Hi there, I'm glad to have found this site. 
Our kitty, Dundee, who is 18 or 19 right now, has had diabetes for about a decade, though his pancreas did decide to kick back in for a few years after being switched to a raw food diet. Unfortunately, the diabetes came back after a stressful period for him where our critters were cared for in our home by a petsitter that, it turned out, was an idiot and did not take care of them properly.
Dundee has been on Lantus for most of this time and has been on only that for the past several years.
He's never needed more than 1 unit of Lantus, twice daily, and now we've got him down to 0.5 unit thanks to the information on home glucose monitoring I got from this site. In past years, he seemed very 'easy' with the diabetes, especially after being switched to a raw diet, and I relied mainly on blood sugar curves done at the vet's office and urine sugar strips. I wish I'd not been so intimidated by home monitoring back then. Obviously, it's the best way of staying on top of things. Now that Dundee is older and has had some dental issues and has a URI that pops up every now and again, we wanted to monitor him much more closely, not to mention save him the stress of the half hour drive to the vet clinic, which causes a lot of fear for him. At his last curve, the vet said there was a possibility he didn't actually need a full unit, but they wanted to be careful with changes. So, a couple of weeks ago we got a FreeStyle Lite glucose meter and have been monitoring his sugar. This was after a bit of a scare where I thought he was having a hypoglycemic episode, where he was sleeping more heavily than usual, had a little bit of a tremor going on, and just seemed "off" to me. After this many years of having multiple cats, I have learned to trust my instincts where their health is concerned. I gave him a bit of honey in with some of his food (he wouldn't take it without it) and he didn't get his shot the next morning because I didn't want to chance it until we'd gone out and gotten a monitor.
As of recently (about a month ago, possibly a bit less), we've also got him on a supplement called CannaPet. This is from the hemp plant and does *not* have THC in sufficient quantities to cause psychoactive effects. The CBDs contained in the plant material are beneficial for myriad health issues, to include diabetes. Interestingly, it seems to be helping with his arthritis AND his blood sugar levels have been slowly, but steadily, declining since he's been on it. As we are now down to 0.5 units of Lantus twice daily, I'm hoping that we will eventually see him recover functioning to the point where he no longer requires the insulin and can be regulated via diet alone. *crosses fingers*
Anyway, thanks so much for running this website! What a great place for people to learn about their cat's health.
Our kitty, Dundee, who is 18 or 19 right now, has had diabetes for about a decade, though his pancreas did decide to kick back in for a few years after being switched to a raw food diet. Unfortunately, the diabetes came back after a stressful period for him where our critters were cared for in our home by a petsitter that, it turned out, was an idiot and did not take care of them properly.
Dundee has been on Lantus for most of this time and has been on only that for the past several years.He's never needed more than 1 unit of Lantus, twice daily, and now we've got him down to 0.5 unit thanks to the information on home glucose monitoring I got from this site.
In past years, he seemed very 'easy' with the diabetes, especially after being switched to a raw diet, and I relied mainly on blood sugar curves done at the vet's office and urine sugar strips. I wish I'd not been so intimidated by home monitoring back then. Obviously, it's the best way of staying on top of things. Now that Dundee is older and has had some dental issues and has a URI that pops up every now and again, we wanted to monitor him much more closely, not to mention save him the stress of the half hour drive to the vet clinic, which causes a lot of fear for him. At his last curve, the vet said there was a possibility he didn't actually need a full unit, but they wanted to be careful with changes. So, a couple of weeks ago we got a FreeStyle Lite glucose meter and have been monitoring his sugar. This was after a bit of a scare where I thought he was having a hypoglycemic episode, where he was sleeping more heavily than usual, had a little bit of a tremor going on, and just seemed "off" to me. After this many years of having multiple cats, I have learned to trust my instincts where their health is concerned. I gave him a bit of honey in with some of his food (he wouldn't take it without it) and he didn't get his shot the next morning because I didn't want to chance it until we'd gone out and gotten a monitor.As of recently (about a month ago, possibly a bit less), we've also got him on a supplement called CannaPet. This is from the hemp plant and does *not* have THC in sufficient quantities to cause psychoactive effects. The CBDs contained in the plant material are beneficial for myriad health issues, to include diabetes. Interestingly, it seems to be helping with his arthritis AND his blood sugar levels have been slowly, but steadily, declining since he's been on it. As we are now down to 0.5 units of Lantus twice daily, I'm hoping that we will eventually see him recover functioning to the point where he no longer requires the insulin and can be regulated via diet alone. *crosses fingers*
Anyway, thanks so much for running this website! What a great place for people to learn about their cat's health.
