Kiki newly diagnosed

Status
Not open for further replies.
Arkoren

Arkoren

Member Since 2023
Our cat Kiki has been having some potty problems and we took her in to the vet yesterday. She was treated for a UTI but they also suspected she was diabetic, which was confirmed today after doing bloodwork. I've been doing research but have a couple questions that I'm hoping for some help with.

Name: Kiki
Age: ~5yr
Sex: Female
Current Diet: Tiki Cat Born Carnivore (Dry), ~50g per day. We changed to this food about 7-8 months ago because I could afford to buy better high protein/low carb food. Previously she was given Purina Cat Chow Complete. We would also give her Temptations treats occasionally but have already swapped to freeze-dried treats (Orijen)
Medical history: Generally great health up to this point. Her only medical issue has been a problem where she would randomly have rapid eye movements and balance issues which would cause her to wobble and walk in circles. Often it seemed to start when she got scared by something like a loud noise, but was inconsistent, and it usually went away in a couple minutes. We suspect it was Vestibular Disease but were never able to get a definite diagnosis. It started maybe 2 years ago but it hasn't happened for a couple months now. However, she has been showing some aggression when getting scared instead (hissing/angry meowing as if about to attack, though no actual attacking), though it's been rare and she hasn't done it for a while since being more careful. Since her last vet visit (more than a year ago) we think she's lost about 1.5lb. We moved since then and took her to a new vet this time, because our old one is about 20min away and we don't want to prolong the trip because Kiki gets very stressed during vet visits.

Questions:

First off, this is the important one. Our new vet asked us to order Vetsulin but I've seen people saying it's not good. Should I ask for something else? Or should I try asking our old vet, or try visiting a different vet? (There's a cat specific vet not far from us that may be better).

Has anyone had the symptoms of Vestibular Disease like I mentioned earlier show up with your cat? I'm wondering if it was somehow related to her diabetes.

I have a trip planned to see family from August 10th-14th. We were going to leave the cat at a family member's house as she already knows Kiki very well and has watched her before. I'm worried about leaving her so soon after starting treatment though, is this going to be a problem?

I plan on mixing wet food into her diet, but will the Tiki Cat food need to be transitioned out completely, or is it okay to continue giving it since it's higher protien/lower carb?

Thanks for the help, just trying to figure this all out and stay optimistic. I'll be sure to ask more questions if I need to!
 
Hi and welcome to you and Kiki to the forum.
Arkoren said:
First off, this is the important one. Our new vet asked us to order Vetsulin but I've seen people saying it's not good. Should I ask for something else? Or should I try asking our old vet, or try visiting a different vet? (There's a cat specific vet not far from us that may be better).
Click to expand...
Vetsulin is not a good insulin for cats. It is actually a dog insulin and dogs have a slower metabolism than cats. Vetsulin is fast acting and harsh for cats and does not last the 12 hours.
You would be much better asking for lantus ( or a bio similar insulin) or prozinc. Both theses insulins are recommended by the American Animal Association, vetsulin is not.

Arkoren said:
Has anyone had the symptoms of Vestibular Disease like I mentioned earlier show up with your cat? I'm wondering if it was somehow related to her diabetes.
Click to expand...
I have no experience with this disease. I will tag @Suzanne & Darcy and @Bandit's Mom see if they have.
It is not related to feline diabetes.

Arkoren said:
I have a trip planned to see family from August 10th-14th. We were going to leave the cat at a family member's house as she already knows Kiki very well and has watched her before. I'm worried about leaving her so soon after starting treatment though, is this going to be a problem?
Click to expand...
Once Kiki is on insulin you will need to make sure she has it twice a day. Can your family member give the insulin?
it is important that diabetic cats get their insulin twice a day and they eat well.

Arkoren said:
plan on mixing wet food into her diet, but will the Tiki Cat food need to be transitioned out completely, or is it okay to continue giving it since it's higher protien/lower carb?
Click to expand...
A diabetic cats needs a low carb diet, preferably a wet/ canned diet.
I’m not sure the Tiki dry food is low carb. Their canned food is low carb.
If the dry food is high carb, yes you will need to Transition it out of the diet.
There are low carb dry foods available if you are interested.

Are you thinking of home testing the blood glucose ? It is really the only way to know if the dose of insulin you are giving is the right dose. Just checking at the vets every few weeks is not a great idea. It is expensive, stressful for Kiki and does not really give much useful information. Let us know if you are interested and we can help you with home testing.

Keep asking questions.it is a steep learning curve in the beginning.:)
Bron
 
Bron and Sheba (GA) said:
Once Kiki is on insulin you will need to make sure she has it twice a day. Can your family member give the insulin?
it is important that diabetic cats get their insulin twice a day and they eat well.
Click to expand...
Hopefully, we haven't been taught how to give it yet though.

