Mooch - intro

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Lisa & Mary

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Mooch is a 10 year old cat that I've just started fostering for Diabetic Cats in Need. He was diagnosed a couple of weeks ago but his family was having major financial problems, are losing their house and were already trying to find new homes for all their pets. His owner wasn't able to test his glucose at home and was having trouble getting him all his shots and contacted DCIN for help. I picked him up yesterday and started testing his blood glucose and will make sure he gets his insulin shots. He's a sweet friendly cat and pretty easy to treat so far.
 
Re: Mooch - new to Lantus

Hello Mooch and carer

You may find that the best place for you and Mooch is in one of the lantus forums. You will be able to get all the advice you need there about lantus including dosing. Do you know what protocol you will be following yet?

Have you fostered diabetics before? Do you know what to feed etc?

Also you haven't shared Mooch's ss so people will not be able to access it. There's a button in the ss to allow sharing on the top RHS.
 
I think I fixed the spreadsheet so everyone can read it now.

Mooch is currently on EVO dry until I can find wet he'll eat. Finally had some luck with Royal Canin baby Cat kitten food with catnip mixed in it. I've removed the dry again so hopefully he'll eat this one and wasn't just licking off the cat nip.

I'll have to check the difference between tight/loose Lantus to see which thread to post in :?:
 
If you post in the tight forum, you will need to put things like feeding dry food, and foster for DCIN into your signature so that people will stop telling you that you need to switch to wet. They are also pretty strict on the amount of testing you will be doing.

I think you should just read some postings in both forums and get a feel for each, then decide which one you like better. The relaxed may not have as many people there, but it's not dead... the relaxed is very good for off the beaten path situations, and nobody is going to push you to change what you can't.

Either way, be sure to put the dry food and fostering into your signature so wherever you post, the people in that forum will know.

Just out of curiosity, what wet foods have you tried so far?
 
One important thing to consider as well is that the 84% remission rate associated with Lantus is only when tight regulation is followed. Since there is a window on remission, I would suggest trying to do TR to the best of your ability before choosing an alternate dosing plan. If you can get three tests a day and a curve once a week, you can do TR.
 
I should be able to do 3 tests a day until he's stablised. So far he's tried EVO wet, a couple Friskies flavours and a couple of Fancy Feast flavors and no interest in any of them. I got a can of kitten food (Royal Canin Baby Cat) as I know that is generallly higher protein/fat and tastier for cats and added some cat nip. He has eaten some of that so I picked up some more brands of kitten food and will hopefully be able to use that to switch him over to wet.
 
Hello Mooch and Lisa!
It's me Jennifer (miso00 is my Lantus Land user name). Mikey and I were in LL (Lantus Land) Tight Regulation. Lisa, I know you have a good background with feline Diabetes and I hope that you will venture over to LL.

One important thing to consider as well is that the 84% remission rate associated with Lantus is only when tight regulation is followed. Since there is a window on remission, I would suggest trying to do TR to the best of your ability before choosing an alternate dosing plan. If you can get three tests a day and a curve once a week, you can do TR.

As Julia stated LL has a great remission rate and with your knowledge (and if Mooch cooperates and stops eating dry food :-D ) I think he has a really good chance of remission. There might be some things they ask you to do that are not what you are used to but trust me, they know they're stuff and I think it will be very interesting for you as well.

Glad to see you here!
:-D
Jenn
 
Hi Jenn! I took a look at the Lantus thread and will start posting there. The kitten food + capnip seems to be helping as Mooch has eaten some wet this afternoon. I've bought a few different kitten foods for him to try and hopefully that'll be enough to make the switch to wet. He's liked both the Royal Canin Baby Cat and the Science Diet Kitten ones and I've taken away the dry now. I took his evening Lantus dose back down to 1 unit because of the food change. Mooch is very mellow and purry and enjoying the freeze dried liver/turkey treats he gets after the blood tests, Lisa
 
Mooch said:
Hi Jenn! I took a look at the Lantus thread and will start posting there. The kitten food + capnip seems to be helping as Mooch has eaten some wet this afternoon. I've bought a few different kitten foods for him to try and hopefully that'll be enough to make the switch to wet. He's liked both the Royal Canin Baby Cat and the Science Diet Kitten ones and I've taken away the dry now. I took his evening Lantus dose back down to 1 unit because of the food change. Mooch is very mellow and purry and enjoying the freeze dried liver/turkey treats he gets after the blood tests, Lisa

Cutting the dose back is great--exactly what you want to do with a diet change! What science diet kitten flavors are you feeding? As far as I know, all of the science diet canned foods, even the kitten ones, are too high in carbs because they all either contain corn, wheat, or soy as fillers. You want to avoid these ingredients because they will raise blood glucose levels, and they just aren't good for cats. (This is a great page: http://catinfo.org/#Learn_How_To_Read_a_Pet_Food_Ingredient_Label). In my opinion, Hills foods (both Science Diet and Prescription Diets) are really overpriced and not very good quality--they have really cheap ingredients. The Royal Canin Baby Cat is also likely high in carbs because it contains rice flour and corn starch--two ingredients that will raise blood sugar levels.

However, there is a TON of canned food options for you. Here's a link to the cat food nutrition charts: http://felinediabetes.com/diabetic-cat-diets.htm. You just need something under 10% carbs. Fancy Feast is pretty popular here, because it's a good mid-grade food, easy to find, and cats seem to love it. Special Kitty, Sophistacat/Grrreat Choice and Friskies all have low carb options that are less pricy than the Hills and Royal Canin and much better for your cat. Here's another food chart with premium foods if you want to go that route: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8Uu8g1u8Su9YTgxNGE1MDItM2MyMC00Y2Y3LWI4ODMtMzhkYTkxOGM4NThk/edit.
 
None of the food charts include the kitten foods but you're right that all the adult Science Diet foods have high carbs and the ingredients look similar so it looks like I managed to find a wet food that actually has twice the carbs of the EVO dry :roll:

I'll pick through the other ones and compare them to the equivalent adult foods to get rid of the high carb ones. He won't eat the food on its own but will eat some if I mix in cat nip so I'll also try again with some of the adult foods I got.
 
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