Just diagnosed...we be newbies

Status
Not open for further replies.
thebigfuzz

thebigfuzz

Very Active Member
Hi!

Our bigfuzz named Elie was diagnosed with Diabetes this week which was really stressful for us. Not only did we have a sick cat, the question of...how the heck do you perform the prick test to test BG in a cat? And insulin...what if he jerks away while you give the shot!

He was pretty sick early on this week being extemely lethargic, not eating, shaky, and circling to the left. He's was on antibiotics for a possible ear infection, some multivitamins and some critical care (super high carb/fatty/delicious) food as perscribed by the vet. He said to feed him as much as he wanted of this food. The diabetes was a secondary issue at that point and the vet just wanted some calories in his system. Normally we give him Medical wet food as he had a urinary blockage a few years ago. He's been doing much better through this week healthwise and on Friday we went in to learn about how to manage his diabetes. We also gave him his first insulin shot there...kinda scary and I am worried about making his BG too low. My father is a diabetic and the lows are real medical emergencies and are pretty scary to watch.

So yesterday we started tracking his BG and we were supposed to "start" his regimen this morning at 8am, but his levels were at 5, so I didn't give a shot. He's supposed to take 2 units of Lantus,2 times a day. He is also a 20 lb Maine Coon male. I did my research yesterday and started plotting his BG numbers...and If we were a company...we'd be going out of business soon lol. His numbers keep going down? He had an insulin injection of 2 units at the vet yesterday at 11 am, but not since. I hope we did the right thing by not injecting this morning?

Pretty thankful that I found out about this forum...i've learned so much already!

Elie's Mom Tanya
 
thebigfuzz said:
Hi!

Our bigfuzz named Elie was diagnosed with Diabetes this week which was really stressful for us. Not only did we have a sick cat, the question of...how the heck do you perform the prick test to test BG in a cat? And insulin...what if he jerks away while you give the shot!

He was pretty sick early on this week being extemely lethargic, not eating, shaky, and circling to the left. He's was on antibiotics for a possible ear infection, some multivitamins and some critical care (super high carb/fatty/delicious) food as perscribed by the vet. He said to feed him as much as he wanted of this food. The diabetes was a secondary issue at that point and the vet just wanted some calories in his system. Normally we give him Medical wet food as he had a urinary blockage a few years ago. He's been doing much better through this week healthwise and on Friday we went in to learn about how to manage his diabetes. We also gave him his first insulin shot there...kinda scary and I am worried about making his BG too low. My father is a diabetic and the lows are real medical emergencies and are pretty scary to watch.

So yesterday we started tracking his BG and we were supposed to "start" his regimen this morning at 8am, but his levels were at 5, so I didn't give a shot. He's supposed to take 2 units of Lantus,2 times a day. He is also a 20 lb Maine Coon male. I did my research yesterday and started plotting his BG numbers...and If we were a company...we'd be going out of business soon lol. His numbers keep going down? He had an insulin injection of 2 units at the vet yesterday at 11 am, but not since. I hope we did the right thing by not injecting this morning?

Pretty thankful that I found out about this forum...i've learned so much already!

Elie's Mom Tanya
Click to expand...

Welcome Tanya,
you are in the best spot here, and will have so much help and guidance.

First, you asked about testing, so I thought I'd give you a link to watch.
Testing on cat’s ear

Alrighty, being in Canada, your test numbers will have some people going HUH?
Here's the convertor
BG Conversion Calculator

No way you should start at 2units of Lantus twice a day, and no way you need to give a shot when your test gives you a 5 for his BG.

How did your vet determine that your guy is diabetic? For a cat who has not been on insulin, the vet can do a fructosamine test, and that number will say the average of his BG over the last 2-3 weeks. If you cat is sick and on meds, well just going by the glucose in a blood panel is not the best way.

