New here, my cat was just diagnosed. Need advice.

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Isabel

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Hi,

My name is Isabel and our dear cat, a beautiful, only 4 years old tabby, Mackie was diagnosed with diabetes.
Last Thursday I dropped her off at the vet's office for a dental cleaning and possible extraction of some of her teeth, after some hours I received a call from the vet saying they were going to postpone the dental cleaning because it looked like she was diabetic and this, along with the asthma (she was diagnosed with it about 5 months ago) could be dangerous for her since they were going to put her under anesthesia. Long story short, she stayed at the vet that night and tested positive for diabetes.

Next day, we went to pick her up and after a bunch of questions we asked to the vet (we still felt lost), she sent us home with a prescription for glipizide and purina dm.
After spending most of the weekend reading almost every single website aboutfeline diabetes I came across this one and all the valuable information you guys have here, we decided to call the vet and ask to switch Mackie to insuline instead, this after reading the side effects glipizide could have and considering that there is a good chance that her diabetes was caused due to the asthma pills she was prescribed (Prednisone and Terbutaline)...this time we just didn't wanted to take a chance and "gamble" with our dear Mackie's health.

Now Mackie is on 1 unit of PZI (U40) insulin twice a day. I've tried to feed her the wet purina dm food but she just won't eat it. I tried mixing it with the dry version, didn't work, tried tuna, didn't work either... so she is just eating the dry food (purina dm). I also read about the glucose meter so I went and got her the ReliOn one and been testing her every day before each shoot and about 3 or 4 hours after too...her poor little ears are like a strainer now. Her numbers have been up and down between 227 and 400. I am so worried about our Mackie, this situation has hit us very hard and we are feeling very down because we can't stand seeing her lethargic, drinking lot of water and mostly with no energy... I am wondering if all of this is working and if we would be able to have our dear mackie back to normal...we love her so much...she has so much going on for such a young cat.

If any of you out there could give us an advice or comments on what we are doing our could do to help our Mackie, we would greatly appreciate it... as you can see, we feel very down and lost...

Thanks

Isabel
 
Hi Isabel, Welcome to the best place you never wanted to be. I'm not familiar with your particular insulin but there are many here that are, and they should be along shortly.

I know this can be very over whelming to start. But there is a wealth of information and years of experienced folks that will help you every step of the way.

There are a lot of cats that will turn their noses up at the prescription foods, so you aren't alone there. And truthfully they aren't that good for your fur-baby, and way over priced. Most of us here feed a wet low carb commerical foods like Fancy Feast. Friskies, or 9-lives. See Janet and Binky's lists http://www.felinediabetes.com/diabetic-cat-diets.htm

And you have already taken the first step to helping your baby....HOME TESTING!!!! Fantastic, welcome to the Vampire Club. :-D

Mel
 
Welcome :smile:

If your cat won't eat the Purina DM, then that's a good thing :smile: It's not a very good food for diabetic cats but vets push it because they know very little about nutrition. Plus it's expensive for a bunch of very poor quaitu ingredients (think junk food). Return the DM to the vet for a refund, just say your cat won't eat it. Then use the money to buy commercial canned food. Not all commerical canned foods are ideal for diabetics. You want to feed foods that have less than 10% carbs (low carb). To find out how much carbs are in canned food, use the famous food charts: http://binkyspage.tripod.com/canfood.html Look at the column for carbs and choose foods that have a number 10 or less in the carb column. Many people find it easiest to print out both charts, highlight the low carb ones, and bring the charts to the store so the can be sure to get the low carb foods. Which brand(s) to feed is up to you and your cat. Feed whatever brand(s) your cat likes to eat and you can afford. Fancy Feast is popular and most cats like that. You can start with that and experiment to see what other brands your cat likes and doesn't like.

Treats need to be low carb, too. Most big name commerical brands are too high carb and full of grains. Here's al ist of popular healthy treats: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=9172 Many can be found at the pet store, sometimes in the dog treat aisle, as well as online.

Great that you are trying to test :thumbup It can be frustrating at first but you'll get the hang of it. Here are tips: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=287 Warm ears bleed best so give your cat's ear a good warm up with a "rice sock" or something to get the blood flowing. If the ear just won't work, try the other ear (some cats only have one ear that will give blood) or try a paw pad.
 
Hi there and welcome.

You do not need to do the Rx diets/foods. They are often expensive and of mediocre ingredients. There are superior commercial options. DM kitties just need to be on a low carb wet food only diet. Low carb = less than 10% carbs as % Kcal. You can find many option in Janet & Binky's list. Ideally too you would like to find a food option that is grain free an have reasonable phosphorous levels, but that is not important to the management of DM. Unless your kitty has pancreatitis, than several of the Wellness flavors are good options - but there are plenty of other great options too out there - some Merrick flavors and many others too.

