Hi from Leslie & Mathilda

Status
Not open for further replies.
S

Skeedoosh

Member Since 2016
Hey folks! My name is Leslie and I'm caring for a foster failure named Mathilda (after Natalie Portman's character in Leon: The Professional). I work as an animal care technician at my local shelter and Mathilda came to us as a stray. She started showing symptoms of high bg (excessive thirst and urination, rapid weight loss) after a depo medrol shot, so we tried using d/m food and then an oral med (can't remember the name off the top of my head). Neither fully helped, and we can't do insulin in the shelter setting, so I volunteered to foster/eventually adopt her to get her away from the stress of the shelter and get her on insulin. We brought her home a week ago yesterday and the vet has started her on 3u of Prozinc 2x daily as well as staying on the d/m food. She's been responding very well (frighteningly well!) and is already way more playful and active than she ever was in the shelter. She's the sweetest kitty and she makes caring for her easy, although we're still working on making ear pricks a more agreeable experience for all involved haha. We're taking her back to the vet tomorrow to be re-evaluated since her bg has gone down a lot faster than we expected--if I needed a cure for boredom, having a special needs kitty has certainly solved it! Anyway, we're very new to this but I'm so grateful there's a support network like this out there. :)
 
Hi Leslie and Mathilda...welcome to the forum.:)
That is very good of you to take in Mathilda and care for her....she is a lucky girl.
With the food.....do you mean the Hills M/D? Are you giving wet or dry food?
Dry food is typically much higher in carbs than wet food and we recommend that you use only wet food if at all possible. You have a much greater chance of remission with wet food. It is also higher in moisture which is important to kitties.
Here is a list of wet canned food, we recommend food 10% carbs or less. It is not necessary to use the prescription foods for diabetic cats. They are more expensive and no better.
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/links-to-various-food-charts.169055/
And here is a link to help you with testing the blood sugars.
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/hometesting-links-and-tips.287/

3 units of insulin is a lot to start off with. How much does Mathilda weigh?
Do you have some higher carb food...usually with gravy...or some honey in case the blood sugar drops too low?
Here is a link to how to recognise and deal with a hypo.
Normally we recommend when starting off you do not give the insulin if the blood sugar is 200 or below....until you can see how kitty is going to react to the insulin. As you get more experienced you can lower the number to shoot.
We recommend you test the blood sugar before giving the insulin every time and test 4 - 6 hours after the insulin to see how low the blood sugar goes.
Good luck and we hope to see you again. There is a specific prozinc forum you may like to post in. Here is the link
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/forums/prozinc-pzi.24/
 
Welcome! We can certainly help. I agree that 3 units is a very high dose to start off with. If you post questions on the main health forum more people will see them and if you want insulin-specific advice, go to the ProZinc forum where we fellow users can help. As Bron and Sheba mentioned above, low carb wet food (prescription DM wet is one but very expensive) is best. We use a spreadsheet here to log all blood glucose data so other members can see how Mathilda is doing. If you want help setting it up we can do that too.
 
Welcome, Leslie and Mathilda.

Here's the link to the hypo guide:

How to treat hypos (print this out, read it through. and keep it somewhere you can lay hands on it quickly should an emergency ever crop up)

Hypo toolkit

Word of warning: if your kitty is on high carb food and receiving insulin DO NOT change to a low carb diet until you are sure you can closely monitor BG levels throughout the transition. The diet change can quickly and dramatically lower BG levels and a previously OK dose of insulin may very quickly become too high and put kitty at risk of a hypo because the carb load has been reduced.

It sounds like Mathilda is doing really, really well; it's wonderful to see all the positive steps like playfulness coming back as she travels the path to recovery. I'm so glad Mathilda has such a kind and loving bean to care for her. :bighug:


Mogs
.
 
Last edited:
Hi Leslie - I am in agreement with the others that 3 units of Prozinc sounds high. One of my diabetic foster cats had steroid induced diabetes from a depo shot. She didn't need to be on insulin very long before she went into remission. You really need to monitor Mathilda's blood sugar. As the steroid shot wears off it's very likely that her blood sugar will start dropping. Please read @Critter Mom's post carefully. You definitely need to know how to treat a hypo if it happens.

The good news is that steroid induced diabetes has a high likelihood of going into remission. She may only need the support of insulin for a short while in order to get her there. Kudos to you for taking her in!
 
Thank you for all the wonderful advice everyone! I've been lurking since well before Mathilda came home so thankfully most of this is already pretty familiar.

Her dry food is the Purina dm kibble and we also have some Friskies Classic Pate wet food. Right now I'm mostly just being compliant with what the vet has given us until she's officially adopted since I work for the shelter, but I agree that wet food is better and have always been fiercely skeptical of the prescription kibble industry (also just kibble in general; I can be a little obnoxious about nutrition haha).

Right now Mathilda weighs 12 lb (she was 15 lb when she came in as a stray a few months ago) and I've definitely been concerned about the 3u dosage so I talked to the vet about bringing her in to be re-evaluated. I think the main reason he started her higher was based on how resistant she was in the shelter, which is inevitably very different from a home environment. That's just my guess, though; I'll ask him for the specific reason when I see him.

I always test her before giving her insulin. She's still a little grumpy being pricked but it's been a lot smoother the past few days thanks to several tips from here! While I've been delighted to see her already feeling so much better, it's been way faster than we were expecting, so I already have the hypo sticky printed out in a binder that I keep by the fridge. Luckily we haven't needed it so far, but I also have honey and karo just in case.

Mostly I think the biggest adjustment has been how she fared in the shelter vs. at home where she's more comfortable. We were all hoping that she'd be able to go into remission in the shelter since it was a response to the depo rather than genetic, but with the inevitable stress of being there, I wasn't surprised that it didn't work. Needless to say, I think we're looking at a very different situation now, so I'm really happy to have her in a more suitable, stress-free environment!

I'm gonna try to get the spreadsheet set up tonight if that's possible from my phone. Again, thank you for all the helpful responses! :)
 
My foster who had steroid induced diabetes spent several weeks living in a cage at a vet practice. It didn't take her long to go into remission once she was in a home environment. I hope Mathilda has a similar story.

It's important to get some tests midcycle. If they are dropping too low in the middle it can cause them to have really high numbers when you test right before their dose time. I adjust my insulin doses on the the preshot numbers AND the mid-cycle readings.

You're on the right track. Come join the Prozinc forum when you're ready.
 
Aww I'm so glad for your foster! I agree, hopefully it's the same for Mathilda.

So far I haven't been able to get midcycle readings except for this past weekend (which for me is Tues/Weds so not exactly weekend haha) but thank you for the tip! I'm planning to do a proper curve next weekend, too.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top