Help! I need some answers...

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sunkitty13

Member Since 2012
Hi, I am new to this site. In February my overweight-and-on a-diet cat started losing weight. I thought that her diet was finally starting to work. However, I made an appointment to take her to a new vet because my husband and I had just relocated back to PA from out of state. I had the paperwork on my cat from my last vet, who had checked her for diabetes and thyroid problems when she first gained weight. At the checkup appointment in April, the new vet did a thorough blood-screen for both my cats. My fat cat (Jane) was diagnosed with diabetes. I started her on Hills brand diet food for diabetic cats and was told to return in three weeks for a recheck of her blood glucose. Long story short, she was placed on insulin (Glargine or lantus, 1 unit every twelve hours). She has been rechecked every two or three weeks since the initial start of the insulin dose, and each time she has dropped more weight and still has high blood sugar. At the most recent checkup, my vet said that Jane falls into the category of those cats that don't respond to insulin treatment. In a last ditch effort, he placed Janr on 2 units of the Glargine and has added a twice daily dose of amoxicillin to her routine in case she has an infection of some kind. The vet made it clear that she is on her last legs because she now weighs only 7.5 pounds. He said that next will be a referral to a university specialist. This cat has been my baby (along with her brother) ever since I discovered them outside in September of 2003 at the age of 3 weeks. I bottle fed them and saved Jane's life because she was the runt. I don't think she would have survived without my care.
Please, if anyone has some advice for me, I would greatly appreciate it. I don't think I could bear to lose her yet.
Thanks,
sunkitty13 in PA
 
The most important thing you can do to help her is to go buy a human glucometer and start testing her blood sugars at home. We test before every shot and midcycle to see how the insulin is working. This gives us a clear picture of how the dose and insulin is working, and whether the dose is too high, low or just right. We can guide you through the process over the Internet.

Testing every few weeks at the vet doesn't give you this information. Cats are generally stressed at the vet and stress artificially raises bg levels.

I don't think it is nearly time to give up on your kitty. Let us help you figure out what is going on.

We may have members in your city if you want to post it. Maybe they know a good vet who will give you a second opinion.
 
Hi SunKitty13! The folks here are great (I am pretty new myself), they are very caring and will do everything they can to help you and Jane. My first vet prescribed Hill's brand prescription wet food but I was told that this is not a good choice and could be causing my cat's blood sugar to remain elevated. Here is what veterinarian, Dr. Lisa Pierson (a feline diabetes expert) says about this:

"Although all dry foods are too high in carbohydrates and are too low in water (causing many life-threatening urinary tract problems), please be aware that some canned foods also contain far too many carbohydrates making them very poor choices for cats. Note that all canned foods made by Hill's are too high in carbohydrates. This includes all of their prescription diets including m/d and w/d."

Dr. Pierson posts to this site from time to time. Here is the link to her excellent article about diabetic cats, referenced above, if you want to read it in its entirety: http://www.catinfo.org/?link=felinediabetes

I do not know why more vets are not aware of this, but you see it all the time on this board (vets mistakenly prescribing Hill's or other prescription foods). So the first thing you might want to do is to change Jane's diet. That could make a big difference in her blood glucose numbers. A lot of people here feed Fancy Feast Classics (the "classics" not the gravy type) as they are low carbohydrate and you can find them in any grocery store. Dr. Lisa's article above provides some links to other alternatives.

And as Sue mentioned in her post, you will want to test Jane's blood sugar at home using a human monitor. I use the Relion Micro from Walmart. It is the cheapest to use in the long run, and rated as "very good" by Consumer Reports. At the bottom of my post, you will see a link that says "Ninja's SS." That is a spreadsheet that most of us set up for our kitties so that the senior members of this board can look at how the blood sugar numbers have been running and give us advice when we're having problems. So once you begin testing Jane and develop a similar spreadsheet for her (we will help you do this when you are ready), then others can guide you in getting Jane's blood sugar down.

But I would say that the most important thing now is to change Jane's diet to a low-carb wet food that she likes because it is important that she not continue to lose more weight; and to begin testing her blood glucose at home.

I would also say that my cat uses Lantus, and I don't understand how your vet could have made the determination that Jane is "resistant" when she is only now at 2 units (after many months) -- if I am understanding you correctly. Maybe she just needs more. But, PLEASE NOT INCREASE HER DOSAGE without testing her and posting results for the board to evaluate; because a diet change alone may drop Jane's blood glucose numbers (and required insulin dose) significantly. You might also want to try a different vet as Sue mentions; one with more experience in successfully treating feline diabetes. That's what I did.

