Looking for a home for a year old kitty with diabetes

[Amber Phillips]

Our cat Miso is super affectionate. She loves to cuddle and is super easy going. She loves to be held and is easy to manage in terms of giving her meds or clipping her nails. She gets along with other animals; however her health condition is more than we can manage.

Background:
My husband and I adopted a little kitten who was born outside in the streets of Philadelphia last spring. She was the runt of her litter and has always been a little "sickly". When we first got her she had a cold, and then an eye infection, then a urinary tract infection, and finally she was given a clean bill of health and were able to arrange to have her fixed. Just before her scheduled surgery however, she began to pee in all sorts of unfortunate locations (every cushion of the couch, our bed, corners of the house, on top of papers). We thought she might be "marking" as she had not been fixed yet. But when we took her to the vet they ran some blood tests and told us she couldn't be fixed because her glucose levels were elevated. Further testing revealed she is diabetic. Although many cats develop diabetes, hers is the inherited type.

My husband and I are young adults. We recently bought our first home last year and are expecting our first baby this summer. Needless to say, this little kitty's vet bills have already cost us much more than we anticipated, not to manage the post traumatic stress/cost of cleaning replacing the things she has peed on. The diabetes diagnosis is the straw that broke the camels back for us. We do not want to take on the cost or time commitment of caring for this kitty. We frequently are away from our home and are accustom to leaving our cats in the care of family and friends for weeks at a time if need be.

We fear with her medical history she will not survive/find a home if we place her in a shelter here in Philly; not when free healthy kittens are being given away everyday. We are desperately searching for a kitty lover who is financially and otherwise stable enough to take on this kitty's care so that we do not have to send her to a shelter.

 

[Mum of two felines]

There is a facebook page for Diabetic Cats in Need that you can post on. Here is the link https://www.facebook.com/DiabeticCatsInNeed/

 

[Squeaky and KT (GA)]

Please do contact Diabetic Cats In Need with all this information. They'll help share her and her story to find that right home....

 

[BJM]

It is possible to reduce the costs of care for a diabetic cat by feeding over the counter food instead of vet 'prescription food', testing at home, instead of having the vet run curves, and possibly by ordering insulin from Canada if you want to use Lantus or Levemir - BCP PZI or ProZinc may be somewhat lower cost alternatives that can work quite effectively.

First, is she on insulin already? What glucose level did the vet tell you? Did she have ketones? Hepatic lipidosis? Any other medical conditions?
If not, over the counter, low carb food may be fed and may help reduce the glucose levels 100-180 mg/dL. And vet stress can raise the glucose nearly 200 mg/dL in many, many cats.
If already on insulin, you must be home testing with an inexpensive human glucometer so you can monitor how much the glucose drops when food is changed. The Target Up and Up and the Walmart Relion Confirm are 2 options that are pretty low cost.