Just diagnosed diabetic cat

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dholowiski

dholowiski

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Hi everyone. My cat was just diagnosed with diabetes (today) and I'm going in tomorrow morning to learn how to give her insulin injections. She's about 6 years old and was quite overweight - we put her on a diet and she lost lots of weight - too much and the last two weeks she's been showing classic symptoms. The vet did a blood test today and confirmed it.
So I'm reading everything I can, on this site and others, and in the forums. I'm sure I'll have many questions in the next couple of days. Any tips or suggestions would be appreciated.

Dave
and my cat Tiger Lily.
 
Welcome Dave & Tiger Lily to the FDMB Family.

You have now found the best place on the web that you never wanted to be. But also the best place to help you help Tiger Lily.

Couple of things folks will be asking so I'll get them out of the way early. Do you know yet what insulin Tiger Lily will be on? And what your starting dose will be? The motto here is start low and go slow.

Also what are you feeding her? We recommend, a low carb/high protein wet diet for not just diabetics but all kitties in general. So if you have more that Miss Tiger Lily you can give this diet to everyone.

Also the absolutely best thing you can do to help your little girl is learn to test her blood at home, and we can help you learn, we have taught hundreds of folks to do it over the web. It may seem pretty scary and overwhelming at first but please trust me it is absolutely the best thing you can do to keep her safe while she is on insulin. Think of it this way, you never see a human diabetic inject insulin without testing their blood first, so why do it to a kitty? It is actually very very easy once you get the hang of it. We use a basic human glucometer and strips that you can pick up at any drugstore. I personally use the Relion mini that I got from Wal-mart for my sugarcat, it is fairly cheap and so are the strips, plus most Wal-marts are open 24hrs so I can always run out to get supplies if I need them at midnight. When we test we take a very small sample of blood from the kitties ear. This doesn't hurt them at all, in fact my boy will purr through the whole process, some even sleep through it.

The other advantage of testing at home is two-fold, 1) you will get truer numbers than the vet because all kitties for the most part are under stress at the vet's and stress raises BG. Plus you will be saving $$$ doing your own curves. and 2) You will be able to see if her bg numbers are safe to give insulin, since the one thing you don't want to do is give insulin if her numbers are too low, as this can cause Hypo.

Home-testing very likely saved my boy Max's life. Since I adopted him from this board just a little over a month ago as a diabetic. If I hadn't been home testing I would not have known that a simple change in diet had sent him into remission. Because he went OTJ (off the juice/off insulin) in just a few days of being at home with me. Had I just gone ahead and shot his insulin that he had been started on I could have seriously hurt or killed him, because he was so new to me that I would not have caught little personality changes, or have blown them off figuring he was just unsure about his new home. So I can not stress hard enough how important testing is.

Only other thing I can think of right off hand is don't let the vet talk you into some of their pricey prescription foods, they are usually way over priced and there are cheaper and with better ingredients on the commercial market. I feed my guy either 9-lives or Friskies pate flavors.

I'm sure others will be along shortly with a ton of advice and links for you to read and study.

Welcome again!

Mel & Max
 
Hi Dave,

Welcome to FDMB. Not much I can add to what Mel already said. Just wanted to welcome you and look forward to learning more about you and Tiger Lily.
 
WELCOME Dave to the best site on the planet for you and your little Tiger Lilly. Much to read and digest but you CAN do this! There is a wealth of experience and information here at your fingertips.

Again Welcome,
jeanne
 
Thanks. It is definitely overwhelming and scary, but I could tell pretty quickly that this site was the best place to come talk about it.
I don't know what kind or dose of insulin yet, I'll know tomorrow morning and I'll be sure to post it here.

I'll pick up a glucometer today - any things to look for or is it pretty much what works for humans works for cats? I'm reading through all the info i can find but I'm in information overload right now.

Also I talked to a 'natuaral health pet food' store today and they recommended changing her over to raw food - they suggested Innova Venison in a can to start (http://www.naturapet.com/brands/innova.asp) so I'm going to check what they have today or tomorrow (I live in a small town, the are 45 mins from here). Any suggestions on food would be appreciated though.

Until now she's been eating Iams weight control (after coming off of the prescription diet food), which I now understand is a big part of the problem. Thankfully she's not a picky eater (that's how she got so overweight) so I don't think it will be hard to change her over.

Thanks in advance for everyone's help. Talk to you soon.
 
Welcome!

Wanted to give you some info on why we like wet lo carb: www.catinfo.org And to tell you not to change her diet until you are hometesting. Wet lo carb food can drop the blood glucose levels drastically and if you aren't on top of the numbers, you run the risk of overdosing.

Here is some info on hometesting: http://www.sugarcats.net/sites/harry/bgtest.htm and a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zE12-4fVn8

Understand feline diabetes is a steep learning curve, but we will be happy to help!
 
