding, I'd give more food. Since you don't yet have blood glucose levels, it's unlikely that your cat is well regulated. If his blood glucose levels are still high, he's going to be starving. Insulin is what helps glucose get into the cells. If glucose is still floating around in the bloodstream, your cat will be hungry. Cats can also be hungry if their blood glucose levels are dropping.
 
Sienne and Gabby (GA) said:
Welcome fo FDMB!

Elise's recommendation for S. boulardii, which is a probiotic, is excellent. It's great for managing diarrhea. When she mentions it with another product, it's S. boulardii and MOS (not moss). Fortiflora doesn't really have enough strains of healthy bacteria to make it an effective probiotic. It's helpful to entice a cat to eat but it's not so great for most GI issues.

Chances are that a rapid switch to a new food is what has caused the GI upset. Hopefully, it's short lived.

By any chance, did your vet do a fructosamine blood test? It's a definitive way to diagnose diabetes. (It's the equivalent of a human hemoglobin A1c.) One reason to have the fructosamine test is that the gingivitis may be responsible for raising your cat's blood glucose level. Any inflammation or infection, along with the stress of getting to and being at the vet's office can cause blood glucose levels to be artificially elevated. It's one of the reasons that home testing is so important.

If your cat is starving despite the amount your feeding, I'd give more food. Since you don't yet have blood glucose levels, it's unlikely that your cat is well regulated. If his blood glucose levels are still high, he's going to be starving. Insulin is what helps glucose get into the cells. If glucose is still floating around in the bloodstream, your cat will be hungry. Cats can also be hungry if their blood glucose levels are dropping.
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Hiiiii so yes they did a regular blood test and then they said his sugar was high so they did the glucose and the fructosamine test and confirmed it was diabetes cuz sugar was coming out in his pee or something.
Thankfully his diarrhea has stopped and he isn't throwing up anymore so I think his stomach was just messed up.
Honestly I'm really not sure because they have communicated basically nothing with me cept that they want me to bring him in for more bloodwork every now and then and that he needs insulin. They told me only to feed him twice a day BC he gets 2 shots a day 30 mom after eating.
I currently have the Accu-check guide monitor and tested him just once yesterday to make sure it was even working and his sugar was at 5.0mmol/I at like 5:12pm which my friend said meant his sugar was normal. So I assume it works. But the internet has me freaking BC everything says human monitors aren't accurate enough.

I just feel so uninformed cuz these vets don't seem to want to complicate with me much. Just he's diabetic and figure it out urself.
 
Many vets have very little knowledge about diabetes. It's not really a topic taught in depth in vet school. Most members here don't use their vet for most of the diabetes stuff, just the occasional prescription for more insulin. It's ok to ignore the vet about anything food related.

Your cat is hungry and can't process just two meals a day so feed more food :) Several small meals spread throughout the day works best for most cats. Just don't feed within 2 hours of an insulin shot. A spike in blood glucose levels from food will mean a higher pre-shot number.

You don't need to wait 30 minutes after eating to give Lantus. That's an old school thought for short acting insulins like Humulin N. All the info you need to know about Lantus are in the info stickies here: Lantus / Levemir / Biosimilars

I use the Guide, too. It works well enough for my cat. Pet meters have only become popular in the past decade-ish. Before that, vets just used Human blood glucose meters and all studies etc done on diabetic cats were done with Human blood glucose meters. So Human meters are just fine and accurate to use :) Pet meters tend to read lower than a Human meter. Not only that, the test strips for a pet meter are expensive and not sold in stores.

5 mmol is roughly 90 mg/dl, a nice normal number :) How many hours after insulin was that? Or was that right before the evening insulin shot? Normal blood glucose levels are roughly 60 to 150 mg/dl (about 4 to 8 mmol).

What country are you in? Canada?
 
squeem3 said:
Many vets have very little knowledge about diabetes. It's not really a topic taught in depth in vet school. Most members here don't use their vet for most of the diabetes stuff, just the occasional prescription for more insulin. It's ok to ignore the vet about anything food related.

