Introducing Megan Booth

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Anne M.

Anne M.

Member Since 2015
Hello,
My beloved 12-yr old Megan Booth was diagnosed with diabetes in August. She receives Lantus 2x per day and at present we are up to 7 units each dose. She has been eating the appropriate Fancy Feast flavors, and I recently started her on Purina DM wet food. We do glucose curves at home and so far, she is not showing any improvement from the insulin. Our vet is concerned she may be insulin resistant, and will be calling me tomorrow to discuss our next step.

Megan dealt with breast cancer last December (2014), and had a double mastectomy. Concern for a recurrence of cancer was the only thing on my radar. The diabetes really blindsided me!

As we go through this journey I am hopeful this group can be a good resource for us.
 
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 started at too high of a dose, or, as your vet suggested, you may have a high dose cat.
 
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Welcome Anne & Megan Booth!! I also have a high dose kitty and was blind sided by the diabetes in May.

I highly recommend that you set up a spreadsheet (http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/fdmb-spreadsheet-instructions.130337/). It will help the people here interpret her response to insulin and give good input.

The people here are very knowledgeable and supportive of the humans that are making daily decisions regarding their furkids health!

Many of the people on the Lantus & Levemir forum post new threads (condos- don't ask me why they are called that :)) daily. The thread title starts with the day, the cat and the AMPS (morning pre-shot), any daytime tests, and followed by the PMPS and any additional tests. It is a very friendly group and a great source of information and friendship

Anne
 
Hi Anne! BJM posted in the Lantus/Levemir group asking for experienced people to take a look at your situation. My punkin was a high dose cat - he had a condition called acromegaly. That occurs in about 1 in 4 diabetic cats and causes a need for greater than usual doses of insulin.

Too large of doses, or dose increases that are too large of increments or too often can also cause high blood sugar.

It would help us help you if you can get a spreadsheet going - putting in whatever test information and dose increase information that you have or can gather. The context of doses and blood sugar tests matter in trying to tease out what's going on in a kitty. Directions for making a spreadsheet are here.

We're glad to have you & Megan here and can help you figure out how to move forward. She must be a little trooper to have survived breast cancer. You must be awesome too. :bighug:
 
Understanding the spreadsheet/grid:

The colored headings at the top are the ranges of glucose values. They are color-coded to clue you in as to meaning.

Each day is 1 row. Each column stores different data for the day.

From left to right, you enter
the Date in the first column
the AMPS (morning, pre-shot, test) in the 2nd column
the Units given (turquoise column)

Then, there are 11 columns labeled +1 through +11
If you test at +5 (5 hours after the shot), you enter the test number in the +5 column
If you test at +7 (7 hours after the shot), you enter the test number in the +7 column
and so on.

Halfway across the page is the column for PMPS (evening, pre-shot, test)
To the right is another turquoise column for Units given at the evening shot.

There is second set of columns labeled +1 through +11
If you snag a before bed test at +3, you enter the test number in the +3 column.

We separate day and night numbers like that because many cats go lower at night.

The nadir is the lowest glucose between shots. There is a general period when it will happen which is specific to the insulin being used and testing then helps make sure your cat doesn't go too low.

It is merely a grid for storing the info; no math required.
 
Hi Anne, I also had a high dose kitty. You're in the best place to get info and help managing Megan's diabetes. Ask lots of questions!!!
 
Megan Booth has beautiful green eyes! Everyone else handled the important stuff, so I just wanted to pop in and say "Welcome".

Whether she is insulin resistant or not, it can take a while for everything to fall into place, unfortunately. We adopted Whisper in September, although unlike Megan Booth he was diabetic for about 3 years before we got him, and we are still trying. Just be determined, arm yourself with as much knowledge as you can, and you'll do great. When I first came here, I read as many old posts as I could, looked at WAY more spreadsheets of other kitties than is probably healthy ;-) and just tried to *absorb*. If you look at the stickies in the Lantus/Lev forum, don't be surprised if you have to read them 3-4 times as you start your journey, because you'll get more from them each time after you have first hand experience.

Best,
Sandi.
 
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