Little Bear, my diabetic

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Marc&Jenny

Marc&Jenny

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Hey,
Little Bear was diagnosed with Diabetes in March of 10. This diagnosis was secondary to a 10x10 room of carpet being ruined, a drop of about 8 pounds, drinking of about 2 L of water a day and the almost complete loss of control over his haunches. He was on Prozinc for about 3 months and after we had gotten up to 7 units every 12 hours with no change to his sugar levels. They placed him on Vetsulin. We got him down to 1 unit every 12 hour. After the reduction of availability of Vetsuiln we had another run in with the Prozinc with much the same effect. We were placed on the critical needs list for the Vetsulin and managed to stay with that and it's good effect until about 4 days ago at which time we had to swap to Lantus. With the new insulin I'm having to return to the research phase.

LB's brother Tigre has taken the new raw food diet and feedings every 12 hours in good stead with only occasional protestations. They were switched to a completely raw food diet about 1.5 years ago. This has had a good effect and has led to a more stable sugar reading throughout the day. Since Lantus is a 12 hour long-acting insulin and Vetsulin was a 30% short and 70% long acting insulin, I’m hoping to see a more stable regulation and I have hopes of seeing a remission as I’ve begun seeing good research indicating that with the low carb diet and the lantus can sometimes be achieved.
 
Marc&Jenny said:
Hey,
Little Bear was diagnosed with Diabetes in March of 08. This diagnosis was secondary to a 10x10 room of carpet being ruined, a drop of about 8 pounds, drinking of about 2 L of water a day and the almost complete loss of control over his haunches. He was on Prozinc for about 3 months and after we had gotten up to 7 units every 12 hours with no change to his sugar levels. They placed him on Vetsulin. We got him down to 1 unit every 12 hour. After the reduction of availability of Vetsuiln we had another run in with the Prozinc with much the same effect. We were placed on the critical needs list for the Vetsulin and managed to stay with that and it's good effect until about 4 days ago at which time we had to swap to Lantus. With the new insulin I'm having to return to the research phase.

LB's brother Tigre has taken the new raw food diet and feedings every 12 hours in good stead with only occasional protestations. They were switched to a completely raw food diet about 1.5 years ago. This has had a good effect and has led to a more stable sugar reading throughout the day. Since Lantus is a 12 hour long-acting insulin and Vetsulin was a 30% short and 70% long acting insulin, I’m hoping to see a more stable regulation and I have hopes of seeing a remission as I’ve begun seeing good research indicating that with the low carb diet and the lantus can sometimes be achieved.
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hello to all of you,

Well, it sure sounds like you have your hands full; you have 2 diabetics, or is Tigre just liking the raw diet?

LB is currently on Lantus, can you say what dose he is on now? I believe that you will have better luck with Lantus than Vetsulin or Prozinc; that's my opinion though. It sounds like LB has gotten up to a pretty high dose; have you already researched on acromegaly and other insulin resistance conditions?

Where are you located, in the US or elsewhere?

How much does LB weigh now.... he has lost 8lbs? That's alot of weight! The haunches problem.... have you considered diabetic neuropathy? It's pretty common and B12 usually helps a great deal.

You mentioned LB's blood sugar remained high; are you home testing? If so, would you be able to provide some of you BG numbers?

ETA: sorry I just noticed your location.

I also wanted to comment on the feeding you mentioned. The raw diet is the best but for diabetics, you will see more even BG through the day if you feed small amounts more frequently. Feeding twice a day will more than likely cause a couple spikes in numbers.
 
I feed them both the raw diet because it's easier than trying to keep the diabetic out of other food. We just completely illiminated dry food in our house. LB is very resourceful. One time he hid an entire bag of hot dog buns and it took us two days to figure out why he was spiking.

We loved the Vetsulin, we had great control on it. The Prozinc was horible. Lantus is the best option now as we are all out of Vetsulin and I had a long talk with the vet about Prozinc or Lantus, I opted for the later.

We are starting LB at 1.5 to 2 on the Lantus and will be doing a glucose curve to see how he responds. As my post said, that was the Prozinc that we D/C use of over a year and a half ago. His most recent dosing was 2 Units on the Vetsulin with good even effect.

Location North Carolina.

LB was overweight at 19-20 pounds three months before he was diagnosed in 10' and weighed in at diagnosis time at about 12 lb. He has maintained that weight since we placed him on the raw food diet.

The haunches "problem" was resolved about a month after we swapped to the vetsulin and his sugar came under control in June 10'. I'm pretty familiar with it. We considered B12 but since it completely resolved quickly there was no need to pursue the option.

I do home test. He runs an average of 50-150 which I'm very happy with, that is a good range for him. I'm working on the spread sheet and I don't have access to the most current numbers now but plan on getting them up in about a month.