Now, I would keep testing him, and you can put your test results in a google spreadsheet.... then others can look at your numbers and let you know what's up with your cat.... he may well still need insulin but maybe a much lesser dose. Many cats start around .5u or 1u.... which reminds me to ask what syringes are you using? Be sure that you have syringes U100 with 1/2 unit markings ... you should be able to find them or ask the pharmacist at shoppers or London drugs or any other type of place similar.
Create your Spreadsheet

Your Elie may have had high numbers due to being ill and on meds, so keep testing, maybe every 3 or 4 hrs, and if he stays low, under maybe 6.6, you are doing just fine without insulin, and I think under 5.5 is great.
I attached a chart so you can convert your test numbers when posting here


Since you are worried about hypo, here are some links and also info on the insulin you are using.
List of Hypo symptoms
How to treat HYPOS-They can kill! Print this out!
Jojo’s HYPO TOOLKIT

Tight Regulation Protocol
Lantus & Levemir – Insulin Depot –AKA- Storage Shed
Lantus & Levemir – Data Ready to Shoot Low Numbers

If you do find from your testing that Elie is in need of insulin, I would suggest that you drop down to no more that 1u BID and work your way up because there are many cats who never need more than 1.5u BID.

ETA: Forgot to give some food links ... duh.
Binky’s Food Lists
Feeding Your Cat: Know The Basics of Feline Nutrition
List of Low Carb Healthy Treats

look through Binky's list and find some low carb (under 10%) wet foods for Elie .... many just feed fancy feast, and friskies pates.
 

Attachments

Thanks for that info!

I'll have to check it out!

Our vet did a blood panel when we brought him in on Monday. His glucose was 550 I think, no ketones and something else was a bit low at 14 but I don't recall what that was. We went in for a 'recheck' yesterday and his BG was 19 (342), so she wanted to start the regimen. Luckily, our vet also has a diabetic cat, so she was super good about advice on it. We are using the needles that go by 1/2 units as per her suggestion and we are testing using One touch monitor at home.

I thought it was strange that his BG was Normal this morning, but like you said, maybe he just wasn't feeling good due to another infection or something...I am not sure. He was drinking a ton and peeing lakes...I mean like almost a cup of pee. I didn't feel comfortable giving him the insulin this am due to the normal level. We test again at noon so maybe we'll learn more then.

Thanks again and great to meet you.
 
Hi again...

I tried the converter, so hopefully it makes more sense now...Ok this is what happened yesterday...

9:30 am - 328 - Vet recommended starting insulin
11:00 am - Fed 1/4 can of Medi Cal Reducing and gave 2 units of insulin
12 noon - 335 -
4:00 pm - 277
8:00 pm - 254 - Fed 1/4 can and went for a short walk up and down the hallway
12 midnight - 214

8am - 100 - Fed 1/4 Can of Medi Cal Reducing
10:30 - 146 - Still normal...

Seeing his newest results after eating, makes me think that maybe his pancreas "kicked in" again after being ill? I'm sure glad we didn't give insulin this morning...
Maybe he's not diabetic...just sick?
 
Great!
It sounds like you are all set, so let's hope Elie is back to good health and then you will be able to tell if he needs the insulin..... if you do resume shots, go with 1u.
here's how you may see Elie's numbers react to insulin shots. With Lantus, you are looking for the lowest number, not what the number is at shot time, when you are making dosing decisions. You may see a high at shot time, but he may be dropping low in the middle.

How to do a Curve
Example of a typical curve:
+0 - PreShot number.
+1 – Usually higher than PreShot number because of the last shot wearing off. May see a food spike in this number.
+2 - Often similar to the PreShot number.
+3 - Lower than the PreShot number, onset has started.
+4 - Lower.
+5 - Lower.
+6 – Nadir/Peak (the lowest number of cycle).
+7 - Surf (hang around the nadir number).
+8 - Slight rise.
+9 - Slight rise.
+10 - Rising.
+11 - Rising (may dip around +10 or +11).
+12 - PreShot number.

maybe just too high of a dose.
 
Thanks for that :)

Yesterday was weird then as his BG kept declining all day, there was no curve at all and then this morning at 100 we were a bit stunned. We'll keep testing and have a check in chat with our vet this afternoon, so we'll keep you posted!

Thanks again for your help...

Tanya
 
thebigfuzz said:
Thanks for that :)

Yesterday was weird then as his BG kept declining all day, there was no curve at all and then this morning at 100 we were a bit stunned. We'll keep testing and have a check in chat with our vet this afternoon, so we'll keep you posted!

