Molly & Cisco
Member Since 2021
Hello! My name is Molly and Cisco is my 9-year-old pal whose diagnosis last week was precipitated by a week of walking on his heels. His Fructosamine was 510 umol/L and our vet started him on 1.5u of Lantus every 12 hours. He weighs 14lbs, down from 16lbs last year. Vet thinks he could stand to lose two more pounds.
The vet recommended against immediately starting at-home monitoring however after a suspicious potentially hypo episode on Monday, I made the executive decision to begin testing. Vet told us to pause the insulin until we had some readings and bumped us down to .5u of Lantus every 12 hours. Our spreadsheet is linked in signature.
The food adjustment has been one of the more challenging parts so far. We have started the Tiki Cat Luau wet food. Cisco's brother Roman (from the same litter) is also along with us on this journey, despite not having his own diagnosis. He prefers the Purina DM dry food to the wet and is used to grazing so we're working to get them both on a regular eating schedule.
Cisco began urinating outside the litter box last year and our vet deemed him healthy, so this was considered behavioral. There are a fair number of outdoor cats in our neighborhood and he was marking by the doors and fireplace, so we worked with a behaviorist, relocated/added litter boxes, tried new toys and towers, started him on fluoxetine, etc. Now I am wondering if this was diabetes all along. I also recently read that dandruff and poor coat quality can be symptoms of diabetes. He has both of those too.
We went back to vet today for a Freestyle Libre implantation, done by a vet tech. He's got a shirt on now so fingers crossed that the sensor stays on. I'm excited to see how the readings compare to the glucometer. My biggest focus right now is getting him regulated in the hope that his neuropathy/plantigrade stance will be reversed. It's been so sad watching him hobble around and I've had to clean him off after litter box visits a few times. Poor guy.
Thank you for reading! I am so grateful for this invaluable resource.
The vet recommended against immediately starting at-home monitoring however after a suspicious potentially hypo episode on Monday, I made the executive decision to begin testing. Vet told us to pause the insulin until we had some readings and bumped us down to .5u of Lantus every 12 hours. Our spreadsheet is linked in signature.
The food adjustment has been one of the more challenging parts so far. We have started the Tiki Cat Luau wet food. Cisco's brother Roman (from the same litter) is also along with us on this journey, despite not having his own diagnosis. He prefers the Purina DM dry food to the wet and is used to grazing so we're working to get them both on a regular eating schedule.
Cisco began urinating outside the litter box last year and our vet deemed him healthy, so this was considered behavioral. There are a fair number of outdoor cats in our neighborhood and he was marking by the doors and fireplace, so we worked with a behaviorist, relocated/added litter boxes, tried new toys and towers, started him on fluoxetine, etc. Now I am wondering if this was diabetes all along. I also recently read that dandruff and poor coat quality can be symptoms of diabetes. He has both of those too.
We went back to vet today for a Freestyle Libre implantation, done by a vet tech. He's got a shirt on now so fingers crossed that the sensor stays on. I'm excited to see how the readings compare to the glucometer. My biggest focus right now is getting him regulated in the hope that his neuropathy/plantigrade stance will be reversed. It's been so sad watching him hobble around and I've had to clean him off after litter box visits a few times. Poor guy.
Thank you for reading! I am so grateful for this invaluable resource.