Please feel free to join us over in the PZI Insulin Support Group forum. There is a PZI Sticky at the top of that forum which is important reading.

Good work on the home testing! Get those results into a spreadsheet - instructions for this can be found in the Tech Support Forum. And a profile is helpful too. All this will help us help you better.

Hopefully, others will be along to offer more input.
 
Welcome Isabel and Mackie. You have already done a lot of your homework - congrats on getting insulin and testing at home!

Some kitties are resistant to changing to wet. This website by a vet has some great ideas for transitioning: http://www.catinfo.org and this website has ideas about getting your cat to eat: http://www.felinecrf.org/persuading_cat_to_eat.htm Many cats don't like the Purina because it is mainly liver. You can try lots of varieties of regular lo carb catfood- hopefully Mackie will agree to eat a few.

A tool that can be very helpful to you and your vet is a spreadsheet. It is color coded and it makes it very easy to see patterns. You might put your numbers in one and post it to see what people think: http://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=16

To minimize bruising, hold her ear for a few seconds after each poke. You can also use Neosporin to help.
 
Welcome Isabella and Mackie!
You are in the right place and kudo's for being ahead of the game by testing already and asking for insulin.
I can just add that at this time it would be nice to see some mid-shot #'s. I assume when you say the numbers fluctuate between 400 and 200 ish that those are pre-shot #'s in the morning and evening...am I wrong?
 
Welcome, Isabel (and Mackie, too!)...

I'm sure you will find some different varieties of low-carb wet food from Janet & Binky's food chart (link upthread) that Mackie will like, and that are much more economical than the food provided by the vet.

As for hometesting, I think all our cats had ears that looked like pin cushons when we first started...but we got better at testing, and so will you. Soon Mackie won't have pin cushon ears.

Most of us here use the longer lasting insulins like Lantus, Levemir, or PZI, so there will be alot of people available to help you regarding insulin.

Experience tells us that as soon as Mackie's BG levels improve, so will his cattitude and activity level. Right now, Mackie is just home from the vet's (a stressful experience), is getting poked in the ear, poked for insulin, and likely still has BG levels that are high. This is will change (a change to low-carb wet food alone will drop Mackie's BG level - some here have reported as much as 100 points) soon, and Mackie will be back to normal.

You will have many, many questions...please do not hesitate to post them as we are all here to help you help Mackie.
 
We all felt overwhelmed and lost, and our kitties all felt like pin cushions. After a time, the cats got better at bleeding, we stopped feeling like the world just tilted on it's axis, and the routine got established.

In my house, the routine is hysterical. Just about feeding time, either Eeyore or Esse will amble into the kitchen, hop onto the stepstool, and stare. I get the pokies done, and by the time they're both tested (about 3 minutes flat for both), the rest of the herd are waiting. All food gets put into dishes, and insulin drawn and injected. The two sugarcats don't even notice their shots any more, and literally line up for the test. Esse has been known to be purring even.

I have the two FDs, and it really only takes about 5 minutes twice a day, once they got into the routine.

As for feeding, I feed either Evo or Wellness. For my 10 (they all eat the same thing at the same time), it's less expensive to feed one big can of E or W rather than three cans of Friskies or 5 cans of Fancy feast at each feeding. There was a bit of a challenge getting them all transitioned, but they all did, and now don't even remember kibble.

You're in the right place, you're ahead of the game, and you and Mackie will be fine. Give yourself some ramp up time, and soon, you'll be handling all this without thinking twice.

Best-
Michele
 
Hi Isabel! Welcome!

You are obviously a great mom having spent the weekend researching and now posting here. You're going to do just fine and this is so very treatable.

You've already gotten great suggestions here. I second or third or 4th the suggestion on the lower carb wets. I returned all the prescription food my vet gave me after the suggestions I got here and the switch made a very big difference with Calliope. You do need to be careful when switching foods to the lower carbs since the switch can cause a nice drop in how the blood sugar runs. That's another reason to hometest. It's so important to know what's going on. It will give you SO MUCH peace of mind in addition to keeping your kitty safe and happy.

I wasn't a PZI user so I can't comment on the insulin, but there are other folks here using it who can help. Good move returning the glip!

Take a deep breath and know that you have friends here, now, who will help you help Mackie. You're already educating yourself and that's terrific. As time goes on, shooting, testing and feeding Mackie will become second nature sort of like brushing your teeth!
 