Thanks again for your help...

Tanya
Click to expand...

that's what you would see if too much insulin.... just dropping lower and lower. When you are on a good dose that suits YOUR cat, you should see a little Mona Lisa smile, or in the case of some cats with a late nadir, you could see a diff type of curve but most cats are similar to the info I posted.
 
Update: We retested at noon and he was at 6.1 (110). Still havent' given insulin today...

Spoke with the vet and she said to feed him again as he is only eating 1/4 can at a time, and retest at 4pm. She hoped his diabetes was transitional? me too!

Tanya
 
you can do a food test to see how his pancreas is working.
Test him, then feed normally, then test again in 30 min or so. You see a lower number.

At any rate, keep testing him a couple times a day to track his numbers...just to be sure.
 
Yay that you had a vet that had you home testing or you would have injected blind and most likely had a hypo kitty. This is very lucky indeed :mrgreen:
 
Yes!

The vet has been great! We spent almost 3 hours with her yesterday talking and her demonstrating to us what to do, letting us do Saline Shots on Elie so we could practice and feel good about it.
Then we spoke to her twice today and she is calling us from home tomorrow to check in...
Great vet, she is all about hometesting too.

Thanks for all the support. Elie is still in the normal BG zone, so no insulin today. Strange, but we'll take it! He is still circling and head tilting a bit, but better than it was.
 
This is excellent news, it would be great if you could do a pre and post food check as suggested by Gayle when you get the opportunity. What she meant to say was if you see a lower number for the after feeding test this shows that his pancreas is working and secreting its own insulin.

Hopefully his high numbers were just caused by the ear infection and everything will clear up with the antiobiotics and you'll be back to normal.
 
2U of Lantus is too large of a starting dose, yes, even in a 20lb Maine Coon cat. Gandalf had a large Maine Coon frame, his normal, non-diabetic weight was 16 lbs, but he did best on just a little over 1U of Levemir.

Recommended starting dose is 1U, no matter the size of the cat. Yes there are formulas based on "ideal weight," but what that is from cat to cat can vary by several pounds. Just go down to 1U and I bet you will be able to keep giving his shots twice a day. The way Lantus works best requires that the dose is started below what may be the optimum dose, so that's another reason 2U is always too high, no matter the size of the cat.
 
thebigfuzz said:
Yes!

The vet has been great! We spent almost 3 hours with her yesterday talking and her demonstrating to us what to do, letting us do Saline Shots on Elie so we could practice and feel good about it.
Then we spoke to her twice today and she is calling us from home tomorrow to check in...
Great vet, she is all about hometesting too.

Thanks for all the support. Elie is still in the normal BG zone, so no insulin today. Strange, but we'll take it! He is still circling and head tilting a bit, but better than it was.
Click to expand...


OK big question here.... can you tell us a bit more about this 'circling and head tilting' as that could be a serious problem
http://www.petmd.com/cat/conditions/neu ... 1wTvoem8dA
http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body_ve ... sease.html
 
Hey Tanya, see what I meant about posting here?!!!!!! Sounds like things going good, but I was wondering about how he is acting as well.

I'll be back in a bit

Laura
 
Good Morning all!

You guys are great!

Overall, Elie seems pretty good. Regarding the cirlcing, he has been doing this since last weekend. It was to the left, not wanting to eat when the food is on the ground, lethargic, depressed, NOT vomiting, in general confused. Like he was restless and didn't know whether to have a drink, eat, go sleep or go to the bathroom. He has been on antibiotics and Vitamin B since Monday. His circling and overall alertness has improved a lot this week. He still has trouble eating a plate on the ground (so we lift it to chin level and he seems ok with that. Our vet said it was a possibility that he had an inner ear infection or could be some kind of neuropathy. We gave antibiotics and vitamins to "rule in or out".

Elie's BG was normal for most of yesterday without insulin until about midnight. He started looking at us a bit funny and so we tested and it was 223 and then at 8am it was 241. We decided to give 1 unit of insulin this morning and see how it goes. He is a bit of a grazer so it was a bit of a struggle to get 1/2 can in him. He usually likes about 1/8 to 1/4 a number of times a day and some hard food to nibble on.

