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moochiec

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Hello there, My name is Stacey and our cats name is Moochie. cat(2)_steam He is a short haired tuxedo cat that has just turned 10. Very active and rambunctious! You would never know he is 10 or has diabetes! He of course was diagnosed June of last year (2012). He has been on Prozinc insulin for a year now. With Purina One DM. However, this past June, almost a year to the date, he had a seizure. We weren't home unfortunately, but we rushed him to the Animal Hospital where he was last year when he was diagnosed. His sugar this time around was only 22 :cry: So they pumped him with Dextrose and got him back to normal. However, it has been a battle now trying to get him regulated with his insulin. We bought a meter to test him at home. Which he hates. He also is terrified of his carrier, he knows he's going to the Dr. when we trick him!. On the Brightside, my husband and I love him very much, he is our only child right now. We have had him for almost 9 years. It has been very hard adjusting but we have. Now we are trying to check his sugar here at home, which is NOT FUN.

Any thoughts, tips, and help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Hi Stacey and Moochie!

I'm so sorry to hear about the hypo episode. Is he fully recovered now or does he still have some residual issues? How much was his ProZinc dose before this happened and what is he at now?

Here's a great page on ear testing tips that might help. What exactly seems to be the problem during testing?

One last question (for now :lol: ): is that the dry Purina DM or the wet?
 
Sorry it took me so long to reply.. I just now figured out how to use this site! Moochie has not had any other issues, thank goodness, knock on wood! :-D We have had 2 "Up all night" episodes though. He gets his insulin with dinner around 7 p.m. and we tested it around 10:30 it was 55! :cry: But we noticed he was acting strange.. He was almost crying for food. It was weird. We of course did test him the next morning a few times before his breakfast. He is on his Prozinc bid. My husband read I believe on this site that honey can help with the low bs. So the next episode was about 2 weeks ago and his sugar was 68. So we put honey in his food and he was ok! :-D

Wendy to answer your questions about his sugars, they have been running erratically for awhile now. He will run in the 200s in the am, then spike at night. Or be in the 400s in the am and then read a normal sugar around 150 at night. We can not find a happy medium. I get so discouraged. When he had his hypo episode in June he was on 3 units bid. So we have been trying 2 and 1. Then we just have been having to test him twice a day so he doesn't go hypo or hyper.
 
Oh sorry I didn't answer about the Purina DM. Its the dry. So we read about this Blue wilderness dry food. It is a high protein diet that is ok for diabetics. He loves it!
 
Hmm.... so a few things..

First. what dose is he on of the Prozinc - is it still 1 unit ? And what meter are you using? If its an alphatrak you should reduce dose every time he goes under 80 as he is going too low. and after one of those low incidents you will see a day or longer of unusually high numbers - a direct response to the low blood sugar. So whenever you see a high number you need to ask if there is any time he could have gone too low before that.

Also for dry food - most dry food is too high carb for diabetic cats.. even the DM and Blue buffalo so we recommend low carb canned wet food instead. MAny cats will go into remission with this food. Ideal is under 10% calories for carbs like friskies pates, fancy feast classic pates or wellness grain free canned.. the Dm dry is over 13%.

Let me know on current dose and meter.

Wendy
 
Thanks Wendy.. It is the Alpha. He has been running in the 200s with 2 units twice a day. If we go to 3, he drops to around 80. For about a week, we noticed he was running lower at night and higher in the morning. So we were doing 2.5 units am and 1 unit pm. But that stopped working. We did switch to the fancy feast and blue pates. He loves them. He gets blue dry as a treat or snack Only about 15 pieces. We researched on which dry had the least amount of carbs, and it was the Blue Wilderness. It is made all natural and has no bi product. Thankfully we haven't had any hypo episodes in a few weeks.
 
If you must feed dry food, Young Again 0 Carb, at 5% calories from carbohydrates is probably the lowest carb dry kibble.

You could use freeze dried chicken as a treat, rather than kibble for less cost. The kibble you're using is probably not helping.
 
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