KPassa
Member Since 2012
Hi Everyone,
A bit of background since I'm not sure if there is an external cause or if it's just luck of the draw: my kitten was rescued at 8 weeks old from a friend's work back in June because the partially-feral Mama cat abandoned him (yet kept his two bigger, healthier brothers). Because mama cats don't usually selectively abandon kittens unless they are sickly/about to die, I already knew we were going to be fighting an uphill battle to start with. When I first took him to the vet, they said he was only at the 5 week mark developmentally (we're sure of his birthday because my friend took a picture when the litter was first born). He also had coccidia, so the first 2 weeks with me, I had to give him Albion for it (he was still infected after the first round so we had to go for another week with him on it). His whiskers also fell out/broke off, which the vet said was most likely caused from being malnourished the first few weeks of his life (they've now grown back in, but some of them are kinked and/or curl).
After such a rough start, things started to go well until he was neutered about a month ago (at around 5 months old). Almost immediately after, he started acting a little "off." I kept an eye on him, associating his increased water consumption, listlessness, incontinence, lip-licking, etc... as being related to having just gotten fixed. About a week later, I took him back to the vet because he still hadn't improved. That's when we discovered he had a urinary tract infection and extremely high blood sugar levels. nailbite_smile
Since not many cats are diagnosed so young, my vet had to refer to a specialist because, after 25 years of practice, my kitty was the FIRST juvenile diabetic he's ever encountered. At this point, we've cleared up the UTI with Clavamox and I've been doing the standard twice daily Lantus insulin injections (1 unit)for the past couple of weeks. He's also been back to the vet for numerous follow-ups to see if this is the cause of his original UTI or if it was a symptom and clears up on its own. Today, after a month of testing, the vet thinks that the UTI seems to be a symptom of his having juvenile diabetes. He also did a urine and blood test again and has recommended increasing his insulin to 2 units now (with another follow-up in the next week or two).
First question: is there hope he might be "cured" through proper diet and monitoring? Or, because it's juvenile, will he always need artificial insulin? I'll be purchasing a glucometer and changing his diet either way, but I don't want to unrealistically get my hopes up.
Second question: is there a difference in treatment between juvenile (Type I) and adult (Type II) diabetes? Is there anything specific I should be aware of or will most everything that pertains to adult diabetes work for his case?
Any help and information is appreciated and if you have links to other sites/posts that already cover a lot of this information, the more the better :smile:
A bit of background since I'm not sure if there is an external cause or if it's just luck of the draw: my kitten was rescued at 8 weeks old from a friend's work back in June because the partially-feral Mama cat abandoned him (yet kept his two bigger, healthier brothers). Because mama cats don't usually selectively abandon kittens unless they are sickly/about to die, I already knew we were going to be fighting an uphill battle to start with. When I first took him to the vet, they said he was only at the 5 week mark developmentally (we're sure of his birthday because my friend took a picture when the litter was first born). He also had coccidia, so the first 2 weeks with me, I had to give him Albion for it (he was still infected after the first round so we had to go for another week with him on it). His whiskers also fell out/broke off, which the vet said was most likely caused from being malnourished the first few weeks of his life (they've now grown back in, but some of them are kinked and/or curl).
After such a rough start, things started to go well until he was neutered about a month ago (at around 5 months old). Almost immediately after, he started acting a little "off." I kept an eye on him, associating his increased water consumption, listlessness, incontinence, lip-licking, etc... as being related to having just gotten fixed. About a week later, I took him back to the vet because he still hadn't improved. That's when we discovered he had a urinary tract infection and extremely high blood sugar levels. nailbite_smile
Since not many cats are diagnosed so young, my vet had to refer to a specialist because, after 25 years of practice, my kitty was the FIRST juvenile diabetic he's ever encountered. At this point, we've cleared up the UTI with Clavamox and I've been doing the standard twice daily Lantus insulin injections (1 unit)for the past couple of weeks. He's also been back to the vet for numerous follow-ups to see if this is the cause of his original UTI or if it was a symptom and clears up on its own. Today, after a month of testing, the vet thinks that the UTI seems to be a symptom of his having juvenile diabetes. He also did a urine and blood test again and has recommended increasing his insulin to 2 units now (with another follow-up in the next week or two).
First question: is there hope he might be "cured" through proper diet and monitoring? Or, because it's juvenile, will he always need artificial insulin? I'll be purchasing a glucometer and changing his diet either way, but I don't want to unrealistically get my hopes up.
Second question: is there a difference in treatment between juvenile (Type I) and adult (Type II) diabetes? Is there anything specific I should be aware of or will most everything that pertains to adult diabetes work for his case?
Any help and information is appreciated and if you have links to other sites/posts that already cover a lot of this information, the more the better :smile:
