Diabetic Newbie Charlie!!

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CharlieBoy&mama

CharlieBoy&mama

Member Since 2013
Hello everybody! My 8 year old boy Charlie was diagnosed with diabetes on Monday. At the vet his count was at 596. Since then I think it is about the only thing that I have been thinking about! I have been getting blood from his poor tender ears and I think hes about done with this stuff! Although he is loving the attention and the wet cat food. When will all this feel like normal? I'm afraid my "civie" Lu isn't getting enough attention. This has been a crazy week and I never thought that I would be injecting my cat twice a day.

And also if anybody could give me advice on uploading the avatar? I have chosen a picture and have gotten the file size to like 5kb (way too small!!) and it still is giving me the message about file size being too large? How do I do this? THANKS!!!!!!!!!!
 
Hello and welcome to the board!

What a cute kitty Charlie is!

You said you are having home testing issues? What meter are you using? Here are some tips that might help but the key ones I find are making sure the ear is warm, using big lancets (28 or 29g) and having something hard behind the ear to press against when freehanding the lancet (not the tool) :https://docs.google.com/document/d/13c_CPZVKz27fD_6aVbsguadJKvjSrSAkD7flgPPhEag/pub

Has he started insulin yet?

Wendy
 
Welcome Charlie's MamaBean and extra sweet Charlie!

Yep, this will become quick and easy within another week or two! You and Charlie will learn each other's Sugardance steps. Both of my sugarboyz come when they hear their strip container rattle or the zipper of their case. If I'm late with shots, they come bug me until I realize it! ..even if I'm only 10 minutes late... :-D They know when it's shot time vs. test time - they hear me open the drawer with their syringes, they both go to their shot places. KT and I have been doing this dance over 2 years, Dakota just joined us in May but he's already picked up all these clues and has been diabetic for 2 years also.

BIG HUGS!!!
 
Thank you!! I am using 30 gauge lancelets so I will need to get some bigger ones. They seem to sometimes go right through his ear and no blood. It makes me feel sick to my stomach. But I have been applying neosporin with pain relief to hopefully heal up his little ears. After looking though the board, I picked up a ReliOn prime last night. I had been using a real cheap one from Kroger that I couldn't find any reviews on. Is there any treats that I can give him after pricking him so he knows when I'm doing it that a treat is coming? I started the insulin the same night I found out he was diabetic. The night was very stressful!!!! I took him to the vet thinking he might have a sinus infection because he had a lot of goobies in his eyes (going on for a few months) and he had started to seem a little wobbly. I put him on a diet about 6 months ago, so his sudden weight loss I thought was because I had been restricting his food intake. I went on vacation a few months back, and when we got home i thought he had gone on a hunger strike because he looked so thin. I uped his food allowance and he was still losing weight (I was in denial!). The last few months I started to get very annoyed with him and really wondered what happened to my sweet loving cat. He never left the kitchen and any time I entered the kitchen he was screaming at me. He started putting his food into the water bowl and eating it out of there. I always have considered him an "aguaholic" but his face was in the water bowl so much that he had a constant water goatee on his chin. My thought that was the diet caused him to be so fearful of running out of food that he always wanted to make sure that I knew it was getting low. I really hope that I can get my old Charlie back.
 
Check the dog section of a pet supply store for freeze dried chicken (cheaper than the cat section, though you'll need to break it up)
 
The relion prime is cheap but you might be better off with a confirm or micro to start as they need less blood.

What kind (type/brand) of food are you feeding? And what kind of insulin ( some insulins are better than others for cats)

Wendy
 
Welcome Charlies Mom and sugardude Charlie to the FDMB. What is your first name? I'm Deb and that tuxie on the right is my sugardude Wink.

You'll have a routine down in no time flat. Give it a couple of weeks and you'll be an old hand.

The Prime needs 0.5 microliters of blood. The confirm and micro need 0.3 microliters of blood, about the size of the head of a pin.

Look for lancets labeled on the box "for alternate site testing". They have a larger pin to poke with.

Any pure meat, no spices, would work nicely as a treat. Does he have a favorite people food meat?

Give it a few weeks, and you'll see a lot of the old Charlie behavior return. He'll stop drinking and peeing so much and his appetite will go down once you have the numbers regulated.

What wet cat food are you feeding?
 
My name is Gina! Thank you everybody! Right now I've got him on some local grocery store brand wet cat food as monday was a verryy expensive day! The vet suggested for now whatever wet food is better than what he had been eating. The insulin is lantus. He is already acting more like his old self...I am so glad!
 
Hi Gina! Nice to know your name now.

Yes, the diabetes diagnosis can be expensive. You already have the Relion Prime meter which has very inexpensive test strips. We have other money saving tips. Just ask.

Lots of people here feed the Fancy Feast classic pates or Friskies pates. The foods with gravy or in sauce or broth tend to be higher carb than the pate styles. Wal-Mart Special Kitty is also supposed to be low carb and comes in the 13 ounce cans. I get the Friskies pates from my local Wal-Mart for 94 cents each.

You might want to read thisNewbies- a Message from your Cat We'll help support you all along the way in this new sugardance you have embarked on with Charlie. Lots of experience here in managing the day to day care for a diabetic cat.

How much insulin is Charlie receiving? Most cats, unless they have had DKA or are prone to ketones, only need about 1 unit of Lantus to start out.
 
Thank you I did read the message from the cat and it made me cry!!! I am giving him 2 units twice a day and will be doing my first curve in a week.
 
Eye and nose mucus could be feline herpes and may respond to 500 mg of l-lysine daily. Lysine is an amino acid - a protein building block. It can be obtained as a powder to sprinkle into food or as specific veterinary products such as Vetri-Lysine (my cats think these are treats). You may wish to check this with your vet to ensure no other causes are present via a respiratory blood panel. We thought Spitzer had herpes and he had some form of bartonella instead!
 
Thank you I got eye drops for his eyes. The vet said he's got the herpes but with him being sick it couldn't fight it like he had been so he started showing the signs (eye mucus). I feel like a failure this mornig! I could hardly get blood out of him although I warmed it and got the larger lancelets then I didn't get the insulin in him... I think the needle went all the way through. I didn't give him more. cat(2)_steam ah!
 
Lots of us have had fur shots; you're not alone on that. And stuck ourselves with the lancet or sryinge, too. It happens.

And you were right not to try to give more insulin; you avoided a possible hypo that way, since you don't know how much might have gone in. Better too high for a day than too low for a moment.
 
Ive been trying to test before I give him the insulin. I am confused by the chart. I'm giving him 9lives, and the third column is in the 160's, is that good?
 
Wrong column, you want the column that says C under "calorie %". Which kind of 9 lives is it? The ground, dinners and flaked all look under 10% but the carvings,nibbles and slices are all in the 20+ % range. For example the ground super supper is 5% and the beef carvings is 23%

Wendy
 
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