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Casey9195

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This is all very new. Took Lily in two weeks ago due to weight loss and found out she is diabetic. Spent 3 days at emergency vet. They put her on 1 ?? Insulin. Eating 2x per day can food.

Today after glucose curve vet changed insulin to 2 ?? Units?? And wants her to eat dry food during day to gain weight.

I question doubling insulin.
I question the dry food. It's DM. But she isn't hungry enough to finish the canned food now.

But I'm so new at this.

Will read more and hope to learn something. Casey.
 
What insulin did they start her on that will help us a lot when it comes to helping ou help her.

You are absolutely right to question both the dry food and the doubling on the insulin, depending on which insulin it is we don't normally increase by more than 0.25u (units, insulin is measured in units)

All dry food is too high in carbs for a diabetic cat and isn't great for cats in general since they are obligated carnivores.

One of the best things you can do to help her is let us teach you ho to test her at home using a regular human glucose meter because most cats are highly stressed at the vet's and stress raises bloodsugar levels. So if they base her dose off what they see at the clinic where she is stressed out, then it is often too high of a dose when kitty gets home and relaxes.

Mel, Maxwell, Musette & The Fur Gang
 
Casey, your Lily and my Pumbaa were diagnosed right about the same time. Pumbaa stopped losing weight when I took away his dry food and started feeding him low-carb canned cat food and raw exclusively.

Do learn how to do the home blood glucose testing. My Pumbaa is a total wiggle butt, but I put some canned sardines (packed in water, no salt) in front of him on the table and he now sits on my lap and chows down while I do the testing. This same cat was so agitated at the vet two weeks ago that he bit me, which required medical attention and a bite report to be filed with animal control, etc. :) In other words, if I can do this, so can you!

You are very smart to question the vet!
 
Casey9195 said:
This is all very new. Took Lily in two weeks ago due to weight loss and found out she is diabetic. Spent 3 days at emergency vet. They put her on 1 ?? Insulin. Eating 2x per day can food.

Today after glucose curve vet changed insulin to 2 ?? Units?? And wants her to eat dry food during day to gain weight.

I question doubling insulin.
I question the dry food. It's DM. But she isn't hungry enough to finish the canned food now.
Click to expand...

Casey

Good for you for asking questions! Many vets have so much to keep up on, they are NOT up to date on Feline Diabetes management.

If you learn to hometest, using a standard human glucometer (pet specific are PRICEY!!! human glucometers work just fine), you don't need to go to the vet to get a curve, you can do it at home, where vet stress won't affect the numbers, so the readings will be more valid.

Absolutely right - don't increase 1 unit at a time! That can be a fast track to overdose, which can be fatal. Generally, we suggest dose increases go 0.25 to 0.5 units at a time, preferably when you can monitor for the next 12 hours.

Also, for nice stable coverage throughout the day, we give half of the days allotment every 12 hours (ex 0.5 units am & pm), unless the cat turns out to have very special needs or the human's schedule just can't do it.

You're right - dry food tends to have way too much carbohydrate for a diabetic cat. UNTIL YOU ARE TESTING, KEEP THE FOOD THE SAME FOR NOW. IF you are testing, you can make food changes safely. The lowest carb dry foods are Wellness Core and Evo Cat and Kitten ... but we recommend low carb canned foods, not dry, due to the stress on the kidneys; Cat Info explains more.

Not being hungry is a warning sign - either there is already enough insulin on board (and the extra food isn't needed), maybe not given spread out in 2 doses, OR something else is brewing, such as ketoacidosis or pancreatitis.
 
OK, if it is Humulin, you really don't want to double the dose all at once. If possible, you want an insulin more suited to cats. Humulin works too fast and too harshly on kitties. Better choices would be Lantus, Levemire or Prozinc. See if your vet will give you a scrip for any of those.
You don't want to feed dry either. It won't help her gain weight any better than canned will, and dry food is just bad for any cat, and a no-no for diabetics because it tends to be higher in carbs. If you are feeding low carb food, and you don't feed dry food, you definitely don't want to up the dose that much at one time either.
Feeding only low carb canned food will lower her BG, and that will be too much insulin.
You are right..... a LOT of info to take in all at once. Don't try. Just one thing at a time, and one day at a time.
You're in the best place you could possibly find to deal with this...
Carl
 
If you are already giving insulin, learn to test first, before you change the food.

If you were not giving insulin yet, then changing the food over to low carb canned food would be safe to do.

Why? Because the food change could drop the glucose as much as 100 (US) and an insulin dose that worked previously could send your cat into a hypo. Those can be fatal.
 
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