new diabetic dx and he is my emotional support animal.

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smokey&Molly

Member Since 2013
Hi my name is Molly.

I am a Christian and I am also disabled. I have a 7 year old male cat named Smokey who is my emotional support animal.

Smokey was adopted to help me about 5 years ago. He has been in excellent health. Suddenly he got diabetes and now I am trying to treat him. He got dangerously low sugar and did not do well on the shots we first tried. i switched him over to the high protein low carb wet diet and he seemed to be doing great! He got new food after being hypoG last sunday after one insulin shot at home. In just two days he seemed like a new cat. The vet has me just wait to see how he was on food. he seemed great! I thought he might be in remission since he just got the condition recently and was not sick that long. His blood reading was 400 at the vet prior to insulin.

This thurs and friday he seems a little slow and didn't seem as happy and playful as he suddenly was the first few days on the new food. He seemed a little dehydrated on friday and I was worried.

I got a home test kit but waited until friday to test because he was seeming great for the first three days and he gets very angry about being messed with in certain situations. My vet said I need to test him. It was awful and the cat was hissing, mad and fiercly trying to get away.I pricked him four times and finally got blood. his reading one and 1/2 hours after food was 262. The vet said that wasn't bad considering. I cried off and on that night because I hurt the cat and and am worried that the trust he has for me will be broken. He has some problems with trust due to his background as a rescue who had a hard start in life. He is an emotional support animal, but I have had to work on him and help heal him in the trust department and he's improved, but he's not like my last emotional support kitty.But Just having him here is nice and it helps me a lot and he supports me. I am very bonded to the kitty and don't want to lose him. But he's not a calm and docile cat all the time. he is aggressive and outgoing just naturally which if he's mad can turn to him getting really mad. But when he's fine he's just an outgoing male cat that is dominant. He has liked to be carried and is nice when feeding, allows petting in certain ways and he's a smart boy that likes living here. We know he loves his home and he misses us if we are gone very long.

Being disabled this has been very hard for me emotionally. Everything from the shock, to the high vet bills, to the ups and downs and now the problems with trying to test his ears when he is upset.

I watched lots of videos online so I knew what to do, but I still didn't know if you hit the vein or not on the ear. I later assumed you hit the vein. I read today you DO NOT hit the vein. Also the lacet when through the ear like a piercing. I didn't know if that was how deep you went or not. He got two piercings in his ear today which I feel terrible about. I had a friend help me and it was better. We got enough blood on the first one, but the meter was not set up correctly so I got an error message. I tried a second time and could not get enough blood. I did not get a reading and since the cat seemed super good again this morning just on food and water. i am not doing it again today because both ears about got it in the last 24 hours and he was hiding from me and not wanting to be bothered. He was also petty and seemed to be feeling good so I will test in again in a few days I guess. I wish i could safely do it as often as other people but my cat might be too emotionally effected if I do it too much. He might become mean if you even try to pet him, which was how he was acting today.

Testing right now is the part that is hard. He's not calm when i do it and I didn't have the testing kit understood, but I thought I did. I have concerns about my cats relationship with me and its very sad he seems like he doesnt want me to touch him. He was already sensitive. Any help on making testing better would be welcomed. Thanks for reading this. Molly and Smokey
 
Take a deep breath. We can help. First, are you warming his ear? That makes a big difference at the beginning by helping the capillaries fill up with blood. (you can use the vein at first but it is better to try for the smaller capillaries that come off the vein to the edge of the ear.). Heat his ear with a rice sack(thin sock filled with raw rice and heated till very warm in the microwave) or a pill bottle filled with very warm water. Also, give him lots of love and a treat after each try, successful or not. Then he will learn to associate pleasure with the poke. Do you have something behind his ear to poke against? Some people use a folded kleenix. I liked a small makeup sponge. Also hold the ear for a few seconds after the poke to minimize brusing and put on a tiny smear of neosporin with pain relief.

Getting tests at home is the best thing you can do to help him so congrats on the tries and the successful test!

What food? What kind of insulin and dose? (or are you off insulin for right now?)
 
smokey&Molly said:
Hi my name is Molly.

I am a Christian and I am also disabled. I have a 7 year old male cat named Smokey who is my emotional support animal.

