Beginner, need advice for dosing tomorrow morning

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So cute! Maury used to play fetch with his mouse toy but wouldn't go that far and always had to bring it back to me on the bed :smuggrin:
 
Not trying to stomp on your good news but we like to see kitties with NS for 14 days just to be sure ;). Regardless, I think Stewie is headed that way :joyful:. Don't get rid of your testing supplies though! You'll still want to do spot checks to make sure he stays in remission and can catch it should his BG start to rise again. Hopefully, you will enjoy a nice long remission :bighug:

Don't disappear on us yet :smuggrin:
 
That's just wonderful! Keep up the low carb wet food and stay on top of dental, bladder, etc. issues. You don't want to have any of those tip him back onto the juice. :smuggrin::smuggrin:
 
Thanks Yong and Kris & Teasel, I am not going anywhere! I was wondering how long with NS it should be. I am planning to spot test him, how often do you think is good? I'll never feed dry to my cats again and I'm telling everyone I know to switch to low carb wet or raw, although some people think raw isn't good. What do you guys think of raw? I've never tried my cats on it.
 
Anita and Stewie said:
Thanks Yong and Kris & Teasel, I am not going anywhere! I was wondering how long with NS it should be. I am planning to spot test him, how often do you think is good? I'll never feed dry to my cats again and I'm telling everyone I know to switch to low carb wet or raw, although some people think raw isn't good. What do you guys think of raw? I've never tried my cats on it.
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I have no experience with raw food. Many here swear by it. You could post on the main forum for info.

Re testing: maybe AM and PM for several days? There's a protocol of sorts for tracking kitties going into remission. That's where the 14 day timeline Yong mentioned comes from. It's to ensure their BG really is staying in remission numbers. It also gives you data on where your kitty likes to "hang out" BG-wise. Some run higher/lower than others.
 
Anita and Stewie said:
Thanks Yong and Kris & Teasel, I am not going anywhere! I was wondering how long with NS it should be. I am planning to spot test him, how often do you think is good? I'll never feed dry to my cats again and I'm telling everyone I know to switch to low carb wet or raw, although some people think raw isn't good. What do you guys think of raw? I've never tried my cats on it.
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Phew! I was just thinking, Anita is going to hate me for that post :oops:.

I was trying to find OTJ info but from one's I've read about (other kitties), 14 days you still do AMPS and PMPS, maybe 1 mid cycle (one day do day, another do evening mid)
Week 3 - 4: Test a couple days out of the week.
Month 2: Test once every couple weeks.
Month 3: Test once a month
Month 6+: Some will only test once a month every couple months

If it ever happens for Maury, I probably won't go past Month 2 testing routine and just test him once a week for life :smuggrin:

Forgot my thoughts about raw!
I'd be open to try homemade when I had a steady job/income and a bigger kitchen :). The more I'm learning about canned foods, the more I want to make my own for my baby :cat:
 
I have no experience with raw either but I hope to one day try it!

As for remission, yay!!!!!! I would definitely still test AM/PM for a few days and then you can move to testing less often. :)
 
I feed store bought raw, and even leave it out for several hours with no problem. My civvie pretty much only eats raw. Sam eats about 3/4 canned, 1/4 raw, but he will only eat raw rabbit which is expensive, so I don't mind that he eats less of it! ;)

I like feeding raw because it's easier: no scooping out cans, rinsing, and recycling. It's just a bag in the freezer with a bunch of chunks in it. Plus, it doesn't stink like canned food does. You still have to be careful though because as more brands of raw food hit the market, not all of them are low-carb, and it can be hard to get straight information about the content. Especially be careful if you try the freeze-dried raw that you have to rehydrate. A few of those are worse than kibble as far as carbs.

As for the testing, yes, keep up on it! Sam went into remission after three weeks the first time. He was OTJ for over a year, and then he fell out of remission very very quickly. I was testing about every 2-3 weeks during the in-between time. One test he was fine...then two weeks later he was in the 300's. You want to catch it as quickly as possible if they fall out of remission and get them back on insulin asap.

It's so exciting to see him get back into healthy natural numbers so quickly!!!
 
Thanks Djamila, I didn't see until now that you had posted! I might try raw then, and maybe stop the Primal freeze dried. I am now suspicious of it.
Wow, why would a cat go back to being diabetic once in remission? I thought that with a better diet, low in carbs, it might stay away? I'm sorry to hear that Sam had to go back on insulin!
 
There are a variety of reasons cats go out of remission. Any type of infection can send them back into FD (dental, UTI, etc.), medication (especially steroids), and poor food choices are the leading causes. In Sam's case, I was feeding him Stella and Chewy's Freeze Dried Raw Salmon and Chicken. I thought it was okay because it was "raw", but it turned out to be over 20% carbs. :banghead: Definitely learned my lesson about believing marketing material instead of doing my own research! Lots of kitties come back because of unknown infections like a bad tooth or gum disease, but sometimes there is just no apparent reason for it. Kind of like in humans, the older we get, the more likely we are to have Type II Diabetes. It's just one way our biology breaks down with age. Same with kitties. That's why food, monitoring, and good vet care are so important though - to give the kitty the best possible chance of staying as a diet controlled diabetic.
 
Thanks Djamila, that's good to know. Awww, I feel so bad for cats getting sick. I'm sorry you didn't know about Stella and Chewy's. I think that company had a couple of recalls too. It's so much to take in, lots to learn. I want to find a better food than what I'm feeding now too. I will keep monitoring him and trying to find lower carb food. I'm amazed at the change in Stewie. He has no dandruff, his coat is so shiny, he has more energy, has lost some weight, isn't always bugging me for food, it's so lovely to see. I am sad that he mustn't have been feeling well for quite a while. Poor boy. I hope Sam goes back into remission. :bighug:
 
I think we all feel like that as we see our cats heal. That realization that they weren't feeling good for awhile before they were diagnosed. Cats are masters of disguise though and hide their illnesses so darn well! It's great to hear that Stewie is feeling so much better! I hope Sam goes into remission too, but at this point he's been well regulated and is healthy and super active and doing so well, that he'll be okay either way. I try to keep reminding myself of that when I start to feel impatient. ;):p:D
 
Generally speaking, the changes in our cats are over time too...so when they suddenly start feeling better, we notice! It's not that odd really that we don't notice until the diagnosis when you think about it...I remember one member once saying that she discovered her cat was diabetic only because she'd been out of the country for some time and when she returned, the changes in her cat were noticeable to HER because she hadn't seen him in some time. The changes were too gradual for her family to notice, but it was obvious to her because she'd last seen him in perfect health.
 
Oh, that makes sense then. It's a gradual change, when they start to get sick, and we don't notice. I thought it was aging, that he was slowing down. I thought his dandruff was just that he had 'dry skin'. No vet that I know has mentioned the possibility of a connection between dandruff and diabetes. But I should have thought Stewie's drinking and peeing a lot were signs. I just thought he was like that. Silly me. My civvie Sammy drank a lot too. I think it's due to the dry food they were getting. They got wet food too, morning and evening, but the dry was the issue of course. Upon hearing about Stewie's remission, my friend's cat sitter wrote this to her, "I have a book written by a vet who used to be employed by the pet food industry, and she is adamant that all of the major common cat illnesses, which include diabetes, are caused by feeding dry food."
 
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