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LexiM

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Hi all,

My name is Jamie, and I am "mom" to five wonderful kitties: Lexi, my oldest at 14 years; Zac, 7 years; Tady Bear, also 7; Little Girl, 6 years; and Teeker who is probably about 5 years old now.

I am here now, because a little more than two weeks ago Lexi was diagnosed with diabetes. She spent a day at the vets, and is now on 2 units of prozinc twice a day. My cats have been on a strictly dry diet; the vet recommended I switch their dry food to Evo, which I have done. I'm also slowly adding in some wet food to the diet, though that's been difficult, since some of them don't want to eat it.

Lexi goes to the vet tomorrow for a glucose curve. I'm anxious about that. I'm not sure what else to say at this point. I've been reading so much this past week, it's all a little confusing. I'll have questions later. I just know right now I want to do the best I can for my girl.

Jamie
 
Welcome to the site.

You can do home testing because the curve done at the vet is likely to be resulting in not true numbers because of stress to the cat.

One of my cats tests higher at the vet office; another tests lower. When I get them home and test them, they are back to their normal numbers.

You can pick up a human glucose meter, test strips, and lancets at the pharmacy and test Lexi at home. Testing before each shot is important so that you know if it's safe or not to give Lexi her next shot.

The curves at the vet are very expensive, stressful on the cat, and produce invalid info. The vet will adjust the dose for Lexi based on that curve and it may be too much insulin for her.
 
It is confusing and overwhelming at first because there is so much information here. But information is power and it will help you help your Lexi back to health.

We have a protocol that has helped hundreds of cats into regulation and many into remission. We advocate wet lo carb food and the best dosage of insulin based on hometesting. Our "resident" vet Dr. Lisa has a wonderful site with ideas about transitioning kitties from dry food to wet: http://www.catinfo.org

And we do test our cats at home with human glucometers. Our thinking is that we would never get a dose amount from a doctor and go home and shoot that amount into our children for a week or more without knowing how it was working. So we treat our 4 legged children the same way. Here is a good beginning site: Newbie hometesting site and Video for hometesting We have taught hundreds of people how to hometest over the internet; we would love to teach you.

Read a lot, ask questions. It is a steep learning curve at first, but this is a very treatable disease and we are here to help.
 
Welcome Jamie and Lexi!

You are now in the best place you never wanted to be, but also the very place to help you help Ms. Lexi.

A couple of things you are going to hear repeatedly here is that you need to learn to home test her. This is very easy and any human glucose meter will work just fine. ( you don't need a fancy & expensive pet only meter). I personally use the Relion Ultima from Walmart and it does a very good job.

I'm sure some others will be along shortly with a ton of links for you, on the subject.

Next once you are testing at home, you will want to switch everyone, if possible, to an all wet canned diet. Again someone should give you the link to Binky's list. This part can be a challenge in a multi-cat household, I know as I have 10 myself. But from Binky's list you will want to try to stay under 10% carbs. And there are lots of choices on Binky's list, so just play around some until you find a few that everyone likes. Just phasing out the dry food could drop her blood sugars as much as 100, but you will want to be home testing first so you can catch any change in insulin needs before it becomes a problem.

Why is home testing so important? Well because all kitties are under some kind of stress when they are at the vets, even if they adore their vets. It is all those other strange things, like car rides, barking dogs, strange smells etc. And stress can raise BGs. Even my most laid back civie (non-diabetic) will throw borderline diabetic numbers at the vets, and he loves his vet. So testing at home gives you much truer numbers than at the vet's office. Since Lexi is all relaxed and comfy at home, she may not need as much insulin as when she is all stressed out at the vet's. Same with changing her diet, that alone can drop her BGs and if you aren't watching that through home testing your not going to catch it, and possibly cause her to go Hypo, something you will want to avoid if at all possible.

Lori and Tom run a newbie's kit program here, and would be happy to send you out a kit to get you started, those of us that can donate to this program so that newbies like you will have a good start, it our way of paying it forward for the help we recieved in the past. All Lori asks is that you pay for the shipping (around $5) but a small donation is always appreciated. Since this can be a steep learning curve at first, sometimes it is just nice to have someone else put a kit together for you until you get the hang of things.

Oh yeah, remember to just breathe! This is doable and you can do it. Its scary and a bit frustrating at first, we have all been there and done that. Since everyone here, either has or has had a diabetic kitty that we are successfully treating. If this wasn't so doable I would have never adopted my big boy Max from this very board after my first FD kitty passed away (cancer not diabetes). But I did, and I have been truly blessed to have him in my life. Not only did this board enrich my life with a new furry son, but with all the great advice I got here, Max is now a month+ OTJ (off the juice or in remission). Now that doesn't happen with all cats, but with this boards help a lot do, and those that don't are still living nice healthy lives on a couple quick shots a day.

