Christopher

[Kristine]

Hello everyone,

I am fairly new to the feline Diabetes stuff. My sweet boy was diagnosed 3 months ago and my vet is really sweet about phone calls and such. HOWEVER..... he seems to want me to come in with my little one alot for vet visits. I am not "low income" but I am paycheck to paycheck and cant take him in willy nilly. We started on 1 unit of Lantus 2 times a day and he was apparently getting TOO much insulin. Now we have been on 1 unit a day for 2 weeks.
Just recently a NEW symptom has occured..... He is shedding ALOT of hair. Is this normal? I am at my wits end here.
I am also having a hard time with my glucose monitoring system.... cant figure out how to set it up... Keep getting ERROR code. HELP!!!

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Kris and Chris

 

[BJM]

Welcome to FDMB, the best place you never wanted to be.

There are 4 things you'll need to manage your kitty's diabetes:
- You - without your commitment, the following won't work.
- Home blood glucose monitoring with an inexpensive human glucometer such as the WalMart Relion Confirm or Target Up and Up (the pet ones will break your budget!). This saves you the cost of going to the vet for curves and done regularly, removes the need for a fructosamine test.
- Low carb over the counter canned or raw diet, such as many Friskies pates. See Cat Info for more info. If already on insulin, you must be home testing before changing the diet. Food changes should be gradual to avoid GI upsets - 20-25% different food each day until switched. There are 2 low carb, dry, over the counter foods in the US - Evo Cat and Kitten dry found at pet specialty stores and Young Again 0 Carb found online.
- A long-lasting insulin such as ProZinc, Lantus, BCP PZI, or Levemir. No insulin lasts 24 hours in the cat, so giving it every 12 hours is optimal for control.

 

[Kristine]

Thank you for your reply..... Christopher is on Lantus and wet food only. We are just figuring this out and welcome ANY help.

 

[Critter Mom]

Hi Kris and welcome to you both. You've found a great place to get help.

The hair shedding is not uncommon. Spooked the living daylights out of me when it happened to Saoirse - started dropping like there was no tomorrow. It all grew back again fairly quickly as the insulin Saoirse received helped her body to make proper use of the nutrients in her food again.

With regard to your meter problems, can you let us know which one you're using?

 

[Wendy&Neko]

If you are on Lantus, it's best to give a dose every twelve hours. If one unit a shot is two much, then .5U twice a day would work better than one shot of 1U a day.

Good for you on getting going with home testing. What type of meter do you have and what is the error code? Most of us here just do our testing at home and only take the cat into the vet for non diabetes related stuff. I started out sharing test data with the vet, but don't do that any longer.

 

[Brashworks]

Kristine I can't say much about Chris' diabetes or care but I will say his photo gives me a fit of giggles. He is either the most fashionable biker or a superhero.

 

[Squeaky and KT (GA)]

Hi Kristine and Christopher! Welcome!

What meter are you using? Some give more errors than others especially when just starting home testing.