Smokey was adopted to help me about 5 years ago. He has been in excellent health. Suddenly he got diabetes and now I am trying to treat him. He got dangerously low sugar and did not do well on the shots we first tried. i switched him over to the high protein low carb wet diet and he seemed to be doing great! He got new food after being hypoG last sunday after one insulin shot at home. In just two days he seemed like a new cat. The vet has me just wait to see how he was on food. he seemed great! I thought he might be in remission since he just got the condition recently and was not sick that long. His blood reading was 400 at the vet prior to insulin.

This thurs and friday he seems a little slow and didn't seem as happy and playful as he suddenly was the first few days on the new food. He seemed a little dehydrated on friday and I was worried.

I got a home test kit but waited until friday to test because he was seeming great for the first three days and he gets very angry about being messed with in certain situations. My vet said I need to test him. It was awful and the cat was hissing, mad and fiercly trying to get away.I pricked him four times and finally got blood. his reading one and 1/2 hours after food was 262. The vet said that wasn't bad considering. I cried off and on that night because I hurt the cat and and am worried that the trust he has for me will be broken. He has some problems with trust due to his background as a rescue who had a hard start in life. He is an emotional support animal, but I have had to work on him and help heal him in the trust department and he's improved, but he's not like my last emotional support kitty.But Just having him here is nice and it helps me a lot and he supports me. I am very bonded to the kitty and don't want to lose him. But he's not a calm and docile cat all the time. he is aggressive and outgoing just naturally which if he's mad can turn to him getting really mad. But when he's fine he's just an outgoing male cat that is dominant. He has liked to be carried and is nice when feeding, allows petting in certain ways and he's a smart boy that likes living here. We know he loves his home and he misses us if we are gone very long.

Being disabled this has been very hard for me emotionally. Everything from the shock, to the high vet bills, to the ups and downs and now the problems with trying to test his ears when he is upset.

I watched lots of videos online so I knew what to do, but I still didn't know if you hit the vein or not on the ear. I later assumed you hit the vein. I read today you DO NOT hit the vein. Also the lacet when through the ear like a piercing. I didn't know if that was how deep you went or not. He got two piercings in his ear today which I feel terrible about. I had a friend help me and it was better. We got enough blood on the first one, but the meter was not set up correctly so I got an error message. I tried a second time and could not get enough blood. I did not get a reading and since the cat seemed super good again this morning just on food and water. i am not doing it again today because both ears about got it in the last 24 hours and he was hiding from me and not wanting to be bothered. He was also petty and seemed to be feeling good so I will test in again in a few days I guess. I wish i could safely do it as often as other people but my cat might be too emotionally effected if I do it too much. He might become mean if you even try to pet him, which was how he was acting today.

Testing right now is the part that is hard. He's not calm when i do it and I didn't have the testing kit understood, but I thought I did. I have concerns about my cats relationship with me and its very sad he seems like he doesnt want me to touch him. He was already sensitive. Any help on making testing better would be welcomed. Thanks for reading this. Molly and Smokey
Click to expand...

Hi Molly,
Welcome to the site.
Let me first tell you that however close you were to Smokey before, you are about to become even closer.
Just as he has helped you over the years, you are now able to help him and it will be so rewarding for you to see him get better and for him to show his appreciation to you for caring so well for him.

Now, the testing is pretty important because that's the way you can tell if the number is too low to give a shot, and if he is getting close to need less or no insulin.
as you change the diet, he will get better and may become DIET CONTROLLED.
You can pick more economical foods to help with costs, just stick to under 10% carbs, using Dr. Lisa's food list.
catinfo.org/docs/FoodChartPublic9-22-12.pdf

Many people feed the pates of Friskies and Fancy Feast but you can pick any of the foods on the above list.

What insulin are you giving and what dose? It sounds like the dose was too high for you to experience a hypo on the first shot.

For the testing, you don't need to hit the vein as you will have blood all over, rather aim for along the very edge of the ear to get a small drop.
What BG Test meter do you have? The freestyle meters are not good for cats... many people found the freestyle meters' butterfly test strips gave lots of falsely low numbers.
Also, you do NOT need to take your cat to the vet for curves because most cats get stressed, their numbers are falsely high, vet tests and tells you to give a dose based on the high numbers, but you come home, cat relaxes, numbers come down, you give the dose vet said, cat hypos.

There are many people here who can help to guide you in the aspects of feline diabetes, so please do ask all the questions you like.

Gayle
 
Hi Molly! First, BIG HUG! Next....breathe! Diabetes is an OK thing compared to lots of other stuff! It's not hard to handle, it's just different. You aren't going to make him mean, you aren't going to drive him away. Yep, it might be a fuss for a few days but even THAT will stop! None of us started with the 'perfect kitty'...we ALL had to learn it together. If you keep testing, you'll feel more comfortable, kitty will figure out you're not killing him, you'll fine-tune your dance and quit stepping on each other's toes. You've already got the dance started, now it's just 'practice' for a bit.