Your cat is hungry and can't process just two meals a day so feed more food :) Several small meals spread throughout the day works best for most cats. Just don't feed within 2 hours of an insulin shot. A spike in blood glucose levels from food will mean a higher pre-shot number.

You don't need to wait 30 minutes after eating to give Lantus. That's an old school thought for short acting insulins like Humulin N. All the info you need to know about Lantus are in the info stickies here: Lantus / Levemir / Biosimilars

I use the Guide, too. It works well enough for my cat. Pet meters have only become popular in the past decade-ish. Before that, vets just used Human blood glucose meters and all studies etc done on diabetic cats were done with Human blood glucose meters. So Human meters are just fine and accurate to use :) Pet meters tend to read lower than a Human meter. Not only that, the test strips for a pet meter are expensive and not sold in stores.

5 mmol is roughly 90 mg/dl, a nice normal number :) How many hours after insulin was that? Or was that right before the evening insulin shot? Normal blood glucose levels are roughly 60 to 150 mg/dl (about 4 to 8 mmol).

What country are you in? Canada?
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Okay so they told me to feed him and give him the insulin half an hour after so that's what I've been doing he eats at 7:30am and then I give him his shot at 8am. I took his blood sugar at 5:12pm and it was a 5. Then he had his food again at 7:30pm and his shot at 8pm. That's my usual routine for the last month.
The blood sugar was just to make sure my monitor worked BC I just got it to do the curve tomorrow. Cuz they wanted more blood work after 4 weeks and it's too expensive

I love in Canada, Toronto Ontario.
 
squeem3 said:
@Karolina & Nestle @Briana + Binx @Kat & Trixie are some Canadian members on the eastern side of Canada.

So 9 hours (+9) after insulin the bg was 5mmol. That's pretty good šŸ™‚ You'll want to track levels so that members can better help you. Instructions to set up a spreadsheet is here https://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/how-to-create-a-spreadsheet.241706/ You can even share the link to your spreadsheet with your vet and avoid expensive and inaccurate in office curves.
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Oh okay see the thing is my vets really aren't acting like they care much lol. They didn't tell me to be checking his BG or anything, just that it needs to be done after 4 weeks to see if the dose needs to be increased. I emailed them today asking them a buncha questions and all she replied with was "please use mmol/l when calculating the curve and keep us updated".
 
Thanks for the tag, @squeem3! And welcome to the forum @Toitlelady! Karolina and I are both near you, so Iā€™ll try to list some local info below!

Like many of us, youā€™ve found your way here after much frustration at the vet and with just wanting to provide the best care for your kitty! I had a very similar experience and ended up switching vets because of it. Although I donā€™t consult them much about Binxā€™s care, the new vet is much more support and one of their vet techs has a diabetic cat herself and sheā€™s been lovely. I used to use a pet meter (told by my original vet) and now I use the Freestyle Lite and itā€™s been just fine. Like Squeem said, it just reads lower than a pet meter normally but numbers are closer in range the lower you get.

I wonā€™t add much more to what everyone else has said, as theyā€™ve given great advice and a place to start. Very curious to see how your curve goes tomorrow! Todayā€™s value is very promising.

Some local info I found out far too late:
- If youā€™re getting insulin from your vet now, Iā€™d recommend you ask your local pharmacy for the cost there. My original vet up charged me almost 3x the price and in Ontario you can get insulin from the pharmacy without a prescription
- Pharmacies also give out sharps containers for free (theyā€™ve never asked, but if they do, you can say itā€™s for you). This was another item my original vet was selling me.
- Karolina recommended a great site for supplies - petsdrugmart - theyā€™re the cheapest syringes Iā€™ve found and for a few more days they actually have 15% off. Shipping just takes a bit longer than Amazon or something local, but can be worth it!

Good luck and keep us posted! šŸ˜Š
 
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