Diet change and desensitisation

New member Amy and Pandora here

Thanks for the support to my intro message! I’ve done a lot of reading on here and have tried to add to my signature a bit. Spreadsheet looks a bit mind blowing but I shall tackle that in due course!

I have taken Pandie off her high carb dry diet cold turkey and she’s had wet high protein for two days now. Amazing difference already - she’s only drunk about 30ml the last two days and even accounting for the wet food water content (about 140ml per day) that’s way lower than before. Her urination is massively reduced too, only 1 wee and 1 poop today

Next step is another urine test which vet has requested.

I’m planning to get a suitable meter and try to do a glucose curve - just waiting for my vet to confirm he is happy with this plan and my choice of meter. In the time being, as Pand is so difficult, we are doing desensitisation training with baby steps. I have some freeze dried high protein treats. Today we had 4x practice of sitting between my knees having both ears rubbed followed by treat. We will progress in a few days to introducing the rice sock, and when I have the meter introducing this and the noise of the lancet device etc. Already she is looking for her treat but I am going to take it super slow, to try and keep her onside.

So feeling a bit more positive for now, I feel we have take the first few steps and trying to break this down is helping.

I’ve sent my vet an email with all my thoughts and questions so we can collaborate on this!

Any advice welcome … does it sound like I’m on the right track, is any of the above a bad idea?

phew…

 

Welcome… sounds like an excellent plan.
One suggestion, don’t use the lancet device, just freehand it. I tried that when I first started and the noise they make right by the ears made Magic TOTALLY freak out.

@JanetNJ has an awesome video that shows just how easy it can be:

 

Great start.


You'll want a meter (I used an alpha track pet meter but most on here use a human meter such as Walmart's Relion Prime.

100 extra test strips

100 26 to 28 gauge lancets

Cotton cosmetic rounds

If you have any questions we are happy to.

 

The Prime has been discontinued. We are now recommending the Relion Premier Classic from WalMart. It's $9 and the strips are $17.88/100. The strips for the AlphaTrak are about $1 EACH and when we test at least 4 times a day (more if they're dropping too low or too fast) that runs into some serious money. Also, with the AT, you have to either make sure you order them online in time so you never run low (cats have an annoying habit of dropping too low at 2am on Saturday morning when there's no place to get strips) or some vet clinics sell them but they have to be open! By using a human meter, you can usually get strips any day of the week just by going to the store.

Your vet is probably going to tell you that you MUST use a pet meter. The AT has only been around since 2006....guess what everybody used before they made the AT? That's right!....human meters! As long as you understand the scale, they're perfectly safe to use and most of us use human meters so are very comfortable with them.

If you want so help setting up a spreadsheet, feel free to send me a private message by clicking on my name and choosing "Start a conversation". Once I get some information from you, it only takes about 60 seconds to set up so it's no big deal!

 

Oh wow I didn't know they discontinued it. Thanks for letting me know.

 

Thanks everyone good to know I’m on the right track so far!