Thank you so much to everyone for your advices, we appreciate them a lot! All the links are awesome and very helpful readings, i am going one by one to make sure we are doing the right thing.
lori and tom said:
I assume when you say the numbers fluctuate between 400 and 200 ish that those are pre-shot #'s in the morning and evening...am I wrong?
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We've been testing her before the shots and usually I'll do it again about 4 hours later to se if the insulin is doing it's thing. Before the insulin she has been between the 300 and 390 and in between she sometimes is 218 to 320...is this ok considering she just started the insulin treatment? or should I be worried? I am not sure what the "Acceptable" averages are...I read somewhere that it should be anywhere between 100 and 200, is this correct?...if anybody has some insight about that, it would give me a little bit more peace of mind.

The vet hasn't been very helpful to be honest, we feel like we've leaned more on our own doing our research than what we were told at the vet's office. They basically just said "your cat has diabetes, here, watch this video (then left) about how to give her the insulin and then came back and asked "do you want to go with the pill or the shot?!" they didn't explain anything about this condition, how it works, what is going on or why, etc...nothing, just asked the pill or the shot and then said we would have to get the "special" food from them only. I even asked if the pill had any side effects that could cause her jet another disease down the road and she (vet) said no. We were and still are very disappointed at them and trying to figure out if we could find a vet that will know and most important, will communicate the important aspects of this...seems like they care more about the money making rather than really helping animals get better :YMSIGH:
 
Hi Isabel,

Now that you can hometest, you can learn what and how to do this on your own, since your vet is not much help. I would suggest you set up a spreadsheet: http://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=16 It's color coded and you can make it accessible to anyone here, so if you have a question about dosage, they can see your history at a glance.

I would say her numbers aren't too bad. With PZI, the nadir (lowest point in the cycle) is usually somewhere between 5-6 hours after you give the insulin. So, try getting that number along with your preshots. We usually suggest keeping the cat on the same dose for a week before considering a change, especially in the beginning, as it takes some kitties that long for their bodies to adjust to the insulin. Sometime in the next week, you could do a curve - that is, get a number every 2 hours or so. Or you can collect data with numbers throughout the day during the whole week and compile a curve that way also.

In general, we ask newbies not to shoot if the preshot number is 200 or under, because you just don't have the data yet and you can't be sure what the insulin will do.

Keep reading and asking questions. You are doing great!
 
You are doing great :) I know it is hard to see her look sick but she will improve.

I think it is section 7 of the faq that lists various stages of regulation. I think that the first 'goal' as far as numbers go is 300 at the highest and 100 at the lowest...100 keeping kitty in a 'safe' zone and not close to hypoglycemia. Then, as things stabilize and your cat developes a pretty consistent response to insulin, you can start bringing those numbers lower, and the curve 'flatter'. The lowest I would want a cat on insulin is 50-60, and the highest at shot time would be low 200s. But that is just a really rough idea, and every cat and every human is different.

I think my suggestion to you would be to
1. get consistent with blood glucose testing
2. get consistent with food and ditch the crappy DM dry :)
3. get consistent with urine testing for ketones
4. research other options for asthma treatment like the aerokat inhaler as this may help reduce the impact of the steroids

Get her stabilized so that she starts feeling better, then start tweaking her meds. And get her dental done once she's stabilized as better oral health will improve her 'regulation'.

Does this help?

Jen
 
Isabel said:
The vet hasn't been very helpful to be honest, we feel like we've leaned more on our own doing our research than what we were told at the vet's office. They basically just said "your cat has diabetes, here, watch this video (then left) about how to give her the insulin and then came back and asked "do you want to go with the pill or the shot?!" they didn't explain anything about this condition, how it works, what is going on or why, etc...nothing, just asked the pill or the shot and then said we would have to get the "special" food from them only.
Click to expand...


Glad you didn't go with the pill (Glipizide). The pill just destroys whatever remaining beta cells there are in the alreadyu burned out pancreas. People who don't want to give injections (scared of needles or whatever) often do the pill but even that has drawbacks (esophagus burning, getting a cat to swallow the pill, etc).

Where do you live? There may be someone who lives in the area and can recommend a better vet.
 
doing everything right! :mrgreen:
see if you can get a +6 and a +7 so we know for sure how low she's going.
if she does not get much lower than the 200's you can actually begin to up her dose just a 1/2 unit at a time...and test that dose out for a week or so.
we like to see the mid cycle #'s at 80-100 ideally. until we reach that we tweak the insulin in small doses.
 
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