Here is a great, though lengthy, article that is really informative for beginners: http://felinediabetes.com/dummies . You might want to print it out and use it as reference material (reading a few pages a day or as time permits).

Hope this is not too much info for you. I know it's a lot to comprehend in a short period of time, but there is certainly hope for Jane and the senior folks should be along shortly to help you more.

Melanie
 
Hello.
I agree with the others. It's time to learn about home monitoring. Also finding a vet who supports glucose monitoring and is willing to learn not just dictate.
There are vets out there who are current about feline diabetes. Sometimes it's a little work to find them. Hopefully someone in your area will chime in
and tell you. Maybe even put up a new post with "need a vet in ____, PA asap!!"

No one here recommends big increments. It's go low and slow. Each time you make dose adjustments you need to give them a week.
It's possible to only go up .25 at a time if you learn .

That Hill's diet is crap and too many vets peddle it out. It doesn't help your cat. You need to find the better foods .
With changing to a canned food diet only, you may get better results right away so it's important to be able to monitor it in case the glucose level drops.

Here is the list of canned foods , look at the carb %. Most here pick the one's that are 10 % or less. I'm doing 8% or less.
http://binkyspage.tripod.com/CanFoodOld.html and
http://binkyspage.tripod.com/CanFoodNew.html

And then pay attention to the amount you are giving.
fancy feast classic cans need to be fed 3 cans a day for a 10 1/2 lb cat. (these are 3 oz cans)
Your cat that lost weight might be better served with a little more or at least
add a few no carb treats like PureBites freezedried( which come in shrimp or chicken or beef ... turkey is supposed to be new)
http://www.entirelypets.com/purebitechickencat.html
I also give Cat-sip ( kitty milk to mine) it's a lactase so it has no milk sugars and it's low fat. They sell it at petsmart.
It's better to have 4 meals a day but even 3 is better than 2.
When you suddenly give up carbs, humans and cats feel a little hungry at first. But that will taper off. It's harder to get fat on a diet of hi protein
than it is on carbs.
Dry food for cats is like us eating a diet of chips and poptarts and bread.
Since you want to get Jane to gain back a little weight slowly, pick one of the lowest carb canned foods and let her have a little more.
Start with fancy feast classics right away and read the canned food list to pick others. I chose fancyfeast because you should be able to run to the grocery store right away and change that diet.

I think the reason your old vet gave such a bad prognosis is because of the rapid weight loss and still going.
Your cat probably didn't even really like that hills stuff.

Here are sites to start reading on about the monitoring. Pictures andillustrations help tremendously.
http://felinediabetes.com/bg-home-test.htm
http://felinediabetes.com/bg-test.htm

And keep a record.
We have a few here who are good at setting up a spreadsheet when you get started with the home testing.
You will need a google account.
I hope they will chime in, if not... I'll figure out how to instruct you.

With these new changes for Jane, it is even possible you will be lowering her dose in just a week or so.

My shadow was previously eating friskies ( but the gravy ones which are in the 13% range like the hill's canned diet. You didn't say if you were on hill's
dry or canned. The dry is ridiculously high. Mine was also getting lots of cat treats like greenies and pounce which are all unknown in the carb factor.
I changed her diet the minute I read Lisa Pierson's website and it's been a week now and Shadow's numbers are looking really good already.

If you were on the hill's canned, Jane's bg might improve in a week or two as well. If you were on dry, then Jane will definitely improve by the food switch.

So, there is hope. Lot's of hope for Jane.

I have the Accu-chek aviva plus. The meter is great but it comes with a fastclix lancet which is a 31 gauge and you have to put the lancet setting up to
4 or 5 or 6 at first. I have to try numerous times and my cat hates it.
And the testing strips are expensive.
I would listen to the other's about their meters. You want one that needs the tiniest sample.