I'm going to try the food test tonight does it matter if we give a shot at mealtime too? ie. This morning, we tested, fed, shot. Can we do the food test 30 mins later?
 
Welcome to you and soooo happy you were testing that baby!
I am and was not a lantus user, so I will leave that for the experts to answer.
Are you still feeding the hard foods?
Something you might want to try for the hard food, is freeze dried treats... my girls eat the lamb, which gives them a crunchy. And they eat duck, chicken and some fish.
What a nice read that your vet is on the same page!
 
thebigfuzz said:
Good Morning all!

You guys are great!

Overall, Elie seems pretty good. Regarding the cirlcing, he has been doing this since last weekend. It was to the left, not wanting to eat when the food is on the ground, lethargic, depressed, NOT vomiting, in general confused. Like he was restless and didn't know whether to have a drink, eat, go sleep or go to the bathroom. He has been on antibiotics and Vitamin B since Monday. His circling and overall alertness has improved a lot this week. He still has trouble eating a plate on the ground (so we lift it to chin level and he seems ok with that. Our vet said it was a possibility that he had an inner ear infection or could be some kind of neuropathy. We gave antibiotics and vitamins to "rule in or out".

Elie's BG was normal for most of yesterday without insulin until about midnight. He started looking at us a bit funny and so we tested and it was 223 and then at 8am it was 241. We decided to give 1 unit of insulin this morning and see how it goes. He is a bit of a grazer so it was a bit of a struggle to get 1/2 can in him. He usually likes about 1/8 to 1/4 a number of times a day and some hard food to nibble on.

I'm going to try the food test tonight does it matter if we give a shot at mealtime too? ie. This morning, we tested, fed, shot. Can we do the food test 30 mins later?
Click to expand...

Great decision to go with the 1u this morn; since you don't have enough numbers/data to know much like how Elie reacts to the insulin, when his nadir is, and you are still giving some dry food, the food test won't be of much value because you don't know how it all fits together.

If he's just had some dry, you may see his numbers rise from that food, or you may see a small drop but that could be from the insulin working. Without any amount of past BG numbers, there's no way of knowing the diff between his dropping from food or from the insulin.

If you are feeding vet wet food, he may be like most cats, and think it tastes like crap. Try some other low carb wet foods from Binky's list to see if he likes them better.

If you see his numbers drop a bit then start coming up by the next shot time, for sure stick with the 1u .... it could be that the 2u was just way too much.
 
I'm feeling pretty anxious about monitoring Elie today...not that anything is wrong, but because we have to give him insulin and kinda "disrupt" the system. I have been looking at some others sheets and I feel a bit overwhelmed with how to make one just like that. What is AMP, and PAMP? Are there 2-12 hour cycles on each row?

FRIDAY 9:30 am - 328 - Vet recommended starting insulin
11:00 am - Fed 1/4 can of Medi Cal Reducing and gave 2 units of insulin
12 noon - 335 -
4:00 pm - 277
8:00 pm - 254 - Fed 1/4 can and went for a short walk up and down the hallway
12 midnight - 214

SATURDAY 8am - 100 - Fed 1/4 Can of Medi Cal Reducing NO INSULIN
10:30 - 146 - Still normal...
12 noon - 110
4 pm - 110
8pm - 144, Fed 1/4 - 1/2 can. NO INSULIN
12 midnight - 223

SUNDAY 8:00 am - 241 - Fed 1/2 can of Medi Cal Reducing - Gave 1 unit insulin
10:30 am - 313 - he's napping in the sunshine
12 noon - TBD

What time after the injection does the insulin start working? We are not sure what our "window of worry" is for hypo?

