Diagnosed a few days ago

[Merry]

Hello, my 16 year old cat Bubba was diagnosed the other day, his level was over 600. For the past 2 years his vet had him on KD both wet and dry to give his kidneys a break. We noticed he was drinking way more water than usual so the vet figured maybe diabetes or kidney problems. No diabetes and his his kidney numbers were good but his urine wasn't concentrated. We just moved to NJ from Md a few weeks ago and I noticed that I can feel his spine. He was down to 13lb from 15. I took him to a vet over here and found out about the diabetes, he also checked the kidneys and now those numbers are elevated. He started Bubba on ProZinc and switched the food to MD (2 cans a day). I have several concerns, and I apologize for being all over the map here. Isn't this new stuff going to make his kidneys work harder? When should I expect to see the glucose numbers looking consistent? The morning numbers are so much higher than the evening, the past 2 nights I haven't given him any insulin. AM 233 PM 77, yesterday AM 305 PM 120. I use the Relion micro. Both mornings he got 3 units of the ProZinc. I am beside myself with all of this. I sit there poking his little ears all over the place, I'm a mess. I got the blood at the vets office with no problem but I don't know whats going on now. I watched a few youtube videos and they make it look easy. I am so scared for him. The vet says its possible his kidney numbers might be off because of the diabetes and we will check when that's under control, any thoughts? Thank you.

 

[Larry and Kitties]

Welcome. There is no reason to feed the prescription MD. Any commercial canned food with % calories from carbs less than 10% is fine. The following is a listing of canned food and their % calories from carbs
http://catinfo.org/docs/FoodChartPublic9-22-12.pdf
Three units twice daily is a high starting does. Most start at one unit twice daily.
Also most of us here record BG, dose and other things in a Google document spreadsheet and post a link to the SS in their posts. That way people can see what is happening. Here is how to setup the SS
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=50130.Where are yo located generally, maybe someone is near y and can help instuct how to get blood. It can intimidating at first as you are finding out.

 

[Sue and Oliver (GA)]

Some of the best advice I got early on was to breathe and then breathe again. So I am sharing that with you. We were all overwhelmed and scared at first but the more you learn about diabetes, the more in control you will feel.

You have already made two good changes. You are on a good insulin and are hometesting. Tell us your testing routine and maybe we will have suggestions. Two of the things that really helped me at first were 1) heating the ear well enough. I made a rice sack and really got the ear warm and 2) using a big enough lancet. The 30-31 gauge lancets made for humans may be too small for cats. We usually suggest 25-27 gauge at first.

Here is our protocol for ProZinc:

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=109077

As Larry said, we usually suggest starting at one unit and slowly increasing as your hometesting numbers indicate. That you are getting a number too low to shoot in the pm is a good indication that the dose is too high. You want to have two safe numbers 12 hours apart that you can shoot. Would you consider lowering the dose?

Food is the third important part of this sugar dance. A vet explains why a wet low carb diet is best for every cat here: www.catinfo.org

Keep reading and asking questions and let us know how we can help. Oh, and practice that breathing thing too. :mrgreen:

 

[BJM]

The elevated renal numbers may have been due to some dehydration as unregulated diabetics excrete the excess glucose out with the urine. Do you have any lab tests you can post, such as urine specific gravity, BUN, and creatinine?

Friskies Special Diet pates are both low carb and low phosphorus so you may be able to feed that and help control both the diabetes and any renal disease.

 

[Merry]

Thank you all. Tonight I am going to try getting blood after I warm his ear. I don't have the numbers from the lab report but he has another appointment tomorrow night and I will ask then. The doctor wants to re do those tests in a few weeks to see where he's at. I would say for about 2 months before being diagnosed I was feeding him the dry kd exclusively because it looked like he was losing interest in the wet food. After reading up on all this I'm thinking this could be the cause. And then to top it all off, last week I was mixing in a load of canned pumpkin because he was constipated. Poor little bugger.

 

[Sue and Oliver (GA)]

Just be careful. The wet low carb can mean a lowering of the numbers. We switched Oliver from dry to wet and he went down 100 points overnight. Be sure to check the number before shooting. I hope warming his ear will help. Something else that helps is to put a tiny smear of neosporin where you are going to poke. It can make the blood bead up. Also, anytime you get a drop but can't get it on the strip, put it on your fingernail and test from there.

Sometimes putting warm water into the pate food and making a gravy makes it more appealing. If he really liked the dry, you can also "dress" the wet for awhile by crushing it up and sprinkling on top.

 

[Merry]

Fortunately he is wild for the MD wet food, hes been eating 2 cans a day. The vet says if he wants he can have 2 1/4 a day since his weight is usually 15 to 17 lbs. That's a good idea with the fingernail, I'll have to try that.