Welcome Melz! If you're anything close to how I was when Gabby was diagnosed (and after she spent 3 days at the kitty ICU), you're likely to find this to be the best place you never wanted to be!
Since you're planning on switching over to a low carb food, you have lots of choices. This
feline nutrition site has a huge amount of information about diet. Even better, there's a
chart of most of the canned foods available in the US and it contains information about the amount of carbs in the food. Fancy Feast and Friskies pate style food are generally low in carbs. If your cat doesn't like pate style, while more expensive, Tiki Cat and Weruva are popular here. We consider low carb as less than 10% carbs, although most people tend to feed their cats in the vicinity of 5%. You'll also want to have some medium carb (10 - 15%) and high carb (over 15%) foods on hand in case of lower blood glucose numbers. Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers is a good choice. Having some corn syrup (e.g., Karo), honey, etc. is also good to have on hand.
We put a huge emphasis on knowing your cat's blood glucose (BG) numbers. You'll want to test prior to giving an injection so you know that it's safe to give insulin. You'll also want to get a minimum of one test during each of the 12-hour cycles daily. This is a link to
information on home testing. Many people here use Walmart's Relion meter. The test strips, which are an on-going expense, are among the least expensive around. However, if Walmart isn't convenient, most meters are fine. (I used a Bayer Contour for years.) While strips for many meters are available at pharmacies, the least expensive way to buy them are online (e..g, Amazon, Ebay, ADW which is a diabetes site). You do not need a pet-specific meter (and the strips for a pet meter are outrageously expensive).
I'm also linking a post on
helping us to help you. There's a great deal of information on some of the basics. what is important for us is that you set up a signature so we don't keep bugging you for the same information over and over again and setting up a spreadsheet (SS). The SS will allow you to track Lulu's progress and let us follow along so we can offer help. If you need a hand with the SS, I'm tagging Bhooma (
@Bandit's Mom) who can help you with getting it set up.
Since it will be a few days before you're starting insulin and given Lulu's weight loss, I'd also suggest getting some Ketostix, which are a means of testing her urine for ketones. Ketones occur if a cat isn't getting enough calories, has some source of infection or inflammation, and not getting enough insulin. They are dangerous so getting tests is a preventative measure.
If you're not already completely overwhelmed, which is where most of us have been at this point in managing their cat's diabetes, there's a ton of information on FDMB. There is an entire page of
health related information posts. For more Lantus specific information, take a look at the "sticky notes" at the top of the
Lantus board.
Please let us know how we can help. The members here are incredibly generous with their time and their knowledge.