https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... xVmc#gid=0
 
thank you to all who answered my call for help

I just wanted to thank everyone who responded to my call for help with my cat Jane. My vet had pretty much written her off as a goner. I have made an appointment to talk about Jane's case with a new vet to get a second opinion. I have been doing a lot of research into feline diabetes and am now much better prepared for questioning the vet about treatment options. To answer one person's question to me, Jane has been on an all canned food diet for at least three years. Before that, she ate canned food in the morning and then dry food in the late afternoon. I know that Jane's liver enzymes showed up as being high during the original bloodwork, too. She drinks a lot of water and urinates alot. Nothing has ever been mentioned to me about doing blood glucose monitoring at home, however, that seems to be what everyone else is doing in the sites I researched about FD. During the past 2 1/2 years I have been trying to get Jane to lose weight, but now the weight loss has gone to the opposite extreme. Before the vet put her on the Hill's m/d brand she was eating FancyFeast pate varieties. Jane is always hungry. She wolfs down her food in two seconds flat, and has done this for three years now. She was even stealing her brother's food for awhile until we noticed her getting heavier. I told all of this to my original vet, and they didn't seem to think it was strange that my cat should go from being a very fussy eater to suddenly gobbling everything down that gets in her way. She will even catch house flies and eat them before I can stop her. Has anyone else had problems like this with their diabetic cat??
Thanks,
sunkitty13 in PA
 
How many cans of Fancy Feast are you feeding your diabetic per day? One or two cans may not be enough for your cat which might be why she's eating everything she can, even flies. Unregulated diabetics are always hungry so they should have free access to food. Most people here feed multiple small meals daily using a programmable timed feeder.

Lantus is a good insulin to use. Is the current dose 2 units twice a day? Jane might be responding to the insulin but without daily blood glucose testing at home you have no way of knowing if it is or not.

Are you using the 10 ml bottle of Lantus or the Lantus SoloStar pens? How long have you been using the current bottle or pen?
 
sunkitty13 said:
Hi, I am new to this site. In February my overweight-and-on a-diet cat started losing weight. I thought that her diet was finally starting to work. However, I made an appointment to take her to a new vet because my husband and I had just relocated back to PA from out of state. I had the paperwork on my cat from my last vet, who had checked her for diabetes and thyroid problems when she first gained weight. At the checkup appointment in April, the new vet did a thorough blood-screen for both my cats. My fat cat (Jane) was diagnosed with diabetes. I started her on Hills brand diet food for diabetic cats and was told to return in three weeks for a recheck of her blood glucose. Long story short, she was placed on insulin (Glargine or lantus, 1 unit every twelve hours). She has been rechecked every two or three weeks since the initial start of the insulin dose, and each time she has dropped more weight and still has high blood sugar. At the most recent checkup, my vet said that Jane falls into the category of those cats that don't respond to insulin treatment. In a last ditch effort, he placed Janr on 2 units of the Glargine and has added a twice daily dose of amoxicillin to her routine in case she has an infection of some kind. The vet made it clear that she is on her last legs because she now weighs only 7.5 pounds. He said that next will be a referral to a university specialist. This cat has been my baby (along with her brother) ever since I discovered them outside in September of 2003 at the age of 3 weeks. I bottle fed them and saved Jane's life because she was the runt. I don't think she would have survived without my care.
Please, if anyone has some advice for me, I would greatly appreciate it. I don't think I could bear to lose her yet.
Thanks,
sunkitty13 in PA
Click to expand...

Welcome to the site; I am so glad you are here because it does not sound like you have a very good vet at all!

A dose of 2units of Lantus twice a day is no way near not responding to insulin! What a ridiculous statement! I guess this 'vet' is unaware of insulin resistance conditions that DO exist, but even those cats respond to insulin eventually... it's all about reaching the dose that works for YOUR cat..... if 2units is not enough, well maybe 2.5 will be good or even 3units.
And to say that she is on her last legs ... then to just throw an antibiotic in the cat just in case she has an infection? How irresponsible! Hopefully some people on this site and in your city will be able to give you references to a decent vet.

OK, home testing will tell you EXACTLY how your girl is doing on the dose you are giving. Being in the US, you can just pick up a Relion meter at the pharmacy or Walmart, and begin testing your girl's BG. The people on this site will get you set up and help you with testing her blood sugar at home, then get you set up to record all the test numbers in a spreadsheet so you can track how she is doing.

Food's important, and it's best to be feeding low carb wet foods like fancy feast or friskies pates, but you can refer to Binky's list for a wide choice of good foods for her. I would not worry about the amount you are feeding now because she can't extract what she needs from the food, so she needs to eat more to get what she needs. My cats were eating close to 30oz and 24oz before regulated, but then got way down to around 6oz and 10oz.

The insulin you are using is a good one: Lantus. Now, once you are on a good food, and are testing her before each shot of insulin, you will be on the road to getting your girl in a much healthier state.

You are in a good place now with many people who were where you are right now, and they will help you to get to where they are now, with a much healthier and regulated diabetic kitty.
 
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