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kristine25

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Wow, who would of known such a wealth of information and support exsisted!!! I have a dearly loved cat who was diagnoised about a month ago. She turned 20 years old in June (yes, 20!!! in people years!!!). When she started peeing all over the house for the first time in her long life I figured it was the beginning of the end but after doing some research online I decided to take her in and see if maybe it was a UTI, never suspecting diabetes. After 3 days on the insulin the peeing virtually stopped!! And I had her tested a couple of weeks on the insulin and her levels were great! We go in again this week. She still does pee outside the cat box on occassion but 95% of the time it's in the laundry room where her catbox is so clean up is easy. Not sure how long my hubby would have tolerated the peeing on the carpet!!

So my question is care when we are gone. I have a dear neighbor who has always fed her when we go out of town (which happens to be a lot since we have some vacation property) and taking my cat with me is not an option. She hates the car and at her age I just won't do that to her!! My friend has offered to care for her still but I want to be careful and not be a burden to her too much. In exchange I have agreed to walk her dog three days a week (the days she works full time) so hopefully that will even things out. I want to know the honest truth about what happens if we skip one or two insulin shots. And also about if the timing is off. So far we having been using the 11-13 hour rule. So every 12 hours with a hour leeway on either side. I would love to hear some opinions!

Thanks in advance and thanks for seeming like such a great place to go for info and support!!!

Oh and by the way, I am in the south king county area outside of Seattle. Would love to find someone local to maybe help share care!!!
 
Welcome Kristine!

I can tell you this place is awesome! I'm still a newbie here, and have learned so much. I'm sure some of the more experienced folks will be along soon.

You mention that you take her in for testing, do you home test? I'm sure you can read lots about why that is important, so I'll let others help you with that the way they helped me. However, what I wanted to tell you is that I was completely doubtful that my oh so bossy cat would ever let me test him. I'm here to tell you, he volunteers now! Wonderful folks here taught me the treat trick, and he is over the top addicted to dehydrated chicken treats. He only gets them for testing, even if there is a fail. I wanted to let you know that this board has helped me a great deal, and assure you that you will be very happy to have found this community.

Oh, and home testing saves on car stress, and vet costs!

Welcome!
Theresa and Christian
 
Hi and welcome to the sugardance!
First things first, hoping you can give us a little bit of info so we can better help you and your 20 year old (awesome!) sugarkitty.
Your name and her name?
What kind of insulin are you using, and what is her normal dose?
Can you give us an idea of what her BG levels are, and what they have been in previous tests?
What type of food are you feeding her, and how much/often does she eat?

In general, skipping shots is not a good thing, but if you can answer those questions, we'd be able to be more specific.

Carl in SC
 
Ok, here is some addtional information:

Kitty's name is Cassie, mine is Kristine.

She is on 1ml of Lantus (is that right) 2x per day.

She free feeds on dry KD (she is a kidney problem cat) and I give her half a can of wet KD per insulin injection. She likes the wet better.

I don't know what her leves were or are. I am just going by what the vet has said that she was too high/low/just right.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you need anything else.

And I don't do testing at home. This is all new to me and we are just having her tested every couple of weeks at the vet to make sure the dosing is spot on.
 
kristine25 said:
Ok, here is some addtional information:

Kitty's name is Cassie, mine is Kristine.

She is on 1ml of Lantus (is that right) 2x per day.

She free feeds on dry KD (she is a kidney problem cat) and I give her half a can of wet KD per insulin injection. She likes the wet better.

I don't know what her leves were or are. I am just going by what the vet has said that she was too high/low/just right.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you need anything else.

And I don't do testing at home. This is all new to me and we are just having her tested every couple of weeks at the vet to make sure the dosing is spot on.
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Alright, then Welcome Kristine and Cassie!
OK, that's all good info. Good that she likes the wet food better, because eventually, you'll remove the dry from her diet. Dry food, even "prescription dry" has a lot of carbs, and carbs and diabetes do not mix. She'll also have to have specific food to address kidney problems, but that can wait for a little while.
What I wanted to comment on was your final comment, about her dose being "spot on". Thing is, any time a vet checks her BG levels, they are most likely very inflated due to "vet stress". Pets are usually stressed out by being in an unfamiliar place, with unfamiliar smells, sounds and people. Stress raises BG levels, so the vet usually gets higher readings, and then recommends a dosage on those numbers. Most times, it's a dose that (once the stress is removed) can be a bit too high. However, a starting dose of 1u lantus is normally a good starting dose.
Would you consider home testing? It can be done with a human glucometer very easily. The best way I have heard it said here is "If Cassie were your child, would you give her insulin without knowing what her BG was just before the shot?" You would want to know what her sugar was before you gave a shot, so you could be sure it wasn't really low, since giving a normal shot with low BG levels would have the effect of too much insulin, pushing her BG down to dangerous levels. We can "teach" you how to do all of this at home. It will save you time, lots of money, and most important, will be safer for Cassie.
 