Feeding twice daily is what we can consistently do. We felt that even though research does suggest that smaller meals throughout the day work for many diabetic cats, the consistency with ours was more important to his health. We haven't had too bad a problem with spiking. At most we can see spikes to around 170 or 200 occasionally.

My appologies, it appears as if my first post was not overly clear. Here is the original time line. LB is actually stable right now, we are simply switching him from the Vetsulin to the Lantus:
Feb 10: noted increased urination, increased water intake, increased food intake, decreased weight, increased lethargy, difficulty getting up stairs and overall haunch neuropathy.
March 10: Dx, placed on Prozinc with poor effect. hit 7 units with no change
June 10: changed to vetsulin, sugars within normal limits within 2 months, down to 3 unit b.i.d. with good effect, home testing consistently
Aug 10: switch to completely raw food diet, saw more consistent BG and reduced Vetsulin to 1 unit b.i.d. 3 oz raw meat b.i.d.
Feb 11: placed on critical needs list for vetsulin, short span of prozinc but returned to vetsulin relatively quickly, moved up to 2 units for dosing BG remain between 50 and 150 with occasional spikes to 200-250
July 11: new vet initiated since the first one was a moron and we had to do most of the research. They got really pushy about dry food as well. New vet is very supportive of raw meet diet and home testing.
March 12: out of vetsulin, no longer available, switching to lantus per new vet. No numbers yet.

Hope that clears it up.
 
Sounds good; I am glad you switched over to Lantus; it's longer lasting and with the shed, you will see some nice overlap.

For the feeding, you could consider using auto feeders; many people here have found them very helpful in leveling out the numbers and feeding when they are not home. The most popular feeder is the Petsafe 5-compartment feeder. I found mine a great help for Shadoe, and others use the feeder for doling out timely healthy snacks. As well, some cats have big drops upfront of their curves, so the feeder is a good way to give out mini meals, maybe 1tsp food, once an hour to slow down the big drop.... the bigger the drops the bigger the bounces.

I don't know what meter you are using for testing, but stay away from the Free Style meters as they have given several people some artificial readings, showing always in the mid 200s. The Relion is about the best as the test strips are most economical.

Best of luck on your curves and will watch and hope for a nice smooth future on Lantus.

ETA: I did not have neuropathy issues with my two, but I did find that the weekly B12 shots resolved almost all of Shadoe's frequent pancreatitis issues. B12's great for inflammation, among other things.
 
Auto-feeders were something we considered but with the lifespan of refrigerated raw meet I didn't feel it was a risk i was prepared to take. I won't give them dry food as it absolutely causes sugar spikes.

I've been using the reli-on since I started testing, about 1.8 years now. It's consistent with my vet's meter which is what I find is the most important factor.

LB hasn't had pancreatic issues so I'm not sure about the B12 shots but I do add vitamin supplements, including Vit B to their food when it's made. I will keep it in mine in the event that he develops issues with that though. Thanks
 
Many of the auto feeders have an ice-block thing in them so they keep the food cool. Alternatively you can freeze some food and put it out frozen ready to be eaten when it defrosts. Also cats have a short digestive tract so freshness isn't as much of a concern as it would be for a human.
 
LOL, I have a gorger... We tried to see if he would stop one time when he was full and he just kept eating till we stopped putting food down. He would puke the food up and then eat it after a minute and then beg for more. Though it's a thought.
 
Hi guys ... we initially started mocha out on vetsulin as well .. but got her off that in just a few short months .. she spent 22 months on lantus and is celebrating one year OFF the juice today! I hope you make your way over to the lantus forum, you'll find so much information there, and someone is always bound to have an answer to any question you may think of!
 
My Bandit is also a gorger (I can so sympathize with the eat/puke/eat scenario)..and I worked 12 hr days so I couldn't be home to feed every 6 hrs. So what I did was freeze a portion of his food, and put it in the auto feeder. Then you can set the feeder to release the food in 6 hrs, so that you can feed 4 times a day instead of two. My Gabby has passed away since Bandit was on Lantus, but I had two feeders (one for each cat). I always feed them at opposite ends of the kitchen for every meal, so when I set the feeders I put them in their spots and they'd each run to their own feeder.

The raw food should be good for at least 6 hrs if left to thaw in the feeder (probably more than that). Canned food is good to be left out for up to 12 if frozen. I wish I had time to make raw food (maybe I finally will once I'm done grad school in a couple months), so right now Bandit eats low carb varieties of Merrick's canned.

These are the feeders I have because Bandit has a history of ripping apart other auto feeders and they're really solid, but a lot of people have this feeder and really like it. I had that one, too, and it was much quieter than the one I have, but unfortunately my cat thinks he's a raccoon and decided to rip it apart. :roll:
 
To complicate matters more, i have a second non-diabetic cat. My diabetic will bully him out of his food so feeding has to be observed. I could put the second one on the counter but for now we are just doing 12 hour feedings... the 6 hours are a possibility but not till i get home as i'm currently working and not home for another 3 weeks.
 
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