Introductions, Coco just diagnosed

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MaryT & Cocoa

MaryT & Cocoa

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One of my 2 kitties was just diagnosed as diabetic and I thought I would introduce us as I read the overwhelming wealth of knowlege on this forum.

Coco is 10 yrs old, weighs in at 12 lbs. and has been free fed Iames dry food her whole life. A couple months ago I noticed that she was drinking more water than usual, but I will admit I didn't give it alot of thought as my husband had recently been diagnosed with cancer and I was overwhelmed by that and she didn't show any other signs of not feeling well. My teenaged son did some research and convinced me to switch to canned food even though both cats hate it. That seemed to take care of the thirst but a couple days ago she started walking funny so I took her in to the vet right away.
She did a complete work up and and everything looked good except the fructose test (525 but she was extremely stressed by the vet visit and we hadn't completely weaned from the dry food) and the neuropothy. Vet put her on 1 unit twice a day of Lantus and told me to come back in 2 weeks for another fructose test. Having been an insulin dependant diabetic through 2 pregnancies, not testing for 2 weeks didn't make any sense to me so I went out and bought a meter and have been trying to home test but I can't get the poor girl to bleed. She doesn't seem to notice the insulin but doesn't want anyone near her ears anymore so I guess I will have to start trying to poke her paw instead but am determined to get this figured out.

Thank you so much for putting together this website, with my husband being so ill at the same time I was completely overwhelmed by this added stress and didn't know where to turn. This site gives me hope that we can get through this.
 
Hello and warmly welcome


I can't help you with the ear testing - I paw test - but the majority here ear test and use warm rice socks and neospirin and other tricks. They will give you good advice on the ear test.

If that still fails, paw testing is a last alternative - I paw test because Simba has one injured ear and we can't use the ears then. Paw testing is a little harsher, I think, than ear testing. Simba thinks the ordinary diabetes lancet hurts very much in his back paw, so I use a much worse and sharper canula instead. Also when paw testing it is very important not to stick right in the middle of the paw because there goes some major nerves and gives damages to those nerves. Here is pictures of Simba's left back paw testing, and where I've done the mistake to stick right in the sensitive middle of the paw http://www.kattdiabetes.se/70116292 and you can see the vein canula I am using. Those are very sharp and can do a lot of damage if sticking too hard or ending up wrong. My advice is to try and get the ear testing to work first.


The ear testers will guide you in ear testing so it works for you.
 
Thank you so much for the advice, I was thinkng that the foot pad might be less sensitive and somehow easier. I just feel so bad that I just keep poking and poking and not a single drop of blood. Normally if my son is sitting down she is in his lap getting her ears rubbed but this morning when his hand got near her face she scratched him which she has never done before so I know I am hurting her. And it really bothers me to give her insulin without testing first.
 
Hello & Welcome to FDMB.

Try warming a rice sock like Ann suggested. It worked wonders for me. I use it every time. There are some really good YouTube videos to watch to also help you.
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=_zE12-4fVn8

A couple of other things that might also help. Give lots of love before & after testing.
Make sure to not forget the treats (low carb of coarse).

Baxter is not a lap cat. Baxter always gets a treat for getting on his bed when it's test time...well if he isn't on it already. I love on him while I have the sock on his ear. Then I do the test. I always use a very cold or frozen cotton ball & apply pressure to prevent bruising. Then he gets lots more love & a chicken treat.

I hope this helps & you are able to home test successfully. You are right you don't want to give insulin without testing first.
Try really hard to get CoCo off of dry food as soon as possible. Visit this site to help www.catinfo.org.

Good Luck!
Best Wishes to CoCo & your husband.
Jenn & Baxter
cat_pet_icon
 
I hope the other paw testers come out of the closet too, and give your their advice and how they are paw testing. I know we are a minority and quiet silent about that we paw test.


It was the nurses at the hospital that got Simba started on the paw testing, and he was there for a week at diagnosis, so he was already accustomed to that when he came home. Then I've cut their claws since they were little, sitting down on the floor in tailor style and put them in my lap, so I put Simba like that in my lap since he was accustomed to that, and naturally got the left back paw to stick in. I did many mistakes in the beginning when the vets wanted me, they wanted us to home test, in 2007. He doesn't like it when I've tried sticking in his right back paw, then he almost smacked me in my face because it hurt, so we only use the left back paw. I don't heat up his paw more than holding my hand around the pad and massaging it a little.

My other cat, Gustav, I can't paw test. He screams like if he is about dying and think it hurts like h*, and act afterwards as if he needs a wheel chair because he has become lame. I tried to trick him once, by putting frozen stuff on the pad for a short while, so he would become less sensitive, and it worked better, but only for a second, and I have to put the plastic collar around him and burrito him, if trying to paw test him. He is very silly.


If no one else of either paw or ear testers reply here, try and start a new thread with a title as ADVICE FOR EAR TESTING and ADVICE FOR PAW TESTING.
 
HI Mary, I'm a newbie here too but maybe can help a little with ear testing. I wet a wash cloth, microwave for 20 seconds, then fold the cloth around Sitka's ear - which warms it up nicely. I have a very small flashlight and when ear is warm I shine the flashlight to see how the veins look. I then take a small index card, flatten Sitka's ear against it and shine the flashlight - poke. Its not always a first strike every time but I'm not poking around blindly either. Jan
 
Jenn, thanks for the kind thoughts, I have watched and re-watched several of those videos. I hope someday it will be as easy for me as they make it look! When I first read how bad the dry stuff was I switched from Iames to Wilderness so that while I was weaning them at least it was a better choice. As soon as Coke was diagnosed I cut them off completely from the dry stuff which is one of the reasons I am trying so hard to test her. Of course now her sister is angry that she is not getting any dry food and seems to know it is Cokies fault - she will sit by the full dish of food and stare at it as if she can turn it into dry food by sheer will power. Then when her sister comes near the dish she swats her.