Questions for you...

why did she lose so much weight? What did you switch her food to and did she eat it? Does she have any other complications? Was she tested for ketones?

Jen
 
Here's what you need for homestesting:

A human glucometer. Any one that sips and takes a tiny sample is fine. The meters are often free at drug stores; it’s the strips that are expensive. You can, however, buy them on ebay at less than half the price of stores. Lots of people here also like the ReliOn from Walmart. It is an inexpensive meter and its strips are the cheapest around.

Lancets and a lancet device. Usually, until the ears “learn” to bleed, a 25-26 gauge is good. Any type will work.

Ketone strips. (Ketostix) Just like human diabetics use. You will sometimes need to test urine if the numbers are high.

Rice sack. Make this out of thinnish sock, filled with raw rice or oatmeal and then knotted. You heat this in the microwave until very warm but not hot. Then heat the ears before poking.

Also nice to have. Flashlight: so you can look at the ears and find the little capillaries that come off the vein running down the ear. Vaseline: Put a tiny smear where you want to poke. It will help the blood bead up.

Raw food is great. That site I gave you has specific recipes for raw: http://www.catinfo.org
 
Sue

DId you mean ketostix or ketodiastix?

Ketostix are used to measure ketones in the urine, often used by people on the Atkins diet. Ketodiastix measure both ketones and urine glucose levels. Ketones in a cat are very dangerous as they mean that the cat is burning fat, and this can quickly turn into diabetic ketoacidosis. Ketones can be caused by insufficient food, insufficient insulin and or infection, and are a common concern in a newly diagnosed or poorly diagnosed cat, as they are by definition not treated or just starting treatment, have glucose toxicity and may not be eating. Infection can also go hand in hand.
 
Thanks again for all the replies and great information. I just picked up the blood test report, her blood glucose was 27.9 mmol/liter. I'm not sure how to interpret the report so I don't know if they tested for keytones. We're seeing the vet tomorrow morning to get the insulin and lessons injecting it. I assume with it being so high we should have her tested for ketones?
I picked up a FreeStyle Freedom Lite glocosometer today, but didn't realize until I got home that it didn't come with test strips. I didn't see the strips sitting out with the meters - do you usually have to ask the pharmacist for them? It'll have to wait until tomorrow anyway since the roads are way too icy now (winter in canada).

To answer the food question - about a year ago we went to the vet for breathing problems... she was way overweight so we put her on prescription diet cat food (http://www.hillspet.com/products/pd-fel ... n-dry.html). After a couple months of holding steady she started losing weight. A few months ago, the vet told me she was about the right weight, so I switched to a low calorie cat food (Iams weight control), and started feeding her treats again. She kept losing weight (we were going in for 6 week checkups) and then got bad in the last couple weeks.

In retrospect it was my fault for feeding her bad food for so long (corn or rice is the main ingredient in both foods). So I'm hoping that switching to good food will help too.
 
It will. We all did the same thing. We fed Oliver Science Diet Light for years because he was overweight. Once we switched to wet, his blood glucose levels came down 100 points overnight.

We have lots of Canadians here. But we do use US numbers in the board, so multiply your metric number by 18.

The strips are the expensive part. They will not be prescription. In the US, they are in the back because they are expensive and they don't want you to shop lift them. You can buy some to get you through a few days and then buy them on ebay. There are less than half the price of strips in the US stores; I do think yours are less in Canada.
 
You may be able to get a better deal on the metre. I got my One Touch Ultra 2 free at Shoppers Drup Mart when I bought 100 strips for $85. I know that others have also got metres for free at London Drugs. Hopefully you can get a refund for the metre when you buy the strips, or check out another pharmacy to see if they'll offer you a deal on a metre. Then you can look for strips later on ebay or other recycling groups that are in your area.
 
I would ask that you talk with your vet about the blood work that they did, and if there is anything else there besides the diabetes that might have caused the weight loss. Because weight loss formulas often don't lead to weightloss...sometimes they do, but often not. They are terribly poor quality diets, and more than likely helped cause your cat's diabetes....that's my opinion only but the high carb levels and low quality protein are often hand in hand with diagnosis of diabetes.
 
An update...
She's had 3 injections so far, and TigerLily is doing much better.
The insulin she is on is "CANINSULIN" from Intervet, and the vet thought we should start with two 'units' (sorry for my ignorance, not sure what measurement that is - it's just a tiny amount).
After several failed attempts, I finally managed to check her blood glucose. Last night at 9:40PM it was 149, which I understand is in the target range for a diabetic cat? Poking her ear was tough... it obviously hurt hr so I'm not sure if I'm doing it right, I'll have to keep trying.