It doesn't hurt if you hit the vein, it just bleeds a lot more than needed - if you do, just hold a tissue on it for a few extra seconds...veins take a bit more time to stop.

If you don't understand how the meter works, use it on yourself. It's just a pokie with the lance creating a 'bubble' of blood and letting the strip sip it. I still get errors sometimes, I've been doing this for 2.5 years so don't feel bad. I DO find I have a lot less errors if I use my ReliOn Confirm meter rather than the Beyer Contour I'm using right now.

ANOTHER BIG HUG!
 
Hello and welcome to the board

here are some testing tips that might help https://docs.google.com/document/d/13c_CPZVKz27fD_6aVbsguadJKvjSrSAkD7flgPPhEag/pub

However my cat Tiggy sounds very like Smokey and heres what I found works best for him. First i spent a few days practicing testing, without poking. So I would rub his ears when he was lying comfortably. I dont restraining him at all. and then give him a treat. I did that 4-5 times a day. Then I would repeat but having the test kit sitting beside me and making noises with it so he would get used to it. Then I would test after he was totally comfortable with all that. Always giving the treat.

Also I don't use the lancet tool as its too noisy and he didn't like the click by his ear, i just freehand it.

You said he had a hypo? What insulin was it and what dose?

Wendy
 
Dear Wendy.

I am back on the board but don't really know how to use it.

I have started my cat smokey on lantus about 10 days ago and he seems to be doing well on it. But I am alone with him for 7 days. I am having a little bit of a hard time because of my disabilty and stress causes me to have more problems.

I live with a friend and he helped me do a curve on smokey, but I don't know if I will need some help in the next 7 days holding smokey if I have to do more tests. I was wondering if there are people in my area who might help. I dont know if there is a way to connect with people who live in my area or not.

I don't really understand how this board works and being alone for the 7 days with the cat is worrying me. He also suddenly got asthma attacks and I think triggered by new cat litter and all the stores were close on christmas night when I found out it was probably the cat litter with all the scent in it. I had to get rid of all the cat litter but no stores were open to get him new litter. The breathing the old stuff was making him have problems with breathing. It was awful. I went on youtube and found a way to make cat litter out of shredded paper and he is using that. the vet gave me a pill for the asthma prior to christma but never even mentioned anything about the litter causing probs. But if you go online its the first thing they talk about with the cats is check the litter, so on top of smokey being here alone with me with the insulin and stuff and not liking his treatment I had a litter box emergency when all the stores were closed! Thank goodness for youtube and nice people who post things on there.

Because I am on disablity, I can't afford to hire someone to come and help me hold him if I have to do a curve or something this week. Now the vet is talking about more testing and things for his breathing and it's just stressful for me being disabled. The finances and the needs for testing him at home which he doesn't like but allowed with help and just being so sad he has suddenly gotten all these health problems at once.

I posted a long message before about waiting on insulin and now I don't see if on the board. can you help me figure out how to use this board? Thanks for any help you can give me.

Molly
 
Hi Molly and Smokey. It sounds like you really love your cat and are trying your best to help him.
We can help you to get used to the board. Just ask ;-)
If you like you can Edit the Subject Line in your first post to say something like "Anyone live near Chicago?" or something like that, and then press the Submit button. That should draw people's attention who might live near you, that can help you to learn to test Smokey with your disability. Are you giving him special treats, "good boys" cat_pet_icon , and extra love after each and every test whether successful or not?
 
Molly,

I use unscented cat litter as I have read that the scented is the worse for them when they have breathing problems. Also I have read the scented can cause breathing problems. So maybe you can find some cheap unscented litter, I know Big Lots carries a cheap brand of unscented litter.

Terri
 
Can you try testing him without holding him? Maybe wait till he is snoozing and do it then? Go over, rub his ears and test? You could also get him used to it by repeatedly going over, rubbing the ears and giving a treat without testing for a few days. Then move to testing when he isn't bothered.

Wendy
 
I can't give you any advice but I can send a big virtual hug and let you know that the people here are very very helpful. They are right about getting closer. My sugarcat was my son's cat almost totally before this and now she climbs in my lap for loving almost as much as his. She hated the testing at first too till she figured out it meant extra chin scratches so now she comes to me when I call.
 
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