New member 9/11/21 - Arthur

[Arthur + Gabbee]

Hello everyone!

My sweet kitty Arthur was newly diagnosed with diabetes last week and I joined you all in hope of finding a supportive community to confide in. It seems evident that I will definitely find that here, and I really look forward to getting to know other “sugarcats” and their parents.

(Disclaimer: I am in the process of making a BS spreadsheet for this forum; my vet just informed me that I need to monitor his blood sugar at home and I will begin tomorrow! Will update my signature with my spreadsheet soon.)

I don’t have any specific questions at this time, but I wanted to introduce ourselves and share Arthur’s story with you all. Fair warning that he has a very long medical history in the short time since I’ve adopted him.

In March 2020 I walked into my local animal shelter with my mind intent on adopting a kitten. That day my life forever changed when instead I met an approximately 11 year old FIV+ kitty who’d been at the shelter for months. He was the sweetest boy, immediately letting me pick him up and as our eyes locked I knew he was going home with me.

In the time since I’ve adopted Arthur it has been challenge after challenge. At first we struggled with stomatitis, trying medication and diet changes, before resigning to a full mouth extraction which was able to control the inflammation. Arthur has also been struggling with chronic inflammation of his nail bed which the vet thought was pemphigus foliaceus. Months go by of treating him with prednisolone but his nail bed continued to gradually get worse and worse. Eventually the vet recommends a declaw since we could not get the inflammation under control, but I felt wary of moving forward as I had a gut feeling to try a different route.

I decided to get a second opinion from another veterinarian in town. At the visit, the new vet reviewed Arthur’s records that he obtained from the previous vet and I was asked if he’s “on any medication for his diabetes”. I was momentarily in shock as I had never been informed that Arthur had diabetes. Apparently at the time of his previous extraction surgery, my original vet performed various labs and found that his blood sugar was astronomically high but failed to inform me.

At this time the new vet decided to check his blood sugar in office and sure enough! It came back very high. It was a whirlwind of an appointment as I was now being overwhelmed with instructions and tools to care for my diabetic cat.

It has now been about a week since I began giving my sweet boy insulin injections twice daily. He didn’t do very well on his follow up blood glucose curve today and the vet recommended I increase his dosage and sent me home with a glucometer to begin monitoring his blood sugar at home.

We have had an incredibly long journey but my sweet kitty is worth it! I hope that getting his blood sugar regulated will be the step that was needed to finally get his health in order. I appreciate everyone who takes the time to read this and if you have any words of encouragement or advice for us as we embark on this journey I look forward to hearing it!

 

[Bandit's Mom]

Hello @Gabbee! Welcome to FDMB!

Thank you for adopting a senior FIV+ cat and taking such good care of him! He is lucky to have found you!

I see your signature is already up. Let me know if you need help with setting up your spreadsheet. Will take me less than a minute to set it up.

I am not familiar with Prozinc but I will tag @JanetNJ to help you with dosing. She will need to see your BG data so maybe after you have your spreadsheet set-up?

I see that you are feeding Hill's m/d canned. That is 13% carbs. A diabetic cat needs to eat a low carb diet i.e. one with carbohydrates less than 10%. Most of us feed less than 5%. There's nothing in prescription food that miraculously treats diabetes. Many of them are expensive, too high in carbs (especially the dry ones) and the ingredients tend to be of low quality. And many cats hate their taste. You can feed any low carb canned food - there are several low carb variants in Fancy Feast (Classics/Pates/Roasted/Flaked), Friskies, Weruva, Tiki Cat, 9 Live etc etc.

This is not an exhaustive list but has the carb% for many cat foods - https://catinfo.org/chart/index.php

A change to a low carb diet can significantly impact a cat's BG numbers and greatly reduce the need for insulin. So any transition in diet, has to be made gradually (also helps prevent GI issues) and with careful monitoring of the BG (with home testing) so you can can see how low he goes with the food change and make any reduction to insulin requirements, if necessary. We have had cats that have gone off insulin with just a change of diet.

I'm not sure if your vet recommended that you use a pet meter, but most of us use human meters. They are accurate and affordable. A favorite in the US is the Relion Prime from WalMart. The meter is only $9 and the strips are $17.88 for 100. The strips for the AT are too expensive for most of us since we test at least 4 times a day (more if they're running low or dropping fast).

Lasty, wanted to share this stikcy from the Prozinc forum, just in case you hadn't already seen it:
NEW TO THE GROUP: THE PROZINC BASICS. PLEASE START HERE.

There is a lot of information at the top of the Prozinc / PZI forum in "stickies"

 

[JanetNJ]

Hi and welcome! I am sorry about the diagnosis but the good news is that diabetes is not a death sentence and they can live long healthy lives with it. . I'm glad you found us!! ProZinc is a good insulin. I'm so glad to hear you are going to test from home. I have a video in my signature showing how I tested my cat CC at home.

 

[Sienne and Gabby (GA)]

I'm offering yet another welcome to the best place you never wanted to be!

I just want to make sure you have our spreadsheet template. I'm linking a post on helping us to help you that has information for your signature, the spreadsheet and how to use it, and other basic information that you will likely find helpful. There are a few groups on the internet who have "borrowed" our spreadsheet template and their versions crash.

Thank you for falling in love with Arthur and being so intuitive about his health. I'm scratching my head over how your former vet could have forgotten to mention Arthur being diabetic!

 

[Wendy&Neko]

Hello and welcome from me too. Is Arthur still getting prednisolone for possible pemphigus foliaceus? It's possible the prednisolone contributed to his diabetes. The vet recommending a declaw reminded me of a kitty at my local shelter that I used to work part time and volunteer at. We tried all sorts of things and one of the vets suggested a declaw, so we talked to yet another vet who suggested a novel protein diet. Turns out his nail problems were from a food allergy!