Hi Kristine!

With Lantus, dosing needs to be done based of daily numbers. Getting her tested at the vet is not a safe or accurate way to adjust dosing because they do not provide enough data to show how the insulin is actually affecting her, and numbers are often inflated due to vet stress. Here's a link to the dosing protocol for Lantus: http://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1581. There is an 80+% remission rate with the combination of tight regulation via hometesting, and a low carb canned diet. I would also print out this article to give to your vet: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19592286, along with the veterinary version of the protocol: http://felinediabetes.com/Roomp_Rand_2008 dosing_testing protocol.pdf

Lantus also works best when shots are on 12/12 schedule. Is there a reason why you're shooting 11/13? Would it be possible to change this schedule so that you're shooting a consistent 12/12 schedule? The shot times for Lantus should ideally be moved around no more than 15 min for each shot, or 30 min for the whole day. I would urge you to read the stickies in the Lantus forum, as they contain a wealth of knowledge about the insulin you're using: http://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewforum.php?f=9. My vet originally gave me good advice in regards to hometesting and diet, but her frequency of testing and dosing advice were not correct.

How severe is Cassie's kidney disease? If she's not in a late stage, it's actually better to feed a high-quality, low phosphorus commercial food because the low protein can cause muscle wasting, especially in senior cats. You also have the diabetes to contend with, and the k/d is going to keep her numbers high and not allow you to control her diabetes. Here's some information about kidney diets: http://www.felinecrf.org/nutritional_requirements.htm#protein My Gabby had early stage kidney disease, and I fed her a high quality (no byproducts), low carb, low phosphorus food for 2 years from her diagnosis to her death (she passed away from cancer, not CRF), and her kidney values did not change at all in that entire time. The ingredients in k/d canned are very low quality--high quality protein is easier on the kidneys. It's also very important that a kidney cat eats whatever they'll eat. This website is a wonderful resource: http://www.felinecrf.org/which_foods.htm. Let me know if you'd like some specific suggestions for commercial foods that will be good for both Cassie's diabetes and her kidney disease.

As for Cassie's care while you're away, missing shots is not recommended if you can avoid it. How often will your friend be coming over? Would it be possible to board her someplace that can care for a diabetic cat while you're gone? When I go on vacation I have a pet sitter come over twice a day to test Bandit's BG levels, feed him, give him his injection, and set the auto feeder with frozen wet food so that he has food available 6 hours into his cycle when his insulin usually reaches its nadir (the lowest number of the cycle). I did have one pet sitter once who was afraid to do the tests, so we shot a reduced dose while I was away and got back on track when I returned. That was only for 3 days though. How long will you be away?

I know I've just bombarded you with a ton of information. Please ask questions and ask for advice! This is a wonderful site with many people very knowledgeable about feline diabetes and many other conditions.
 
You have gotten a lot of info to take in so I will just say a couple of things:

We used Lantus, so I give it :thumbup

We changed from 1/2 cup Blue Buffalo Weight control dry (whihc never helped him lose weight - he gained) and 1 can of any flavor fancy feast to all canned, usually Wellness or Evo, sometimes BFF. All grain free, high protein and low carb. Cedric was on a grain free, etc dry food, but when I took it away on 5/19, his numbers dropped. Two days later they were normal.

Home testing is very important. It can be a pain in my butt (I still test Cedric about twice a week now) but it is important to his health.

smaller more frequent meals. Cedric gets 4 meals per day, 2 of which are "delivered" to him by auto feeder. I work 7 days a week, so he's home about 8-10 hours a day be himself.

And most importantly, Welcome!
 
Hi and welcome to Kristine and you, too, sweet Cassie.

I live in SE King County---Cumberland. The nearest 'big' city to me is
Enumclaw or Auburn.

We also have a member in Eatonville.

Where (nearest city) are you in South King County ?

But I only live here in the summer months of April through October. Go south
to AZ for November through March.

We take our cats with us when we go to our recreation property on Hood Canal.
We take our cats with us back and forth to AZ (four day car trip).

One of our cats does not travel all that well...but we're working on that with
meds for his car-sickness.
 
Karen;

Cumberland? Wow, we are just up the road in Ravensdale!! And your property is on Hood Canal? Our vacation place is in Port Ludlow!! What a coincidence!!
 
kristine25 said:
Karen;

Cumberland? Wow, we are just up the road in Ravensdale!! And your property is on Hood Canal? Our vacation place is in Port Ludlow!! What a coincidence!!
Click to expand...


Soooo...what is the reason you can't take Cassie with you. ?

We're leaving Thursday for 6 days to go up to The Canal. Perhaps after that
you will entertain an in-home lesson on home-testing.
 
Karen;

Cassie is a very elderly cat (she is 20) and does not deal well with the car. I think it would be far too stressful for her not to mention the stress of being in a place she is not familar with.
 
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