Hello everyone. My name is Andy and I am the owner of a recently diagnosed diabetic cat. His name is Bubba (named after my dad) and he is 6 years old.
Over the past month we have noticed Bubba drinking more water and urinating a bit more, but we attributed that to the weather warming up. We also noticed he "felt" thinner, but we assumed that was him just shedding more due to the increased heat. About a week ago, I picked him up and realized I could feel his ribs which was unusual. I suddenly noticed he was MUCH thinner than normal, almost sickly feeling. I setup an appointment to get him into see a doctor and on Saturday we took him in. His blood was tested and we were told by our amazing veterinarian that she believes he may be diabetic or possibly have thyroid issues. Two days later (Monday) we received a call from her saying his glucose was high, and that we should bring him in to get a urinalysis performed as soon as possible. I setup an appointment for the next day (Today: Tuesday) and after about 15 minutes the doctor came back and said "Well, he is diabetic".
She told us his glucose levels were around 350 or so, which apparently is high, but not extremely high. Unfortunately, the level of Ketones in his blood were quite high apparently, which she explained was due to his body breaking down his muscles. I think both my girlfriend and I immediately felt horrible for not noticing the problem sooner. The doctor was kind enough to tell us these things happen quickly and are sometimes easy to miss. She also pointed out that other than the weight loss and increased thirst and hunger, he seems completely normal, which is true. My girlfriend even made the comment that when cats get sick, it's usually fairly easy to tell, but with Bubba everything seemed normal. There was some good news though. She said usually when there are high levels of Ketones in the urine they like to hospitalize them to monitor them, but because Bubba seemed so fine, she said she wasn't too worried about it. That made us both feel a lot better. She advised we go get the prescription filled and start Bubba on his insulin immediately. She also sold us some Hills prescription food which is the low carb high protein formual (MD), but also told us that plenty of cheaper alternatives exist that are just fine which I really appreciated. She printed off about 15 pages of information about diet, giving insulin, testing, etc.
Now, since Saturday when the doctor suggested diabetes, I had been doing my research ;-) . I actually found this site on Saturday night and I had read tons of info by Sunday night. I already knew about only feeding them wet food with low carbs etc. After returning from the vet tonight, I was looking at the food charts and found that this Hills MD is actually somewhat high in carbs. After doing some research, I found that the reason for that is because you don't want to suddenly drop your cats carb intake extremely low, while supplementing them with insulin as well, which makes perfect sense. I plan on keeping him on this Hills MD canned food for a couple weeks before switching to a lower carb and more affordable food, such as Fancy Feast Classics pate or some of the Friskies pates found on the chart.
Anyways, we went to the pharmacy right after leaving the vets office and dropped off the prescription. We went home, ate some food, and then an hour later were back at the pharmacy to pick it up. "$200!" my girlfriend screamed. $165 for the insulin and another $18 for a box of 100 syringes which are; super thin / 30U / 31gauge / short needle / with half unit measurements. I explained to her that I had read the one month expiration is not necessary if the insulin is cared for properly. She decided to ask the pharmacist who I expected to say "No you need to throw this away every 28 days". To my surprise he said "If you keep it your fridge and don't shake it, it can last 4 or 5 months or more". We took it all home and then I gave Bubba a can of the Hills MD food and watched him practically inhale in. I waited about 15 minutes, then gave him his first insulin injection of 1 unit. He didn't even flinch.
That was at 10:10 PM last night. It is now 4:05 AM and he has hardly moved. Is that normal? He is responsive, and will roll his belly over when I pet him, but he has been in the same spot for the past 6 hours, which is pretty odd for him. His eyes seem really heavy when I can get him to look at me. My thinking is that he may be a bit sluggish until he gets use to a lower blood sugar maybe? He is due for his next injection is about 3 hours and I want to make sure we aren't going to cause hypo or something. My girlfriend and I are taking turns doing injections as of right now. She does the morning and I will do at night, and we are rotating the area of injection so that it goes front right shoulder, front left shoulder, back right shoulder, back left shoulder, etc. We are going tomorrow to purchase some urinary test strips to test his Ketones and glucose. I've also started to look into testing his glucose myself, although I am not sure we have the money right now. With a third appointment setup for Friday now, we are already at about $1000 inside of 1 week. Luckily for us, our vet offers payments plans with zero interest, or I don't know what we would do.
I also have a more serious question. How will this effect his life. I seem to be getting differing opinions about feline diabetes. Some information I have found says diabetes is a horrible awful thing and the cat might as well be put down to save it from the pain and to save the owner the headaches and heartaches of caring for a diabetic cat. Plenty of other sites have literally said, "once you get their insulin and diet regimen down, it's like they are not even sick", also saying that diabetic cats usually live perfectly normal live, they just need help with insulin.
Thanks for taking the time to read this wall of text.
