Just diagnosed

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Lolasmum

Lolasmum

Member Since 2013
Hi, my name is Lucy and I'm Lola's mum. Lola spent today at the vet having tests because over the past few weeks she has been losing weight, drinking huge amounts of water and her energy levels were down. Her blood and urine tests indicate she has feline diabetes but we are waiting for one final test to come back tomorrow to confirm 100% before our vet starts her on a diabetes diet and twice daily insulin shots. I feel a little like a deer in headlights at the moment and have been online reading and learning about feline diabetes. I'm comforted by the fact Lola isn't in any pain and that feline diabetes is treatable and it's highly likely she'll return to her normal happy relaxed life. I'm also comforted that FDMB exists and look forward to talking and sharing with others in the same situation.
Lola's Mum Lucy confused_cat
 
Hi Lucy and Lola,
You are at the right place! There are many here with years of experience working with diabetic cats or what is known on the board as Sugar Cats.
It does seem scary at first and a its a lot learn however if I can do it anybody can do it! Just last week I was at the vets office with my kitty who had a UTI. One of the vet techs that was in the room was telling the other tech how I was home testing. Well I explained to him how it was done and he was in awe at my abilities! She looked over at me and said "Now who was it that was standing here a year and a half ago telling me that I'm never going to be able to do this?" I had a big grin on my face and told her "That was me and It's a piece of cake!"
So let me extend a warm welcome to you!! You are going to love the board! :razz:
Terriy & Chicken Little cat_pet_icon
 
Hello Lucy and Lola, and welcome to FDMB!

I think many of us had that 'deer in the headlights' feeling initially. And it's understandable. The diagnosis does come as a shock. But then we soon find out that diabetes is treatable, and, if we're very lucky, we come across FDMB! :-D

Your vet may well want to sell you a 'special diet' for diabetic cats, but our experience here is that a special diet is absolutely not necessary. Diabetic cats do really well on ordinary low carbohydrate canned/wet food.

What is Lola eating at the moment? Wet food? Dry food? The reason I ask is that dry food raises the blood glucose levels. So switching to a wet/canned food would lower the blood glucose levels. This means that if the vet suggests an insulin dosage based on Lola's blood glucose levels while she's on dry food, that dosage might be too much if she switches to wet/canned food. For that reason we recommend only switching to a lower carb food if the cat's blood glucose can be tested at home and the insulin dosage adjusted accordingly.

'Hometesting' (testing a cat's blood glucose at home) probably sounds a bit scary, but it really isn't hard to learn. Honestly. It only involves taking the teensiest weensiest droplet of blood from the outer edge of your cat's ear. This shouldn't hurt her at all. I test Bertie while he's munching on a couple of treats, or while he's dozing in his basket. Most of us here use ordinary glucose meters made for human diabetics.

Some lucky cats go into remission (become diet controlled diabetics) after just a short time on insulin and a switch to a lower carb diet. But even cats that don't go into remission can have normal, happy and healthy lives.

Here is a link to basic 'hometesting' info so you can see what that's about.
http://www.sugarpet.net/bloodtst.html

Eliz
 
Hi Lucy, mom to newly diagnosed sugarkitty Lola and welcome to the FDMB. The best place you never expected to be. Lots of experience here to help you in all aspects of the day to day management of feline diabetes. Well help you all we can. Just ask.

Elizabeth said: This means that if the vet suggests an insulin dosage based on Lola's blood glucose levels while she's on dry food, that dosage might be too much if she switches to wet/canned food. For that reason we recommend only switching to a lower carb food if the cat's blood glucose can be tested at home and the insulin dosage adjusted accordingly
Click to expand...

Or, if you switch the food before you start giving any insulin, that is even better.

Would you tell us where you live? We may have someone nearby that can teach you to home test. And we can give country speficic recommendations on food and glucometers.

We have lots of money saving ideas like using a human glucometer which will save you a bundle on tests strip costs and curves done at the vet.

Low carb <10%preferably canned food; a good long lasting insulin like lantus, levimir or prozinc; home testing; appropriate dose of insulin are the keys to helping your cat feel her best.

Let us know how we can help.
 
And one of the best places to learn about feline nutrition is Cat Info. There is a printable list of foods from most major US manufactures, and it includes the percent calories (not weight) of carbohydrates. For regular feeding you want to stay at or under 10% calories from carbohydrates. If Lola winds up on insulin, you'll want to pick up a few cans of gravied high carb foods to have on hand in case she ever goes low (< 40-50 mg/dL).
 
cat_pet_icon

Wow - thank you so much for your warm warm welcomes and your advice. I feel such relief having found FDMB so quickly! We find out today for certain if Lola is a sugar kitty (pretty much certain already) and am seeing the vet for a full consultation.

Currently I feed her a mix of dry and wet food. Her dry food is Optimum for mature cats 8+ and her wet food is Dine. Of course she's absolutely hoovering through it at the moment and drinking up a storm. I just want to have the diabetes confirmed and get her started on her treatment ASAP so I can see her return to her usual self - running around and chasing prey she never catches! She's approximately 13 years old, I'm not exactly certain as I met her at the RSPCA and they think she was about 2 years old at that time.

I'm also going to upload Lola's photo on our profile because she is such a beautiful fur baby.

I'll be back with an update on the vets prognosis soon :-|
 
You can also put a picture of her up as an Avatar to be beside each of your posts. Here is one way to do it.

1. To get a picture up by your name, shrinkpictures.com has an Avatar tool to shrink a picture you have.
2. Select the Create Avatar tool over on the left hand side of the screen
3. Follow the directions on that website to shrink the picture to 90 x 90 pixels max size.
4. Save the picture to your computer. Remember the name you gave it and the folder where you saved it. Something simple like 'Yourcats name avatar" in your picture folder would be good.
5. Now that you have a small enough picture, it's time to update your user control panel in the FDMB.
6. Go to the upper left corner of your screen and click on the words, User Control Panel
7. On the next screen, a row of tabs is presented. Select the Profile tab
8. On the next screen, there are a number of choices along the left hand side. Select Edit Avatar.
9. Go down to the box where it says "Upload from Your Machine"
10 There is a browse feature that you can click on.
11. find the folder and name of the picture you saved back in step 4.
12. Click on that picture to select it.
13. Click on submit to save this change.

You should have a picture in all your posts now. You can change the avatar picture in the future too.
Click to expand...
 
Thank you Deb & Wink - I'll get on to that later this afternoon (better get some work done!!)
:-D
 
:RAHCAT

Holy moly - what a couple of weeks it's been. I've mastered the injections and am so glad the syringes are so small Lola doesn't even feel them! Lola went to the clinic for the day on Friday to have her BG checked to see how she's responded after her first two weeks and her levels are so low and she has responded so well the vet said all the signs are pointing towards possible remission!!! Her dosage has been reduced for a second time in two weeks to 1/2 iul twice daily :-D but it's the change in her energy and mood that has absolutely blown me away. This morning she was running around the house and playing again and I haven't seen that in months, her coat is looking healthy again, she's socialising and chatting away. Go Lolo!!
She's in for another clinic next week to see how she's responding again to new dosage so we'll see how we're going then.

My sugar kitty is amazing cat_pet_icon drinking24
 
Thank you for the update on Lola. Sounds like she is doing great!

Keep it up Lola! :RAHCAT

Hoping Lola can go into remission. Keeping our fingers, toes and 3 sets of paws crossed for you.
 
What insulin is she getting? Did you switch to just wet? Are you home testing?

If she is approaching remission you need to be careful giving insulin and not home testing or she could have a hypo. She is sounding good otherwise though!

Wendy
 
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