Tanya and Elie
 
AMPS= morning pre shot
PMPS= evening pre shot

I'm not sure if i'm doing it right but, my +1 is 1 hour AFTER the shot. So there is a little room for time error in between, I'm not good at being on time. Junior's AMPS and PMPS is around a 1/2 hour before the shot. He takes forever to eat and is not good at receiving the shot while he's eating. (i'm wondering what anyone else thinks about this)

Yes, it is 12 hours between AMPS and PMPS

This is the link I have printed out for a hypo
http://gorbzilla.com/treating_hypoglyce ... elissa.htm

Gayle gave you the example of how a "curve" works. Hopefully you'll have a 12 hour window to try this at home.

I am not computer savvy so I hope this works
 
thebigfuzz said:
I'm feeling pretty anxious about monitoring Elie today...not that anything is wrong, but because we have to give him insulin and kinda "disrupt" the system. I have been looking at some others sheets and I feel a bit overwhelmed with how to make one just like that. What is AMP, and PAMP? Are there 2-12 hour cycles on each row?

FRIDAY 9:30 am - 328 - Vet recommended starting insulin
11:00 am - Fed 1/4 can of Medi Cal Reducing and gave 2 units of insulin
12 noon - 335 -
4:00 pm - 277
8:00 pm - 254 - Fed 1/4 can and went for a short walk up and down the hallway
12 midnight - 214

SATURDAY 8am - 100 - Fed 1/4 Can of Medi Cal Reducing NO INSULIN
10:30 - 146 - Still normal...
12 noon - 110
4 pm - 110
8pm - 144, Fed 1/4 - 1/2 can. NO INSULIN
12 midnight - 223

SUNDAY 8:00 am - 241 - Fed 1/2 can of Medi Cal Reducing - Gave 1 unit insulin
10:30 am - 313 - he's napping in the sunshine
12 noon - TBD

What time after the injection does the insulin start working? We are not sure what our "window of worry" is for hypo?

Tanya and Elie
Click to expand...

Hi Tanya,
when does the insulin start working? Well the first thing is that it depends on how Elie responds.... for Lantus and Lev, I would think you will see something by +3 or +4 or so. It's hard to tell with your numbers there's not been much data and it seems like the 2units as a starting dose was way too high, so going down to 1u dose was good and you are in higher BG numbers now.

At your amps / 8am shot time 241, the 1u dose is safe.
At your +2.5 / 1030am, the insulin has not yet started to work.
At your +4 / 12 noon, you should get a lower number than that 313 and it will let you know how this insulin is working.
I don't see where you should be worried about hypo at these higher numbers.
List of Hypo symptoms
How to treat HYPOS-They can kill! Print this out!
Jojo’s HYPO TOOLKIT
 
I'm even more of a newbie as my cat was diagnosed this morning with diabetes. I also have a Maine coon cat. He's my baby boy. I've been told to use 2 units of insulin as well. He's handling his first dose just fine but the glucose testing wasn't mentioned to me although I was given some Karo syrup. But now I'm a little worried since my vet is now closed for the night. This also came at a very cash strapped time since I lost my job recently and am unable to get a test kit until Tuesday due to finances. Any advice would be highly welcomed. I'm so happy to hear that your kitty is improving. Hearing that eases my worry about my own cat kale. This site has already been a tremendous help just in the last 24 hours. Also once I am able to purchase a testing kit what's a good one to use?
 
Hi Sengibous!

Welcome! You are in the right place...the people here are great...so supportive and have great advice! I'm not sure we would have made it through our first week without them :mrgreen:

Aww you've got a big guy too! That's nice...I love Maine Coons.

I am super new, so I'm sure there are others that can give you more indepth advice. I'll ask one of them to check in with you.

What kind of insulin are you giving?
You said that you were told to give 2 units...how often?
How old is your kitty?
Does he have any other health issues?
Did the vet say how high his levels were?
Whereabouts in the world are you located? Maybe someone from here can help.

I think that everyone here can agree that testing is really important with diabetic kitties. It's the only way you will really know what is going on with his sugars. We use One Touch and have been testing every few hours. It's pretty amazing how well the kitties handle testing. Mine doesn't even notice :-D

We had some trouble with finding the right dose this week. We started at 2 units and it was too much, but we are now settling into the groove. But, that being said, every cat is different and there are many on here at various doses.

There are some great links on this message tread from some of the experienced owners...

Welcome!