We will be here to hold your hand and paw through it all

Mel, Max & The Fur Gang
 
Thanks everyone for the support. I'm going to pick up up a glucose meter the next time I go into town. I guess if I can get used to sticking the poor cat with the needle for the insulin, I can learn to test her blood sugar. It does make sense, doesn't it. I hate the idea of flying blind with this.

I'm confused now though. Lexi is at the vet, and the vet just called. They are also confused. Apparently her blood sugar is really low; the vet said it was at 41. They are trying to get a urine sample from her now, to check for a bladder infection. I'm to go pick her up in a couple of hours, and learn more then.
 
When numbers swing from high to low within the span of the 12-hour dosing cycle, it most often means that the cat is receiving too much insulin and therefore the dose ought to be reduced. Perhaps you could suggest that your vet take it down from 2 units BID to 1.5 units and see if the numbers become steadier. Let us know the curve numbers once you get them from the vet, and please pick up a human glucometer and strips ASAP. No need to pay the vet to do these curves when you can do them at home in a more comfortable and less stressful environment for Lexi.

LexiM said:
Thanks everyone for the support. I'm going to pick up up a glucose meter the next time I go into town. I guess if I can get used to sticking the poor cat with the needle for the insulin, I can learn to test her blood sugar. It does make sense, doesn't it. I hate the idea of flying blind with this.

I'm confused now though. Lexi is at the vet, and the vet just called. They are also confused. Apparently her blood sugar is really low; the vet said it was at 41. They are trying to get a urine sample from her now, to check for a bladder infection. I'm to go pick her up in a couple of hours, and learn more then.
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The vet has taken Lexi off insulin entirely, and scheduled a follow up in another 2 weeks. I'm getting a little worried, because they don't seem to have a much better idea of what is going on than I do.

I bought a relion micro, and I've tested Lexi with it now, twice. She was at 91 then 2 hours later, 86. For practice, I also tested myself, and one of my non-diabetic cats. I had a blood glucose of 131, and the other cat was 63. Does all of this sound too low? I'm wondering if I am doing something wrong?
 
Fantastic that you are testing. Welcome to the Vampire Club!

Those are good numbers; particularly it is nice she came down on her own. It may mean you have a working pancreas.

Have you changed to all wet food? That could get her all the way down into normal numbers. Many cats here run between 50-80 off insulin.
 
Sue and Oliver said:
Fantastic that you are testing. Welcome to the Vampire Club!

Those are good numbers; particularly it is nice she came down on her own. It may mean you have a working pancreas.

Have you changed to all wet food? That could get her all the way down into normal numbers. Many cats here run between 50-80 off insulin.
Click to expand...


We are working on switching to all wet. Lexi is getting mostly wet, but one of the other cats tends to be a little under weight, and she's being difficult about eating the wet food, so for now I'm still leaving out the dry. I did switch to Evo dry from Healthwise dry, so the carb content is much lower.

Those numbers are good then? That's a relief. :). For some reason I thought they were too low.
 
If she was on insulin, below 40 would be worrying. Off insulin, anything below 100 is nice. Some cats off insulin test in the 40s.

If she is not on insulin, she can't hypo. No worries. :razz:
 
Those are beautiful numbers, if you look at Max's spreadsheet you will see he pretty much stays inbetween the 50s to 70s and he is OTJ. Crossing fingers and paws that she keeps it up! :thumbup

Mel, Max & The Fur Gang
 
Hello, Jamie, and welcome! It is fabulous that you are already home testing! that is often the part that newcomers find most difficult, and you have already accomplished it! Most impressive. The numbers you posted are very good, and Lexi may not need insulin at all, and certainly not without a preshot test to know what her blood glucose level is. If it turns out that you should need to give insulin, we have a ProZinc forum where you could post. If you want to find it, you can check the ISG (Insulin Support Group) PZI on the main board, click on PZI and you will find us.there are people there who have many years of experience with PZI.
Look forward to hearing more from you. Ask lots of questions. We would be happy to help you with anything we can.
 
Hi Jamie! It's great that you mastered home testing so quickly! And a good thing too, considering how low Lexi was going on insulin. She's got gorgeous numbers off-insulin so far. I'm truly hoping they stay that way and that her diabetes can be managed with diet. That would be wonderful!! Please post in the pzi isg if you need any help or have any questions!
 
Hi there... I am new here too; in fact I joined here 4 hours ago and have been reading ever since. I have belonged to many other forums in other interests and its a great place to learn. Mine was dx 3 weeks ago and am getting used to it as well. I bought the AlphaTrax as recommended by my vet. I got it online delivered for under $110. Doing my own curves with a very patient kitty. Welcome.
 
Hi Springers dad! Why don't you start your own "thread" and tell us more about yourself? (go to the top of the page and click on "new topic"). Great that you have decided to home test.
 
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