new diabetic diagnosed 10/5

Status
Not open for further replies.
A

alexandratyler

New Member
Just wanted to write and say hi my 6 yr old cat Presley was just recently diagnosed with diabetes and this was so heart breaking for me until i found this site and made me realize that a lot of cats out there have diabetes and thrive .Presley is doing a lot better since his initial diagnoses his numbers have dropped and showing progress

I do have one question
Presley was always a dry food cat and is starting the transition to wet and his bowel movement have changed yesterday when we got home from the vet he had diarrhea and as of today it is more of a loose bowel .i am monitoring his water intake to make sure he isn't dehydrated . is this normal for a cat being introduced to wet food ???
 
Yes, this is normal. Just keep an eye on things, but they should normalize in a few days. I don't know if anyone has mentioned to you, but it's a good idea to add some water to the wet food. Cats don't have a big thirst drive so this will keep their urinary tract system in good condition.
 
FortiFlora helps with diarrhea, if you find you need it. You can usually buy it at your vet's office of online.
 
Welcome Presley,
I just wanted to say welcome and to let you know that you have found the BEST PLACE to be for your Presley boy!
What insulin are you using and how much? I would assume that you are feeding the low carb wet food.
Are you home testing for the bg's yet? This can be done very very cheaply when you purchase a meter/test strips/syringes/lancets from walmart. That is probably one of the most important things for you to do for your Presley.
Again, welcome and many paw hugs to you both! ;-)
 
Thank you so much for your help

We haven't started testing his bg's at home yet . He is currently on 2 units of humuline nph we go back on Saturday and test him and see how he is handling the 2 units and see if we are going to take him up too 3 units .

Presley's system has finally adjust well to the wet food (fancy feast) and he is loving it
 
We did not use the insulin you are using, but I did start hometesting right away. You really should do this - it's not too hard.
Think of it this way - if you were diabetic, you'd want to test your self before giving the insulin to your self, to make sure you needed it, right? I have several friends/co-workers and a family member who are diabetic and they always test themselves. I still test Cedric even though he's in remission, although I am not great about updating his spsh (below). I bought my meter at Wal-Mart, it's a relion micro and was $9. 50 stirips are $20. Worth it, as when I took Cedric's dry food away back in May, his numbers dropped 100 points! Two days later they were normal. If I hadn't been home testing, he would have hypo'd/overdosed.

and it's better on your pocketbook to hometest. :smile: My vet is 20 miles away and Cedric HATES going there. Although he didn't have a problem when he stayed there in May, as I gave the vet techs his "love glove" and he loved them!
 
Welcome to the FDMB Family.

Glad to hear you have transistioned your sweet Presley to Fancy Feast, but please be aware that not all Fancy Feast is created equally when you are talking about a diabetic cat, hopefully he is eating only the Classic ones, they should be pate style, you want to stay away from anything that is in gravy or grilled as those can be too high in carbs for Presley now.

Also NPH isn't the best insulin in the world for cats, definitely wouldn't be either my first or even second choice. The better insulins for cats are Lantus, Levermir and PZI. These are much longer lasting insulins and give you a much gentler curve. The problem with NPH is that it is a very rapid acting and short lived insulin. It hits very hard and wears off very quickly as cats metabolize insulin twice as fast as either humans or dogs...Yeah I know hard to believe that any creature that sleeps for 16 hours a day could go through insulin that quickly but they do. :-D

Also now that you have got him off the dry food, you really need to be watching his BGs at home so that you know he is high enough to safely give insulin to, many cats once the dry food is removed from their diets will drop over 100 pts. My Maxwell was that way, when he was diagnoised as a diabetic his bloodsugar was 485, switched his diet to low carb/high protein canned food and 2 weeks later he was in remission and off insulin altogether, where he remains to this day and on the first of next month he will have been insulin free for a year. Luckily for me I was already testing him at home so I caught that he was ready to go down in dose and then finally off insulin quickly. I say luckily because you see I adopted Maxwell as a diabetic, so I didn't have a long history with him to clue me into the subtle signs that he might be going to low on his current dose.

Mel, Maxwell, Musette & The Fur Gang
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top