New member in Sydney - my Burmese just diagnosed

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glad things are a little more settled for you today, danny. the horrible beginning (with variations on each story) are common here. most of us arrive in a crisis with a sick cat who is newly diagnosed with diabetes. it's very hard.

if you feel you must give the prescription cat food, the canned version is about 7% carbs. i'm not sure on the dry - in one place i found it listed as 13% carbs and on the Hills site it's listed at 35% carbs. either way, most of us try to keep under 8% carbs. Serryn can tell you what's available in Australia that is low carb canned.

ask the vet if you can make canned prescription food available all the time instead of the dry - i can't imagine why it would not be a good idea.

gayle's story of her cat's sensitivity to carbs is not unusual at all - we've heard it over and over that just a couple of dry kibble pieces - literally 1 or 2 - can increase the cat's BG. people get rid of the dry food and the cat's BG's immediately drop into safer ranges and many, many newly diagnosed cats then go off of insulin.

we're just trying to tell you what we know from the thousands of diabetic cats that have gone through this site. experience is an awesome teacher, and we have the collective wisdom of literally, thousands, gathered here.
 
hi Julie, i looked at the hills site earlier and it's listed as 15.1% carbs, as per the link below. interestingly enough though, *before* nelson came down with his initial diabetic episode i was hardly feeding him any carbs at all ... i'd say almost all his diet for months beforehand consisted of raw mince (which he loves, and so i gave him more of it .. maybe the fat content of that is a problem? i'm not sure how much fat is in regular mince), canned tuna in spring water, roast chicken (again, the fat content in the skin, which he loved of course), and really only occasional, maybe once or twice a day, sprinkles of his dry food (the k/d, which i believe is 40something% carb), but it was pretty small amounts. one of the reasons my local vet told me last week to feed him *only* the dry m/d is because he likes it, and ate it while he was there, and doesn't seem to like the canned much at all. i told her i would feed him smallish amounts of tuna as well because he likes that so much and she said that would be ok in small amounts. i'm still going to ask the other vet at the hosp tomorrow about the whole food thing. one canned food nelson did like a lot was just the regular, fairly inexp canned cat food with whole fish pieces and jelly (jelly could be a problem? .. mostly though i separated out the jelly and just gave him the fish coz i don't want him eating jelly anyway).

http://www.hillspet.com/products/
pd-feline-md-feline-weight-loss-low-carbohydrate-diabetic-dry.html

sorry about the messed up url but it won't display properly when i try to paste the whole thing in 1 line : /

today and tonight i've been feeling pretty confident i have a plan. this is it: i'm going to inject at 6am and 6pm. my sleeping hours are roughly 6am to 2pm. so if he's going to start spiking in the mid afternoon (8th hour onward) i'll be up and testing and if its another out of range spike like the other night and he's getting thirsty (like the other night), i can take him to the my local vet (who can treat him with fluids etc. and monitor at roughly 1/4 or less the cost of the univ. vet place, so if i have to, i can handle a number of stays there financially). if he starts spiking way up, with thirst etc., in say the 8th hour of the overnight period, around 2-3 am, like he did the other night, i will give him his next shot at 5 am, not go to bed, and take him to the vet at 9 am when they open, or at least i can call them and ask them if i should. there's also another equidistant vet i could go to, just around the corner. i'll also be strict with the food timing, probably only giving food in the first 6 hours of both daily cycles. i'll have to feed him after the 6am shot when we're going to bed and then hope that he eats most of it fairly quickly thereafter and doesn't leave it for later, but he does tend to eat well around that time for some reason. i don't want to feel overconfident coz any plan can go horribly wrong i guess, but it feels like i have a framework. amazing how much of your mental time can be taken up with pondering the smallest details of feline diabetes. really, thanks everyone, this place has been great. imagine what people must have felt like before the mid 90s onwards when there was no routine access to the internet.

julie & punkin said:
glad things are a little more settled for you today, danny. the horrible beginning (with variations on each story) are common here. most of us arrive in a crisis with a sick cat who is newly diagnosed with diabetes. it's very hard.
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wow, you can say that again. it really turns things upside down and you have to scramble. danny.
 
the jelly stuff is probably ok. it's gelatin from bone marrow. it's the gravy that is high in carbs.

i don't have a good pic of what variety you're giving - the m/d is 15.1 carbs and the w/d is 37.2 carbs. both say for diabetic cats, both say for weight loss/control. we find success with 8% or less.

if you want people who've had their cats come successfully through DKA to talk to you, there are several.

if you want advice, i'd suggest you post over in the Lantus TR forum and those with experience will give you feedback to help you.
 
btw - if you are giving the water off of a can of tuna, make certain there is truly nothing in it except water. sometimes they have soy products in there, and that can cause problems for a cat, including interactions with other meds they might be taking.

i just got a notice about the tuna:

Soy
Soy is found in various forms in many products. It contains compounds that may negatively affect cats by interfering with nutrient absorption, normal growth, thyroid function, and hormonal development.
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definitely the m/d 15.1. Danny.

julie & punkin said:
i don't have a good pic of what variety you're giving - the m/d is 15.1 carbs and the w/d is 37.2 carbs. both say for diabetic cats, both say for weight loss/control. we find success with 8% or less.
Click to expand...
 
