Greetings from His Royal Pussness, King George

[RuthC]

OK, silly nickname, but I guess everybody here will understand. We learned 4 days ago that George has diabetes (BG 342). He is 12 years, 8 months old and a large but not overweight Main Coon mix. We took him in to the vet when we noticed excessive drinking. He's otherwise in very good health and behaving normally.
The vet wants to talk with me tomorrow about starting insulin. After doing much reading on this site and a couple of others, it seems to me that George would benefit from having us take time to change him over to a low carb wet food diet and then re-test before starting insulin. The vet sold me a bag of Hills W/D and talked about high fiber - no mention of protein or carbohydrate. Most current diabetes sources make reference to high fiber as being an "old" treatment approach, which doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in me for this vet's advice.
Over the past 3 days I've started changing George off his typical Iams dry diet (he's happy to eat more wet food!) and today he drank noticeably less water than he has been. Could that be my hopeful imagination at work, and am I putting him in danger by delaying the start of insulin?

 

[Ry & Scooter]

Hi and welcome! What a pretty guy! :lol:

It is best to get the food change out of the way before starting insulin so you're not scrambling to reduce the dose as his numbers come tumbling down. My Scooter went down almost 200 points from the food transition alone. What canned food are you giving him now?

Make sure your vet prescribes you Lantus, Levemir, or Prozinc - NOT Humulin N or Caninsulin. The fact that they gave you Hills W/D makes me think they are VERY outdated on their diabetes treatment and are going to try and prescribe you the latter. N and Caninsulin are short acting (6-8h), harsh dropping insulins that make regulating a nightmare in cats. The first 3 are much longer lasting (12+h), more gentle insulins better suited for cats. If you need some vet papers/research to back that up, we can give you tons!

 

[Just-As-Appy]

Good for you for reading up and starting the diet change. Just getting the carbs out if some cat's diets made a huge change in their bg numbers. Dr. Lisa recently revised the food charts, and most of us try to feed less than 8% carbs. There are lots to choose form for every budget.

The other thing you can do is get a glucometer and begin home testing. Monitoring his bg at home puts you in control with data - an invaluable item int he management of diabetes. After a week or so of changed diet and monitoring his bg numbers, you will be in a position to talk to his vet about his need for insulin. And if he does need insulin, the longer acting ones like Lantus (glargine) or Levemir are excellent and provide good control and best chance for remission.

If you decide to start testing (you don't need your vet's permission!), say the word. Lots of people will offer helpful suggestions.

 

[Hope + (((Baby)))GA]

King George is absolutely gorgeous! You are doing the correct thing......no W/D and going to canned before starting insulin. Hometesting is the next best thing to learn.

 

[RuthC]

Thank you very much for the warm welcome and reassuring advice!

Ry, I am switching George over to Merrick BG 96%, which according to Lisa Pierson's table has practically no carbs (1-2). He gobbles it like manna from Heaven and has all but abandoned the Hill's kibble I left out for backup. His water consumption is significantly down and I take that as a very unscientific indicator that things are going the right direction. Certainly it makes good sense to put a cat on the type of diet they are evolved to eat, rather than what is convenient for us hoomans. I'm so encouraged to hear about the 200 drop after Scooter's diet change - maybe George will be able to get along with out insulin. Fingers crossed!

I would very much appreciate suggestions on a glucometer. If my current vet comes back today saying she wants to immediately put him on insulin and stay with the high-fiber approach, I will be seeking a different vet. Whoever I end up with will have to be willing to deal with me participating in the whole process, which means I'll want to do home monitoring. George will appreciate not having to make stressful trips to the vet, and I will want to have access to current information.

Looks like many people have had good luck with the Relion from Walmart (we have one here in town), and the TrueTrack Smart System got a good recommendation from one family of users (human and feline). I'd appreciate your thoughts.

 

[Hillary & Maui (GA)]

The walmart relion meter and strips are the most economical - it only requires a small blood sample which makes it easier when testing.

Personally, I've used Bayer Contour and really like it, it also only requires a small blood sample, but the strips are more expensive than the relion.

My suggestion, pick up a meter that is easy to use, requires small amount of blood and if possible no coding of strips to meter - that can be a pain, especially when you forget to enter the proper code and then get wonky numbers.

In addition, pick up the following:

- ketone sticks - found in diabetes section, used to test urine for ketones
- lancets - either ones that will fit the device for the meter you purchase - or if you want to try free handing the lancet and not using the device, then any brand will do - either way, get lancets that are 29 or 28 gauge - this will help you, because they are larger and will make it easier when testing the ear.

Remember the lower the gauge number the larger the needle (the same is true for syringes - when you are ready for insulin - and in that case, for syringes - I recommend 30 or 31 gauge - because the smaller the needle, the less the cat will feel it when you inject).

- neosporin or a similar antibiotic ointment and pain relief is fine to use - Reason - you may find that once you start testing the ears, you will see bruising and blood clots - this will help them to heal faster

petroleum jelly - to be massaged onto ear prior to testing, in case you need help with a fussy cat who moves his head, blood seeping too quickly into fur, using this will help the blood to bead up on the jelly allowing you time to get the test done

 

[Elizabeth and Bertie]

Just wanted to say 'welcome' to FDMB!

And...what an unbelievably amazing-looking cat you have there....!

You've had some good advice. So, just wanted to say 'hi' and 'welcome aboard'!

Eliz in UK

 

[RuthC]

Thank you very much! (And George thanks you too, he also finds himself very handsome.)

Good conversation with the vet this morning. She did not think I was trying to turn myself into an "internet vet" and was very receptive to everything I told her I had been reading about. She def was not up to speed on many of the details and had never heard of Merrick food...a little surprising, but then their job is to sell the prescription stuff. She gave me the trouble signs to watch for and agreed we should try George for a month on the low carb wet food and then re-test. He and I would both be ever so much happier if we didn't have to do insulin injections every day!

 

[hmjohnston]

Thank you very much for the warm welcome and reassuring advice!

I would very much appreciate suggestions on a glucometer. If my current vet comes back today saying she wants to immediately put him on insulin and stay with the high-fiber approach, I will be seeking a different vet. Whoever I end up with will have to be willing to deal with me participating in the whole process, which means I'll want to do home monitoring. George will appreciate not having to make stressful trips to the vet, and I will want to have access to current information.

Looks like many people have had good luck with the Relion from Walmart (we have one here in town), and the TrueTrack Smart System got a good recommendation from one family of users (human and feline). I'd appreciate your thoughts.

The relion comes highly recommended on the board but I would be wary of the generic brands with "True" in the name. There has been the recent occasion (last few weeks) where someone using a True meter was getting great numbers but the cat was still acting unregulated- and when they switched meters they saw the numbers increase. Some True meters do not read FD above 250 or 290. The same with the freestyle lite with the BUTTERFLY strips. Not meant for kitties at all.

 

[Ry & Scooter]

I wouldn't wait a month. Go pick up a ReliOn Micro or Confirm from Walmart and start testing George. You'll know within a few days if he needs insulin or not - I don't mean to scare you, but if he does need it, delaying it unnecessarily would be causing more and more damage to his body, lessening his chances at remission (not needing insulin), and could cause him to go into DKA (diabetic ketoacidosis) which is life threatening.