Hello - newly diagnosed cat. (UK member)

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Orangey

Orangey

Member Since 2015
Hello - my name is Tracey and my 10 and a half year old cat, Mellow has just been diagnosed with Diabetes on 10/9/15 after a couple of weeks of excessive water drinking which prompted a visit to the vet. His glucose level was 32 mmols/dl (576 mg/dl) when tested by the vet so started on 2ui of Caninsulin twice a day at 8 am and 8 pm since 11/9/15 ( I'll never get a weekend lie-in again, lol. ) No other problems found in his liver, kidneys or urine tests.
He has been fed dry food up until now but having spent the last week studying all the info I can find online, I know now that a low carb wet food will be much better for him. I've been waiting for the glucose monitor, which only arrived today (Accuchek Aviva) and I have already wasted 3 lancets (and only have 10 in the starter pack) trying to get blood! I had a tiny drop from my first try but not enough to test and not a bit the other two times. Ah well- its trial and error I suppose and I'm determined to master it. I don't think the Fastclix pen is easy to use for a newbie- I cant see where I'm sticking him ! :facepalm: The local shops dont seem to stock single lancets but thank the Lord for the internet.
Mellow has to go back to the vets tomorrow for a glucose curve. I really wanted to do my own before then as I've read that stress of being at the vets can elevate the levels but c'est la vie. Perhaps the vet will give me a needle to do the ear pricking. She seemed happy for me to try monitoring him myself if I wanted to.
Sorry this is so long a post. Its great to unburden oneself to people who will understand. I 've had a look around the forum and I'm sure it will be a great help. Its been a steep learning curve but I feel I know so much more now than a week ago when it was all so scary. We'll- must get to bed now. Thanks for reading.
 
Welcome to the message board, the best place you never wanted to be.

There are 4 things you'll need to manage your kitty's diabetes:

- You - without your commitment, the following won't work.

- Home blood glucose monitoring with an inexpensive human glucometer such as the WalMart Relion Confirm or Target Up and Up (the pet ones will break your budget!). This saves you the cost of going to the vet for curves and done regularly, removes the need for a fructosamine test. All of our insulin guidelines use human glucometer numbers for reference.

- Low carb over the counter canned or raw diet, such as many Friskies pates. See Cat Info for more info. If already on insulin, you must be home testing before changing the diet. Food changes should be gradual to avoid GI upsets - 20-25% different food each day until switched. There are 2 low carb, dry, over the counter foods in the US - Evo Cat and Kitten dry found at pet specialty stores and Young Again 0 Carb found online.

- A long-lasting insulin such as ProZinc, Lantus, BCP PZI, or Levemir. No insulin lasts 24 hours in the cat, so giving it every 12 hours is optimal for control. You may have to start with Caninsulin, but if you can show you aren't getting good control, they'll let you switch.
 
Thanks for the welcome.
I now have a meter but havent been successful with a test yet and Mellow will be at vets today for them to do a curve but I realise stress can elevate levels, plus I dont know if he will eat when he's there.

I'm looking into UK wet food and have found one thats 8% carb ( Felix Poultry Selection in Jelly ) so will begin to switch over once I get the hang of blood testing.
I'm in the UK so dont know what other types of insulin are available here yet.
 
Welcome Tracey and Mellow! I had a bit of trouble when I first started testing my cat too, but it does get easier. It sounds like you are using the pen with the lancets, if so, try it without the pen, freehand. You can see better. It's good you've found a low carb food to switch to, but make sure you get that testing down, that change may drop Mellows BG's quite a bit! Good luck today with Mellows curve. Let us know the results.
 
Hi Tracey and Mellow, welcome! Home testing is much easier than it sounds. I find it a lot easier than the shots, which I still get really nervous about. In our house, I'm in charge of the tests and hubby is in charge of the shots, works well for us :-) I haven't yet tried free-handing it as Sharon suggested, but give that a go if you can't see where your pen thing is going. Good luck!
 
Sharon14 said:
Welcome Tracey and Mellow! I had a bit of trouble when I first started testing my cat too, but it does get easier. It sounds like you are using the pen with the lancets, if so, try it without the pen, freehand. You can see better. It's good you've found a low carb food to switch to, but make sure you get that testing down, that change may drop Mellows BG's quite a bit! Good luck today with Mellows curve. Let us know the results.
Click to expand...

Thanks Sharon14. I don't know if I can use the lancets I have individually- its a Fastclix finger pricker and the needles are in drums of 5 that fit into the bottom of the finger pricker. It doesn't look like I can get them out of the drum. I'll need to order some more as soon as possible anyway as there were only 2 drums of 5 in the starter pack. I'll probably go for the freehand type. Hopefully Mellow will be used to the ear testing when he comes home from the vet this evening. Although they probably take blood some other way. I rang the vet/nurse at lunchtime and she said they were having no trouble with the testing and he was living up to his name (thats because he's always subdued at the vets 'cos he's terrified! ).

Tara & Ivana said:
Hi Tracey and Mellow, welcome! Home testing is much easier than it sounds. I find it a lot easier than the shots, which I still get really nervous about. In our house, I'm in charge of the tests and hubby is in charge of the shots, works well for us :) I haven't yet tried free-handing it as Sharon suggested, but give that a go if you can't see where your pen thing is going. Good luck!
Click to expand...

Thanks Tara. I have coped with giving the shots quite well but sometimes my husband has to hold Mellow or he tries to hide under the table, like this morning- I'm sure Mellow knew he was going to the vet today and thought I was going to put him in the cat carrier which he hates!
I'll keep trying with the pen until I can get some freehand lancets and more test strips. I'll give it a miss tonight as he'll likely not be in the mood for any more jabbing, poor baby.
 