It's great to have a plan in place to help you feel more confident and get you started but be prepared to tweak things as you go along - FD is really really good at messing with all your plans FD related or not ;-)

Danny&Nelson said:
thanks everyone, this place has been great. imagine what people must have felt like before the mid 90s onwards when there was no routine access to the internet.
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I hate to imagine what would have happened to Vyktor if we hadn't found this board, I really don't think he would be with me anymore - thanks FDMB :-D
 
Nelson home just now after 3 days at vet hosp, seems happy and ok. His fPL was *negative*! Although the vet still said that doesn't entirely rule it out, i guess there is some infinitely more sensitive test out there somewhere but i was still happy with that. Waiting on UT infection result which i suspect will also be neg. Upped to 3U glargine as of last night and numbers down into the teens today, just tested here at home at 22.9 at +8. One thing i learned from friday night is that i'm not going to panic if he spikes up ... if he seems otherwise ok and alert and happy i'm not going to rush him to a vet hosp, but wait for the next inj and keep monitoring. More later :) Danny.
 
Yay for Nelson coming home to his daddybean - lets hope he stays there this time!

I meant to say in my previous post, if you are able to monitor for ketones yourself that is going to save you alot of worry and exy vet visits as you will know whether you have reason to be concerned or not. The high numbers in themselves are not the short term concern (we will get those down) it is just the ketones that are worrisome.
 
since you've got the color-blindness issue, and you're dealing with ketones that can return in a blink, you might want to get a blood ketone meter. that will give you a number, just like the blood glucometer. i know one brand is Novamax, i'm not sure what else is out there, or what's available to you. the strips are expensive, but i'm sure nothing compared to the vet.

if you ask at your pharmacy, they can no doubt point you to one. then you can monitor him from home.

the recipe for ketones is infection + not enough insulin + not enough food. good that you're dealing with the infection. if you can get more water into him, that's about the only home remedy that you can do. make sure he eats - we add water to punkin's food to make it more like oatmeal and he eats it fine.
 
danny, somehow your ss is not quite right. i'm not sure why, but it doesn't have the tab so we can see your numbers in mg, only in mmol. that's going to be a problem because many people who give advice use mg. to get you the best advice, we really need to get you a different spreadsheet - and the sooner the better. at least you don't have too many numbers in this one yet.

here is the link for how to do it: http://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=18207&start=0

if you did follow those directions, would you please post in the Tech forum here: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewforum.php?f=6 and ask for someone to help you get the ss with 2 tabs - the one in world mmol and the one that automatically changes your entries into mg.

i think that you multiply x 18 to convert. if correct, your 4.1=73.8. that's a good range, but you want to make sure if he drops below 50 (i think that's 2.7) you give him a teaspoon of gravy from some high carb canned cat food, or a tiny bit of karo syrup or honey, to bring him up.

it is very likely that he will "bounce" from having dropped into a range that his body has become unaccustomed to. if he does, his numbers will go high for up to 3 days and stay there. do not increase his insulin during that time. bouncing is a normal phenomena (also called rebound) that will clear and he will drop back down into this range of numbers again.
 
Hi Julie ... i *think* it's working now, i just did a new one per the instructions on that link (altho i thought i did the exact same thing the first time! :/ ) anyway, i'm pretty happy w nelson's results overnight and today! getting down to the 4's at the nadir and 17 for the amps just now is exciting. haven't seen numbers like those since this started 2 wks ago (i guess thats obvious). but i dont know if the new lower 17 amps means that maybe his nadir will go even lower, so i'll have to watch out for hypo around +4 to +6 today. he's eating well, drinking normally, seems happy and is doing a lot of purring! amazing to have him back and seemingly well after all the dramas of the last 2 wks. i'll watch for the possible bounce. oh and i guess i should start posting in the lantus board, might do that now. thx. danny.


julie & punkin said:
danny, somehow your ss is not quite right. i'm not sure why, but it doesn't have the tab so we can see your numbers in mg, only in mmol. that's going to be a problem because many people who give advice use mg. to get you the best advice, we really need to get you a different spreadsheet - and the sooner the better. at least you don't have too many numbers in this one yet.

here is the link for how to do it: http://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=18207&start=0

if you did follow those directions, would you please post in the Tech forum here: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewforum.php?f=6 and ask for someone to help you get the ss with 2 tabs - the one in world mmol and the one that automatically changes your entries into mg.

i think that you multiply x 18 to convert. if correct, your 4.1=73.8. that's a good range, but you want to make sure if he drops below 50 (i think that's 2.7) you give him a teaspoon of gravy from some high carb canned cat food, or a tiny bit of karo syrup or honey, to bring him up.

it is very likely that he will "bounce" from having dropped into a range that his body has become unaccustomed to. if he does, his numbers will go high for up to 3 days and stay there. do not increase his insulin during that time. bouncing is a normal phenomena (also called rebound) that will clear and he will drop back down into this range of numbers again.
Click to expand...
 
Oh Danny & Nelson what a crazy last two weeks. I am so glad Nelson is back home again. Ok so no more vet visits alright. I don't like to log on & read stuff like this. It makes me sad.

So knowing a little more then last time Nelson was at the hospital. What are you going to do different? What is going to change so Nelson isn't back in the hospital? I can think of 1 very important thing....diet.
Yes, the insulin is going to help, but his diet is going to be the breaker.
A cat has the best chance of remission within the first 100 days of DX. Right now you want to do everything & anything to help repair the pancreas & stop straining it. Diet is going to help do that. Keep those carbs low 10% or less. Actually the lower the better. Keep that protein high. It just like human diabetes. If your child was diabetic would you allow them to eat Twinkies, drink soda, chips, candy, pasta, breads etc...let's hope not because that diet is not a good diet for a diabetic or really anyone.
Just try the canned food diet. Give it some time. Mix the dry with the canned. Sprinkle the tuna on the canned food. Right before feeding put down canned food. Wait about 15 or so minutes, if he hasn't eaten it pick it up & feed it mixed. Keep trying don't give up ok. Some cats take months to stop eating dry.

You are going to do a good job. Nelson is so lucky to have a wonderful father like you!
Keep us updated,
Jenn & Baxter
 
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