Tanya
 
Kale is my first Maine Coon and I definitely can say I'm in love with the breed now. He's 9 years old and we live in Olympia, Washington (land of the rain). He's supposed to get 2 u of humulin every 12 hours after he eats. He's currently 15 lbs. He's also on amoxicillin and is getting over an upper respiratory infection which besides being a Maine Coon is why your post hit so close to home with me.To be honest I was in a bit of shock when I was being told the numbers but I want to say it was around 440. He got his first injection today at the vet and is handling that dose just fine and it's been 4 hours. He's also now on a prescription diet (I have both wet and dry food). I got really lucky and found a local organization called concern for animals. They faxed a voucher to my vet to cover $60 of his treatment along with a very nice vet who is working with me financially. As I said I'm currently living on unemployment benefits (although I am in the running for a really decent job and fingers crossed that I get it) and between paying necessary bills and the sudden vet bills I'm broke until Tuesday morning. I will definitely pick one up the moment it hits my card. I'm really glad I was given the karo syrup now just in case. Thank you so much for the quick response. It's so wonderful to feel the support while we're venturing into this scary new world of diabetes. We have another appointment in two weeks to retest his glucose levels, hydration, weight, temp and check on the edema in his legs. He also has a gallop heart rhythm. I'm definitely getting the test kit just so I can give the vet daily information and have set up a spreadsheet on my phone so I can easily input the info and take it with me to the appointment. What's the best time to check the BG level in relation to eating and giving the injection?

Stephanie and Kale
 
Hey Stephanie,

I gave a heads up to one of the more experienced BEANS(what they call us humans here on this forum) to see your posts to help if they can.

We are in Vancouver, BC, Canada...Rain...more rain...and then some more! lol We did have really strange weather today...sun, hail, snow, wind...weird.

We try to test every two hours if we can. There is a little link at the bottom of the posts where people put a link to our spreadsheets. It's called Elie's BG SS. There you can see all the kitties dosages, eating patterns, tests, etc. Super helpful for me.
I get up about 6 am and then it goes something like this:

6 am: Test - Feed 1/8 can or less depending on if he's starving/low BG
8:00 am: Test - Feed between 1/4 to 1/2 can of wet. Give insulin
10:00 am: Test
Nooon: Test - Feed 1/8 to 1/4 can
2:00 pm: Test -
4:00 pm: Test - Feed 1/8 can
6:00 pm: Test - Feed if necessary, usually not
8:00 pm: Test - Feed 1/4 to 1/2 can, Give insulin
10:00 pm: Test - Feed if necessary, usually not
midnight: Test - Feed 1/8 to 1/4 can

its sort of what is working for us...for at least the last few days. The beginning we were a bit all over the place. Many people feed their cats often if they get low numbers and test through it. Luckily we only had a couple lowish numbers, so didn't happen that often. I don't really know how to tell for sure if they are low without testing, but there is a link on here somewhere.

Our vet seems to think that Elie has transitional diabetes (our dose is really low) due to illness. He likely had an inner ear infection and had antibiotics for a week. Yay!

Good luck with the position! I hope you get it!!!
 

Attachments

  • Elie.jpg
    Elie.jpg
    60 KB · Views: 1,354
Aww how pretty!! Happily I will have a test kit tomorrow now. My mom will be in a nearby town and is willing to purchase one for her furry grandson. Thanks for a good schedule to start off with. I can easily adjust the times to fit my life while not worrying if I'm over/underreacting.
Also thanks for passing my need of information and help onto someone experienced. I'm at a point of information overload and reading these articles about understanding the numbers is making me feel like I'm reading a language I don't know.
We actually had our first decent weather day here today. Although it's not going to last long since another storm seems to be on the way (maybe your weather is heading south towards us) and my weather widget is predicting snow on Sunday. then rain and more rain and hey some more rain.
My vet seems to think we caught it at decent time since blood work shows normal kidney and liver function so I'm very thankful for that. She's hopeful that we can get it under control and hopefully eventually move on to just treating with a good diabetic diet but only time will tell.
And once again thank you. I feel more control of the situation now

Stephanie and Kale
 

Attachments

  • kale kale.jpg
    kale kale.jpg
    7.6 KB · Views: 1,351
Aww...look at your little buddy! How handsome!