Bron and Sheba (GA) said:
A diabetic cats needs a low carb diet, preferably a wet/ canned diet.
I’m not sure the Tiki dry food is low carb. Their canned food is low carb.
If the dry food is high carb, yes you will need to Transition it out of the diet.
There are low carb dry foods available if you are interested.
Click to expand...
It says it's 13% carb and 47% protein, not sure how good that is for a diabetic cat. Wouldn't mind good wet food suggestions to try out in case we need to switch.

Bron and Sheba (GA) said:
Are you thinking of home testing the blood glucose ? It is really the only way to know if the dose of insulin you are giving is the right dose. Just checking at the vets every few weeks is not a great idea. It is expensive, stressful for Kiki and does not really give much useful information. Let us know if you are interested and we can help you with home testing.

Keep asking questions.it is a steep learning curve in the beginning.:)
Bron
Click to expand...

Definitely plan on testing at home, already been reading about it. We're going to call the vet tomorrow and ask about alternatives to Vetsulin, thanks for helping ^^
 
If you do switch to Lantus
Lantus is the major brand name glargine the USA you can get generic/biosimilar glargine at very reasonable prices using GoodRx coupon. Most members use the generic because Lantus is to expensive.
https://www.goodrx.com/lantus?label...d-pens-of-100-units-ml&quantity=1&slug=lantus
Make sure that the Match your prescription pull down menue says generic glargine 1carton of 5 3ml pens.
There is no wait time test, feed, give insulin
Lantus usually doesn't kick in until 2 hours after the shot
Let us know if the vet writes the script for you because you will need U-100 syringes with half unit markings , I can tell you which ones you can use
We buy the pens but use the syringes to draw out the insulin because if you use the pen you can only adjust by full units


Also
The 5 pens will last about a year, we use the pens just like a vial, you would just insert the syringe it the gray rubber stopper on the pen and draw out your insulin
Its generic lantus



Or this one also

I see some members will call CVS, Rite Aid, Costco, Walgreen's, to get the price for 5 pens
Posted by another member
One members posted this
. I paid $175 for a box of 5 pens at Walmart pharmacy, but GoodRX coupon says you can get it for around $90 if you have a Rite Aid pharmacy near you.

Just call around for the best price

A member just posted this
Allie was using the Lantus and I just switched to the generic and using the GoodRX I got 5 pens for $81.30 at Walgreens. GoodRX has a 1-800 number to assist you in using their services to get your pets prescriptions filled if the pharmacy gives you any issues.

I think I found it for you
GoodRx / Customer service

1 (855) 268-2822
49823063143_3437e9e997_o.jpg


You can read all about Lantus here, all the yellow stickys
https://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/forums/lantus-levemir-biosimilars.9/
 
Quick update on how things are going! We went to our current vet to ask about Lantus but the main vet wasn't in so we'll be getting a call about it tomorrow. In the meantime we went to that cat specific vet clinic I mentioned in my original post to ask some questions and see if they were a better fit for us. They were a lot more helpful than our other vet and seemed a lot more experienced with cat diabetes, even mentioning they have a lot of patients they help with it. A lot of the info they gave us mirrors what I've seen here so that seemed like a really good sign. They told us that they treat their cats with Glargine which I assume means we'll be able to get the generic equivalent of Lantus as Diane has mentioned above ($60 at the Rite Aid near us with the coupon!). They also gave us some food suggestions to start her on, with a print-out of part of Dr. Pierson's food chart which I saw in one of the sticky post on the forum! Plus they gave us a ziploc bag with a bunch of good Purina Pro Plan DM dry food to try out while we get her moved over to wet, or just in case we need it for any reason, which was super nice of them.

Our current plan (assuming the call tomorrow doesn't change our plans) is to wait on the insulin a bit until we get back on our trip. Then we have an appointment with the cat clinic where we'll hopefully start her on Lantus. I hate waiting so long to start but we think it's the best option, and when we asked the vets there that's what they recommended. In the meantime we'll be moving her to wet food and see if that helps with things, we were told some cats diabetic cats don't even need insulin after their food is switched. We got a couple cans of Fancy Feast Classic Pate, Fancy Feast Naturals, and Tiki Cat After Dark to try out and see if she likes them, though that shouldn't be an issue since she's never been picky with food. If there are any specific food suggestions I would love to hear them because there's so many choices.

Also got her a ReliOn Platinum to start testing her Glucose, Ketone test strips, and Karo just so we don't forget it in case we ever need it, even though we probably won't be starting the insulin for a while. Once that happens we'll make another run to get more supplies.