The only thing I am not sure of is, when should I be testing her glucose level... before or after eating, middle of the day, other or all of the above?

I do have some exercise questions, but I think I'll post them in a separate thread.
 
Hi there

Caninsulin has been an issue lately due to batch inconsistency and many people stopped using it. It may not be cause for alarm but your vet should have been aware of this. Further, it really isn't the best insulin for cats...at all...Where are you located?

Testing blood glucose levels...you want to know a few things, including what levels your cat is at prior to insulin, when the insulin kicks in and how quickly, how low do those levels and at what time point, when does the insulin where off, etc. The most important at start is the preshot test to ensure your cat isn't too low because then giving insulin could cause hypoglycemia. So we suggest no insulin if at 200 or less when first starting. You also really need to know how low levels go inbetween shots. So preshot tests and spot checks when you can.

Jen
 
Caninsulin? :? a.k.a. Vetsulin. I would ask for a different insulin like Lantus or Levemir, which work very differently than Caninsulin and in general produce more stable blood glucose levels.
Ideally you need to test before each insulin injection and a point or two in between. Glucose curves (test every 2-3 hrs) need not be done all the time, but it is good data to have so you know how your cat is responding to the insulin. Some people here test a LOT, but we realize not everyone can do that.

MJ&Donovan
 
Thanks - I'm in a small town in Canada. Just found the 'alert' about vetsulin... yikes, but that must have been resolved by now?
Now I'm reading up on the different insulin types, starting here (http://www.felinediabetes.com/pet-insulin.htm). My vet started me off with 2 2.5ml bottles, and we go back in Monday Morning to have her blood tested again. I hope my vet will react well to me asking for a different type... i live in a small town with 2 vets, and the nearest city is 30 mins drive away, so there's not exactly tons of choices (which is why I'm so happy I found this forum!)

Also, I see now why I was told to buy test strips off of ebay... $70 for 100 at the local wal-mart :( I'll have to find out if test strips can be shipped across the US/Canada border, since I only found 2 people selling the strips in Canada.
 
If you can do blood glucose testing at home (and sounds like you were successful - congrats!) you can do your own curves at home. Not only does this save money, but it makes for more accurate numbers. Stress raises bg levels and if your kitty is stressed by the strange noises, people and animals, the dose determined by those numbers may be too high once your cat is home.

When was the 149? That is a nice low number for a beginning diabetic if it was in the middle of the cycle. If it is near the shot time, our cut off point for new diabetes is 200. We say not to shoot insulin if the number is under 200.

Were you prescribed 2 units twice a day? If so, that is a large dose to start with. We urge newbies to start at one unit twice a day. You can always increase as the numbers guide you, but if the dose is too big in the beginning, you may be over the ideal dose to start.
 
149 was a 9:40PM, 3 hours after she ate and had her shot (this was my first successful attempt at a test).
She was prescribed 2 units, twice a day to start.

I will try to get another test before I do this evening's injection. Should it be after she eats but before the injection, or before both?

I'm hesitant to change the injection from what the vet prescribes but I'll try to test way more often and keep an eye out for 200 near shot time, and I will keep a serious eye out for overdosing. I guess if the #'s are consistently low I'll have to say forget the vet's advice and decrease the amount.

Grr it's frustrating that I'm getting better advice here than from my vet. This is my first serious foray into the medical field, animal or otherwise... I'm guessing this isn't an uncommon feeling. Thanks again for everyone's help.
 
You test, feed and shoot. With Vetsulin, it is important that there be food in her tummy before she gets the shot, as it hits pretty fast. So I would test, make sure she is eating and give the shot. If your number is under 200, don't shoot. Take another test in 30 minutes to see if she has come up enough to give the insulin.

Your best bet is to test alot. The numbers will let you know exactly what the insulin is doing - whether she is going down low a few hours after the shot, whether she jumps back up to a higher number at preshot time. The spreadsheet used here is a great tool. It is color coded so it really paints the picture for you: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=18207
 
Hi just want to say welcome to the best place for DX cats . Read listen and read a lot of good advice here. These Angels will have your little one back on track in no time. Sending Angels to help her have a speedy recovery and early remission...Kath
 
Hey there!
welcome!
and trust me i know your frustations about getting better information here than the vets...But I am NOW on my third vet, and what i have learnt here, even my vet says is more than most vets will know about FD...and he is impressed with the information I have learnt here and brought to him.
Good luck with everything and know that you have found a fantastic and helpful forum.
I too was originally asked to give canninsulin, and refused to do so..having spoken to canninsulin themselves who cannot assure any change and thus the reason the alert is still on their website and the vetsulin website...
I am on lantus, no prescription needed OTC here in Canada.
What province you located in?
It is VERY overwhelming at first, I am only three weeks into this FD myself, and it is still overwhelming! lol
;-)
 
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