Over the past month we have noticed Bubba drinking more water and urinating a bit more, but we attributed that to the weather warming up. We also noticed he "felt" thinner, but we assumed that was him just shedding more due to the increased heat. About a week ago, I picked him up and realized I could feel his ribs which was unusual. I suddenly noticed he was MUCH thinner than normal, almost sickly feeling. I setup an appointment to get him into see a doctor and on Saturday we took him in. His blood was tested and we were told by our amazing veterinarian that she believes he may be diabetic or possibly have thyroid issues. Two days later (Monday) we received a call from her saying his glucose was high, and that we should bring him in to get a urinalysis performed as soon as possible. I setup an appointment for the next day (Today: Tuesday) and after about 15 minutes the doctor came back and said "Well, he is diabetic".
She told us his glucose levels were around 350 or so, which apparently is high, but not extremely high. Unfortunately, the level of Ketones in his blood were quite high apparently, which she explained was due to his body breaking down his muscles. I think both my girlfriend and I immediately felt horrible for not noticing the problem sooner. The doctor was kind enough to tell us these things happen quickly and are sometimes easy to miss. She also pointed out that other than the weight loss and increased thirst and hunger, he seems completely normal, which is true. My girlfriend even made the comment that when cats get sick, it's usually fairly easy to tell, but with Bubba everything seemed normal. There was some good news though. She said usually when there are high levels of Ketones in the urine they like to hospitalize them to monitor them, but because Bubba seemed so fine, she said she wasn't too worried about it. That made us both feel a lot better. She advised we go get the prescription filled and start Bubba on his insulin immediately. She also sold us some Hills prescription food which is the low carb high protein formual (MD), but also told us that plenty of cheaper alternatives exist that are just fine which I really appreciated. She printed off about 15 pages of information about diet, giving insulin, testing, etc.
Now, since Saturday when the doctor suggested diabetes, I had been doing my research ;-) . I actually found this site on Saturday night and I had read tons of info by Sunday night. I already knew about only feeding them wet food with low carbs etc. After returning from the vet tonight, I was looking at the food charts and found that this Hills MD is actually somewhat high in carbs. After doing some research, I found that the reason for that is because you don't want to suddenly drop your cats carb intake extremely low, while supplementing them with insulin as well, which makes perfect sense. I plan on keeping him on this Hills MD canned food for a couple weeks before switching to a lower carb and more affordable food, such as Fancy Feast Classics pate or some of the Friskies pates found on the chart.
Anyways, we went to the pharmacy right after leaving the vets office and dropped off the prescription. We went home, ate some food, and then an hour later were back at the pharmacy to pick it up. "$200!" my girlfriend screamed. $165 for the insulin and another $18 for a box of 100 syringes which are; super thin / 30U / 31gauge / short needle / with half unit measurements. I explained to her that I had read the one month expiration is not necessary if the insulin is cared for properly. She decided to ask the pharmacist who I expected to say "No you need to throw this away every 28 days". To my surprise he said "If you keep it your fridge and don't shake it, it can last 4 or 5 months or more". We took it all home and then I gave Bubba a can of the Hills MD food and watched him practically inhale in. I waited about 15 minutes, then gave him his first insulin injection of 1 unit. He didn't even flinch.
That was at 10:10 PM last night. It is now 4:05 AM and he has hardly moved. Is that normal? He is responsive, and will roll his belly over when I pet him, but he has been in the same spot for the past 6 hours, which is pretty odd for him. His eyes seem really heavy when I can get him to look at me. My thinking is that he may be a bit sluggish until he gets use to a lower blood sugar maybe? He is due for his next injection is about 3 hours and I want to make sure we aren't going to cause hypo or something. My girlfriend and I are taking turns doing injections as of right now. She does the morning and I will do at night, and we are rotating the area of injection so that it goes front right shoulder, front left shoulder, back right shoulder, back left shoulder, etc. We are going tomorrow to purchase some urinary test strips to test his Ketones and glucose. I've also started to look into testing his glucose myself, although I am not sure we have the money right now. With a third appointment setup for Friday now, we are already at about $1000 inside of 1 week. Luckily for us, our vet offers payments plans with zero interest, or I don't know what we would do.
I also have a more serious question. How will this effect his life. I seem to be getting differing opinions about feline diabetes. Some information I have found says diabetes is a horrible awful thing and the cat might as well be put down to save it from the pain and to save the owner the headaches and heartaches of caring for a diabetic cat. Plenty of other sites have literally said, "once you get their insulin and diet regimen down, it's like they are not even sick", also saying that diabetic cats usually live perfectly normal live, they just need help with insulin.
Thanks for taking the time to read this wall of text.
She said she hasn't mentioned that yet because he needs to stay on the insulin to lower the amount of ketones in his urine. She said from now until his next appointment on Friday we need to lower his dose to 1/2 a unit (although we will be able to confirm that tonight after we check his glucose levels).