Just one question, what's a good guideline for feeding her wet food? She's about 10lb. We'll get a complete diet recommendation when we go see the vet but it would help to know how much about we should be feeding her for wet food. She also gets very noisy about food, especially in the morning a couple hours before she's supposed to be fed, so any ideas on keeping her from begging for food outside of feeding time would be helpful, too.
 
Hi. Sounds like the cat vet will be good. Most of us feed several small meals each cycle. There are auto feeders you can get and program for nights and when you are away. Is the waking fir food a new thing? That could be because the bg is high. Is 10 pounds her ideal weight or is she over or under weight?
 
My only concern is if you are not starting insulin until after your trip… how long will that be? … you will definitely need someone to be testing the urine at least 3 times a week to make sure no ketones appear. If they start appearing you must get them to take her straight to the vet to start insulin otherwise you run the very real risk of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) which can be deadly and expensive to treat and is preventable by testing the urine for ketones.
 
tiffmaxee said:
Hi. Sounds like the cat vet will be good. Most of us feed several small meals each cycle. There are auto feeders you can get and program for nights and when you are away. Is the waking fir food a new thing? That could be because the bg is high. Is 10 pounds her ideal weight or is she over or under weight?
Click to expand...

She's always been loud about food, so it's not new. She's insecure about her food bowl being empty and often wants us to be near her for her to start eating. We've been trying to get her on a more solid feeding schedule so hopefully that will help. Our current vet said that she could probably lose a pound but we'll see what the new vet says since the diet will probably need to be adjusted anyways.

Bron and Sheba (GA) said:
My only concern is if you are not starting insulin until after your trip… how long will that be? … you will definitely need someone to be testing the urine at least 3 times a week to make sure no ketones appear. If they start appearing you must get them to take her straight to the vet to start insulin otherwise you run the very real risk of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) which can be deadly and expensive to treat and is preventable by testing the urine for ketones.
Click to expand...

With this plan we would likely be starting insulin on the 17th. That's good to know, I'll test her urine as soon as I can since I already bought the strips. We had a urine test done 3 days ago before the bloodwork due to her UTI which is where we found out about the diabetes, so I'll assume she didn't have any ketones since it wasn't mentioned, but I'll use the strips to be sure. Thanks ^^
 
Regarding food, I'm not sure where you found the Tiki brand as being 13% carb. It's not on their website. The rough calculation is 24%. Further, the DM dry isn't much better. It's about 19% carb. An FYI about "prescription" foods... There was a class action suit filed against the pet food manufacturers for calling their food "prescription" since there is nothing that requires a prescription in the food. In fact, the DM used to be called "diabetes management" and since the manufacturers lost the suit, it now called "dietetic management." The chart the vet gave you from Lisa Pierson, DVM's website contains only canned foods. We encourage you to look at foods that are under 10% carb for daily feeding. There are lots of choices!! Most people here use Friskies or Fancy Feast pate style foods since they are the least expensive. You will also want to keep a few cans of medium carb (10 - 15%) and high carb (over 15%) on hand in case you need to steer low numbers up.

If you are not going to be starting insulin until the 17th, I would strongly encourage you to get your cat on a low carb diet and to get strips so you can test for ketones. Any pharmacy should have Ketostix. These are strips that are dipped in a cat's urine to let you know if ketones are developing. Ketones can be life threatening so testing is a good preventative measure especially if you're going to be traveling.
 
Did a ketone test last night and it resulted negative so everything is looking good there! Will keep doing those tests whenever we can. We also started her on the wet food and she went crazy for it, so going to continue switching her food over.

Sienne and Gabby (GA) said:
Regarding food, I'm not sure where you found the Tiki brand as being 13% carb. It's not on their website. The rough calculation is 24%. Further, the DM dry isn't much better. It's about 19% carb. An FYI about "prescription" foods... There was a class action suit filed against the pet food manufacturers for calling their food "prescription" since there is nothing that requires a prescription in the food. In fact, the DM used to be called "diabetes management" and since the manufacturers lost the suit, it now called "dietetic management." The chart the vet gave you from Lisa Pierson, DVM's website contains only canned foods. We encourage you to look at foods that are under 10% carb for daily feeding. There are lots of choices!! Most people here use Friskies or Fancy Feast pate style foods since they are the least expensive. You will also want to keep a few cans of medium carb (10 - 15%) and high carb (over 15%) on hand in case you need to steer low numbers up.
Click to expand...

I originally found the number on a couple sites through google, but I also just found a post on here with a chart of the Tiki Cat carb content. https://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/tiki-cat-charts-for-carbohydrates-phosphorus.236085/
I think the one we've been giving her is the Born Carnivore Chicken which is 10%. We're still changing her to wet food anyways though, only using dry if we have a specific reason for it. I'll try to pick up some higher carb wet food too since we forgot ^^
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top