? Charlotte - bexacat, BG/ketone meter rec?

[Laur+Danny+horde2]

Hi, I'm returning to FDMB after years without a diabetic cat. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Charlotte (DSH FS 7yo chubby) is a semi-feral cat. She's pettable but quick to claw and nip. I have to travel at times and her catsitter is very wary of her. Charlotte lives with 5 other cats.

Sedated with 100mg gabapentin, Charlotte just had a full workup to investigate continued inappropriate peeing previously thought to be territorial. She's been on dermal-applied amitriptyline and pheromone collar without improvement.

She's very food motivated, and was eating various Fancy Feast (creamy delight = her fave, pate, chunky), Orijen dry and some Temptations.

Test results of significance:

• BG 275
• Kidney, liver, RBC/ WBC levels normal. T4 normal.
• Urine had significant glucose, protein and blood. No bacteria or cancer cells seen.
• Xrays negative for stones etc

Vet is recommending:

• Cerenia to calm down bladder
• Bexacat - since she has never had insulin, relatively healthy, eating well.
• BG home testing
• Ketone meter testing due to Bexacat risk of ketones

I've already transitioned her to wet only and am changing her treats to freeze-dried meat / fish only.

Questions:

• Any tips regarding bexacat? I'll search board for mentions.
• Pros/cons of using combined versus separate BG and ketone meters? I haven't found one that tests both simultaneously, which would be ideal given Charlotte's short temper.
• Recommendations for combined BG / Ketone meter? (ease of use, tracking, cost). Looking at Keto-mojo GK+ and FORA meters.
• Any experience with Smalls cat food?
• Any other suggestions?

 

[Bron and Sheba (GA)]

Hi and welcome back to the forum.
Bexacat is relatively new and not without its issues.
Your vet seems to be switched on with the issues suggesting testing for ketones and hometesting.

Here is information about the new oral medications for diabetic cats.

As you have been made aware, Bexacat does come with the risk of ketones, so hometesting the BG and the urine for ketones will help with that risk. I have heard of cats who have been fine and others who have got ketones.

There are meters that do test for blood glucose and ketones but you have to use different test strips. So can’t be done simultaneously unless maybe you could get some blood on your clean fingernail to do the second test.
Two meters are NovoMax plus and Precision Xtra blood and ketones meters.
And there is Abbott freestyle Optium Neo blood and ketones meter.
The cost of the blood glucose strips are ok I think but the ketone test strips are about $1 each I think, but you need less of them than you do of the BG strips. As far as ease of use is concerned the meters would be easier if collecting a urine sample was an issue.

I have no experience with Smalls food.
We would be very interested to hear of your progresss as we don’t really know a lot yet about the oral medications.

 

[Larry and Kitties]

I have used the older Keto-mojo meter and it was fine but ketone strips are no longer available. I now use the Precision Xtra meter but only for ketone. I use a Relion Premier for BG. I do not know if the new if the newer Keto-mojo uses individually packaged ketone test strips. I do not use my ketone meter that frequently so individually packed test strips are advantageous. Otherwise many strips would be expired before I would use them since there are two expiration dates/periods. The first one being the date marked on the packaging and the other many strips in a via, when the vial is first opened.