That's great about the kit! I know what you mean about info overload! Luckily, I work with numbers, so I like the spreadsheets.

Our vet thinks Elie will not need insulin for too long either. Fingers crossed!

No worries Stephanie! Anytime.

Tanya
 
Hey Stephanie!

Some advice on the test kit... try to get one that only requires a small amount of blood. They usually say on the box somewhere how many micro somethings of blood they need. I use a Nova Max Plus and many folks here use ReliOn from Walmart. You can buy test strips real cheap online.

Since you're trying to stretch your dollar, I recommend you read all the directions and test your own blood sugar first to see how the meter works. Then, when you start testing your cat, make sure you get enough blood to get a reading. You have to put the blood on the test strip all in one go or else the meter might show an error. I have wasted sooo many test strips trying to get a reading with too small a blood sample.

The prescription food is another area you might save money. That stuff is expensive! Folks here recommend weaning your kitty off all dry food, even prescription, and feeding only low carb canned food. The day I removed all dry food (Purina DM dry food) from the house is the last day Scout needed insulin. The diet change was enough to help her get better on her own. The prescription canned stuff is just not that great either, check out the ingredients. Fancy feast classics is just a low in carbs, and a fraction of the cost. If you really want to save money, see if your vet will let you return the prescription stuff (you can say your cat turned his nose up) and use the links on this site to purchase cheaper canned food that will be just as good if not better for Kale. Even the premium brands are cheaper than the Purina DM my vet told me to feed Scout... and guess what, the premium brands don't have by-products in the ingredients. ;)

Hope this is helpful. Scritches to Kale and a big pat on the back to mommabean!!!

Lori
 
So true about the dry food. Everytime we cheat and give him even 10 pieces, his sugars go wonky...we are sticking to our guns on the low carb canned now. And it's working!

We used to do the prescription wet food, but his sugars are much better on Friskies Mariners Catch, Chicken or Turkey & Giblets (the last is a bit fatty tho). NOTE: No gravies. Those are high carb, good for treating a low BG number...so I'm told. We have a couple cans in our hypo kit. We haven't had to give the high carb to him yet. I think they are all good according to Binky's list.
 
Thankfully I didn't pay for the prescription food. That was covered by a local nonprofit organization so at this very moment it did save me money but I've already planned on getting the Fancy Feast classics since that seems to be pretty well recommended and cost efficient. Thanks for the testing kit recommendation. I will definitely look at the micros needed. Also once it comes down to actually testing him I have experience with humans but have never really known what the numbers actually meant. My grandma is diabetic and when she broke her arm I helped with the insulin injections and BG testing. Never really thought that would come in handy. :) I will definitely cut the dry food out especially since he likes wet food so much better. And just checked the ingredients and you're right. The first ingredient on both are a meat by product. Ugh.. Will definitely be upgrading come Tuesday but unfortunately it's going to have to do for now seeing as how I just spent the last $ I had on insulin and needles. And I'm now using that spreadsheet that everyone seems to use and it actually makes the numbers make sense. Ahh how color coding can help when your brain is overloaded!! :-D Less than 24 hours in and I don't know what I'd do without this website and forum! I'm so thankfully for it and all of you!!!

Stephanie and Kale
 
Hi Stephanie & Kale!

Kit and I wanted to welcome to you to FDMB -- Kit's a Maine Coon as well, and I just always want to hug him to pieces lol. This is the best place I have ever found and the people here have been so awesome in helping me. Just yesterday we started and OTJ (off the juice, "no insulin") trial...I'm so excited!

Jut wanted to say that I think it would be best if you started a new topic on this forum. I would even repost your initial introduction. That way it's a condo dedicated to you and Kale and people will jump in and want to get to know you guys. You posts may/will get lost being at the end of Tanya's....

Hope you have a great Saturday!! :)
 
I will do that here in a sec. Then off to go get a testing kit and hoping that will ease my mind a bit so I can actually sleep. I'm being a paranoid mommy but would just really feel better knowing his blood glucose level.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top