My Vet

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Bobbie And Bubba

Bobbie And Bubba

Member Since 2015
Tonight I was thinking about something my vet said to me when I took Bubba home with insulin. " If he's losing weight, you're not feeding him enough, if he's gaining weight, you are feeding him too much". After reading a lot about feline diabetes, it seems to me that the cats can lose weight when uncontrolled despite how much they eat. Correct? I'm wondering if I have the right vet for a diabetic cat....... feedback please.
 
Bobbie And Bubba said:
cats can lose weight when uncontrolled despite how much they eat. Correct?
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Correct...when our kitties are first diagnosed, they're literally starving to death because without insulin, the cells can't get the glucose they need to live, so no matter how much the cat eats, the food can't get into the cells.

Think of insulin as a "key"...it opens the "door" to the cells to let the glucose in....without that "key", the glucose can't get in and the cells starve

Once your cat is on insulin and getting better regulated, then it's more important to watch how much they eat. You want them to gain until they're at their "Ideal" weight, and then you decrease the food so they don't gain too much. Weighing once a week (you can use a regular bathroom scale if you don't have a baby or pet scale) will help keep track of how much they're gaining/losing. Just step on the scale, then pick up the cat and do the math
 
Thanks Chris, that is a great description of what is happening with our felines. With all that said, what do you think about the vet comment. It just replayed in my mind this evening and I sorta said to myself, " What"???? Bubba hasn't had a curve done yet. I want to do it at home because he will be too stressed at the vet's and not eat for them so it won't be accurate. I am in the process of reading up on it to do it in another week as he will be on insulin for 2 weeks at that point. This week he has been all over the place from his lowest at 221 and his highest at 455 yesterday. The highest one was after I did a "fur shot" the day before and was too afraid to give him a full unit and only gave him 1/2 unit. I was wondering if that could have goofed him up. Before that happened, the day before was his two lowest, 221 and 281. Could I get away with a mini curve for now? I am still trying to get comfortable with the testing. The insulin part I have down.
 
It'll really help if you'll add some information into your signature as well as start our spreadsheet program to keep track of his test numbers. If you look below in our signature line you'll see lots of information that I'd need to ask you about anyway before responding, like what food he's eating, what insulin he's on, when he was diagnosed, when he was started on insulin, etc.

Our spreadsheet program is also a VERY valuable tool no matter which insulin you're using. It helps us to identify the patterns we're looking for when making suggestions on dose increases. Here's some instructions on "How to create our spreadsheet" but if you have trouble with it, let us know. Someone can set it up for you and then transfer it to you

As for furshots, it sounds like you might have shot Bubba again after you thought you gave the furshot? Don't ever do that since there's no way to know how much might have actually gotten in. We've seen it happen 1000 times when someone was sure they gave a furshot, and later in the cycle, their cat earned a reduction in dose so don't ever assume they didn't get the whole shot.

The sad fact about your vet is that he's like pretty much every other vet out there...he's not up to date on the latest treatment for feline diabetes. It may not really be his fault though....Vets just don't have the time to stay up to date on the latest treatments for every disease in every type of animal they see. If they tried, they'd never have time to actually see patients! Another very sad fact is that they get less than a day's worth of teaching in nutrition in school, so most of the "continuing education" they get is from Hills food salesmen (who of course are going to tell them how great their food is so they'll buy more...and the vet then pushes it on his clients because he believes what he's told....and makes a nice profit on it too!)

Most of us don't see our vets for anything other than routine checkups/vaccinations and when there's something new that needs to be diagnosed. We listen to the people here on dose increases/reductions because the people here have more real life experience with diabetic cats than any vet out there. Most vets won't see a handful of diabetic cats in their entire career. The advice of the people here on this message board has saved many cats lives, as well as getting them as healthy as possible ...and we've had a lot of kitties go OTJ too!! (OTJ=Off The Juice)
 
Thanks so much Chris and for providing the link on "how to set up the spread sheet. I looked at one and was totally lost. Also, I need to know how to add the info to my signature. It makes sense now why everyone has that information available to all the members. This group is awesome!!!
 
Upper right hand corner, click on your name. A menu will drop down with multiple things. Look for Signature, then click on that. It will take you to a page where you can add anything you want to your signature.
 
Look at the top right side of the page for your name (Bobbie And Bubba) and click on it....a bunch of choices come up, one of which is "Signature"...click there and a new box will show up (looks kind of like the one here) for you to enter the info into

You're limited to 3 lines, but the lines can have more than one piece of information in it

On the spreadsheet... It's really not hard!

AMPS is the AM Pre-shot test (always test before shooting to make sure they're high enough to give insulin)...then the U column is for "Units" (how much you gave)

The +1, +2, +3, etc are for how many hours since shooting...so +2 is 2 hours after the AM shot, +9 is 9 hour after, etc.....Since we're all over the world here, saying "he was at 148 at 8pm" doesn't tell us anything...we need to know how long since his last shot

At the end of a 12 hour cycle, it's PMPS time! (PM Pre-shot) and the whole thing starts over
 
Editing your Signature

In the upper right corner of the screen, within the dark blue bar, you will see ID, Inbox, and Alerts

Click on your ID.

On the left, under Settings, Click on Signature.
This is where you will put information that helps us give you feedback.
This is where you paste the link for your spreadsheet, once it is set up.
Add any other text, such as
your name,
cat's name,
date of Dx (diagnosis)
insulin
meter
general location
any other pertinent issues like if there are any food issues, history of DKA, hepatic lipidosis, pancreatitis, allergies, IBD, etc.
Click the Save Changes button at the bottom.

Always click the Save Changes button at the bottom when you have changed anything.
 
If you want, I can set up your spreadsheet for you. Click on my name and "start a conversation"

IMHO, I wouldn't give up on your vet. They prescribed a good insulin and a good starting dose.
 
Thanks so much everyone! Yes, I would love help setting up the spreadsheet, Sue!! Later tonight I will start a conversation with you, or at least try to. I had started one with BJM and didn't know how I did it. He helped me get into the main forum. I am so illiterate with all this message board stuff. What is IMHO ?
 
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