Ann thanks for the laugh, I can just picture the scene your Gustav must make. It's a good thing it was Coke who got sick and not Callie who is a major drama queen and would not handle being turned into a pin cushion nearly as well as her sister has.

Jan, the index card sounds like a good idea, maybe having something solid behind the ear will help. I'll give it a try tonight. I hope your kitty is adjusting well.

Thanks each of you for caring and responding.
 
Hi Mary, Good on your for wanting to test your cat. I had a lot of trouble working out a routine that worked with my cat Akbah, so that he would give me enough time to poke around and get some blood. Also for a long time, I could have sworn he was bloodless. After a week or so, now I'm getting more success (they say that the pricking makes new capillaries and so it gets easier to get blood). Here is a useful diagram which another lady posted:

Have you seen the 'where to poke the ear' diagram? http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9 ... i8t-LEMBDj
Click to expand...
At first, for Akbah the 'sweet spot' was in the area below where they have marked it.

Now we have a routine in which
-i hold the warm sock to his ear and stroke him 30 times, I used to have to 'make him stay' for that but he decided he likes it
-then i prick his ear (after 10,000 pricks, his ears are easy to bleed now, so this has become suddenly easier for the rather grim reason of constant sticking)
-then I hold his ear with the tissue and stroke him 20 times, he likes it more or less but is more interested in the next bit
-then I give him a bit of low carb treat, which he loves more than the world.
-or sometimes instead of a treat i brush his cheeks with the brush. he absolutely loooooves the brush so this works.
BUT it has taken a while for us both to work out this routine. I had to be pretty pushy for quite awhile and it involved a fair bit of dragging grumpy cats out from under beds and being avoided.
 
Thanks for encoragement, I was so hoping to go back to the vet with real data rather than just do another fructose test to get averages.
I am starting to believe she has no blood. Today I decided to go straight for the vein and just deal with the extra blood just to get a reading, but even that just got the faintest trace not nearly enough to test. I even tried practicing on my other cat as she has been so jealous of all the attention Coke has been getting so I thought I'd let her see what it is all about. No blood from her either, the only one bleeding around here has been me when I stuck the lance right through Cokes ear and into my thumb.
On the plus side though she seems to be walking better. Before her back legs kept slipping out from under her like she was walking on ice or something. Now she just kind of sways her hips without the slipping so either the new food or the insulin must be doing something for her.
 
Darn it! I was hoping you would have news that you have become successful.
In he beginning a had a hard time with Baxters ears. I had to keep the sock on his ear for a long time. I have pricked myself through his ear. Then worried all day if I was going to get a strange feline infection.... :roll:

Its good to hear Coco is regaining muscle strength in her legs. She is going to continue to get better & feel better. Baxter use to ice skate on my kitchen floor. It would break my heart seeing him not be able to walk very well. Sometimes he would even fall. Now that always brought tears to my eyes. I would pick him up & just take him where he wanted to go.

Thank you for keeping us updated.
I hope you get those kitty ears to bleed. It's very important to get a reading before adminstering insulin.

Jenn & Baxter cat_pet_icon
 
Please do not be discouraged at not getting blood when you poke. Yea, I know. Easier to say than to feel. When Poopy and I started on this journey, home testing was pretty much a nightmare. Poopy has always been my baby. Pokey poke time had him avoiding me and it nearly broke my heart. In reality, the whole process was just new and frightening. DH and I burritoed Poopy to get him to hold still (and even that took some practice!). I felt horrid. And it didn't help that my vet was accusing me of being cruel to Poopy. (He's not our vet anymore.)

With the patient and gentle guidance from the wonderful folks here, home testing finally started to produce results. Poopy no longer treats me like "the evil woman who pokes" and perches on my lap and purrs during pokey pokes. The low carb treats afterward are also a huge hit. ;-) I give Poopy something he loves but never, ever gets other than after pokey pokes - raw chicken. (Ewwwww!)

Keep in mind each poke you do, whether successful or not in drawing blood, is a success. Each poke encourages the ear to make more capillaries- which means more blood for the future pokes! Woohoo! So just keep at it, try the different suggestions, and know each poke does count. :-D
 
Finally managed to get blood today. It was kind of weird - after poking a couple of times I could see the blood kind of pooling inside her ear but no blood on the outside. So I poked again right in that spot and got blood. It was about an hour after she had eaten and was 305. I managed to get more blood before her PM dose was due and it was only 95 so I decided to skip the insulin tonight. Thanks again for all the encouragement.
 
Hi, Mary.

Atticus and I have only been hometesting for two weeks but it is already exponentially easier than it was in the beginning. It was taking me 6-7 pokes to get enough blood, and both of us were getting very frustrated. But everyone is right, it does get better! The capillaries around the sweet spot grow out the more times you poke, so you are "training" his ears to learn to bleed. So even the failed pokes are not in vain.
Try using your rice sock or warm water cloth longer before you poke. I was getting impatient, but I find that if I warm his ear for a full 40 seconds- a minute, I can usually get blood on the first try now. Also, I use the rice sock as a "stopper" behind his ear when I poke so I don't stick myself.
Keep working on it- I'm new too, and I didn't think we'd be able to do this so easily when we first started.
 
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