Hi Tracey and Mellow and welcome to FDMB. I scanned through everyone else's hellos and suggestions to you. My mom is diabetic and uses the fastclick and I tried it on Bubba, couldn't see where I was aiming and also the noise scared him. I use another system now, Relion, and their lancet holder but I keep the cap off after I load the lancet. That way I can seeing exactly where I am going and no noise. Also, the finer lancets are harder to use on newly DX diabetic cats, you will need a higher number one like 28. The longer you have been testing, their little ears develop more capillaries and they start to bleed easier. Hope this iinfo helps you.
 
You want lancets labeled for alternate site testing (25 to 28 gauge - the lower the number, the bigger the hole). There may be some generic ones that don't fit into any device; these probably will be less expensive.
 
Thanks for the info Bobbie and BJM. I've ordered some 28 gauge lancets that I can use freehand. I'll try with the pen again tomorrow. At least Mellow now has some experience of the correct procedure instead of just me randomly poking at him.:)

Sharon14 said:
Good luck today with Mellows curve. Let us know the results.
Click to expand...

The vets curve is as follows (uk measurements)
25.6 +1
27.4 +2
29.6 +3
29.2 +4
38.4 +5 ! (They couldn't account for this massive spike) :eek:
25.6 +6
25.1 +7
24.1 +8
24.6 +8.5

As suspected , Mellow didn't eat all the time he was there but has eaten since he came home . Although the numbers are high, he was at 32 when first tested so its come down a little, apart from that one reading. Is a sudden drop to be expected in just a week? Perhaps the vet just meant there wasn't much of a curve. I don't know what to look for anyway as its my first curve. The vet (not the one I originally saw- she's on holiday until next week) has decided to increase the Caninsulin dose from 2 x 2ui to 2 x 2.5 ui. She didn't seem too pleased that I'd bought a human glucometer (Accuchek Aviva) as the readings wont be the same as their Alphatrak but I still think it will be useful in telling whether the BG is going up or down for my own peace of mind. She also advised doing a fructosamine test, because of the stress factor affecting the readings but we will wait until the usual vet is back next week to decide on that (its the added cost that put us off today-on top of a hefty charge for the curve it was a bit unexpected to have to consider yet another test). Mellow's weight has gone down from 5.65 Kg to 5.23Kg since 9/9/15. Although he needed to lose it, its a bit too quickly really. I hope he eats more tomorrow. Sorry for the info dump. Hope its ok to post it in this thread. Thank you all for your welcome and suggestions. :bighug:
 
Hi Tracey. Mellows numbers are a bit high 400's -500's U.S. I believe. But your vet is right that they are probably higher because of stress, that's why it is recommended to do the curves at home. My cat, Colin, wouldn't eat at the vet clinic either and his numbers were similar to Mellows. While I still don't have him regulated, he is much better at home, and I will now do the curves at home and show them to my vet as well as the people here for dosing advice. I'm sure once you get him on the low carb canned food his numbers will come down even more. That's why you need to be home testing him, so you can adjust his insulin if necessary. You may want to start a thread on the Health forum so more eyes will see your questions. I'm too new here to give any dosing advice, just moral support!
 
Thanks Sharon. I will attempt testing him again today. I am determined to master it.

So glad I found this message board.
 
Hi Tracey and Orangey; waving 'Hi' to you from Surrey, England! :bighug:

Well done for wanting to hometest. With that positive attitude that you have I'm sure you'll get the hang of it pretty quickly. But DO shout out if you have any problems with it.
Things I found/find most useful are:
1. Warm ears bleed better than cold ones. And massaging the ear can help to stimulate blood flow to a cold ear.
2. A teensy weensy smear of vaseline on the outer edge of the ear can help the blood to 'bead up' rather than disappear into the fur.
3. It's important to put a little pressure on the underside of the ear, opposite to where you're pricking. The lancet needs something to resist otherwise it can push the ear away rather than prick it. Some folks use a bit of folded tissue or cotton wool to hold against the inside of the ear. I just use a finger tip, but do occasionally get blood from myself that way....;)
4. Massaging immediately below the ear prick can 'milk' more blood out. (I almost always do this, unless I get a 'gusher'...)
5. Two ear pricks close together can often get enough blood for a test where one ear prick might not.
6. Pressing on the test site afterwards for a few seconds, with a little tissue or cotton wool, can help to minimise bruising in the early days. After just a little while testing gets easier because the ears seem to 'learn to bleed' more easily (they grow more blood vessels in response to those tiny pin pricks); but they also seem to become less prone to bruising.
7. One ear may well bleed better than the other (strange but true...)
8. Always reward the kitty (with a treat or a cuddle) for every test or attempted test.
9. Reward yourself too. Chocolate is good. Or cake. Or wine.... :)

For a cat on insulin, we recommend that the diet is only switched to lower carb once the caregiver is OK with hometesting and can monitor the effect of the diet change on the cat's blood glucose levels. Reducing the carb content of Orangey's diet may reduce his blood glucose levels quite a bit. And it might be necessary to reduce his insulin dosage in order to avoid hypoglycemia.

In my signature there's a link to a list of low carb cat foods in the UK and also a link to a page of general UK food info, which you might find helpful in the future.

FYI: We advise that folks try to test before each insulin shot, and - for those new to dealing with diabetes - we suggest that no insulin is given if the blood glucose (immediately prior to the shot) is below 11. That's just until the caregiver has got the hang of testing and has collected a bit of hometesting data to see how the insulin is working in their cat.

Do shout out if you have any questions or concerns, Tracey. We're here to help. :cat:

Eliz
 
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