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KarinandTiger

KarinandTiger

Member Since 2021
Hi! My name is Karin and our 13yr old Tiger has been diagnosed with diabetes.
We live on Vancouver Island and I am about to be in between vets. . My current vet appears to be a pretty hardcore DM salesperson and her vet tech does not seem to be up to date with the nutritional value of foods she is selling us. So I am looking for info on everything basically. I have already read a lot of info and cudos to everyone contributing to this site, I am so happy to have found you!

ok, so Tiger, my 13yr old red haired neutered male is not doing very well. At the moment he gets 2 meals of about half a can (85gr) and 4 snacks of wet food (30gr) He has lost a lot of weight (down to 3kg) and is malnourished at the moment. We give him Tiki cat and ultra whitefish. For a couple of weeks he was on the vet prescription food (purina dm wet and dry) but after reading the nutritional values we quit this and went back to the previous food we were feeding him.
ideally I would like to see him on raw but as his bg levels are quite high, maybe the insuline is more important. His bg is in the high 20’s and 30s. We feed him at 8am and 8pm, these are the times we also give him 1u of the caninsulin. Then we test him at the halfway point 2pm and these results have jumped from 37 to 22.2 and anywhere in between. We make sure no food for at least two hours before testing.

Im using a pet glucometer from the vet but Im currently looking at the bayer contour for glucometer at London Drugs. (Do you need a vet prescription to get this at a Canadian pharmacy, which is what the pharmacist at a Pharmasave told me but he did not sound very convincing)
For syringes U40 31gram, 1/2 increments I have not had any luck finding those so far.
Any help and suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Karin
 
Hi Karin and Tiger! Welcome to FDMB!

The first thing most vets do is to ask you to feed a "prescription" food.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. The Purina Pro Plan DM canned is low carb (The DM Savory Selects and the dry are NOT) but you need not restrict yourself to prescription food. Any low carb canned food (carbohydrates less than 10% - ideally 5% or less) is fine.

When was Tiger diagnosed? Do you know if he had ketones at the time of diagnosis (if a urinalysis was done, it would tell you)?

Is the Tiki cat you are feeding him low carb? Here's a thread with nutritional information for Tiki Cat collated by one of our members:
https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB...-luau-aloha-friends-and-velvet-mousse.248242/

A lot of vets still prescribe Vetsulin or Caninsulin because it's what they're used to, but it's really a better insulin for dogs. In cats, it tends to hit hard and fast and then wear off before the next shot is due. Vets see more diabetic dogs than cats and tend to treat their feline patients like small dogs and that just doesn't usually work very well. Insulins like Lantus, Basaglar, Levemir or ProZinc are best suited to cats. They are the gentlest and most successful at getting cats regulated and possibly even into remission. Insulin is OTC in Canada and Lantus is available at any human pharmacy.

Most of us use a human meter from your local pharmacy because it's accurate and affordable to use. The Bravo, OneTouch, Contour and Freestyle lite are very good. You do not need a prescription to buy a meter in Canada. Here's a Canadian site where you can buy supplies at good prices:
https://diabetesexpress.ca/

Here in FDMB, we record test data in the form of a spreadsheet. It helps us see patterns in test data and we are very data driven. I could help you with setting up the spreadsheet so you can enter whatever data you have in it.
How to Create a Spreadsheet

I hope I have covered everything and not overwhelmed you with too much info! :-)
Please feel free to ask any questions that you may have.

@Bron and Sheba (GA)
 
Hi Karen and a Tiger and welcome to FDMB
@Bandit's Mom has given you some good information. I agree that Caninsulin is not a good insulin for cats. You would be far better off with either Lantus or Prozinc. Lantus can be bought OTC in Canada. You will need a different syringe if you swap to Lantus…..we can give you those details.
While you are using Caninsulin I will give you a link to INTRODUCTION TO CANINSULIN
And
BEGINNERS GUIDE TO CANINSULIN
When using Caninsulin you need to feed the main meals, before you give the dose of insulin 30 minutes before the dose to make sure the food is aboard as the insulin can hit hard.
 
Omg thank you all for being a shining light in the dark . To @Bandit's Mom, thank you and you didnt overwhelm me, not after the speedreading I was trying to do all weekend about feline diabetes and where to start.
Tiger was diagnosed in spring of this year but his vet at the time didnt appear to be that excited about treatment, he also never mentioned the possibility of doing testing at home but made it clear it would require him doing a lot of testing on Tiger ($$$) so we didnt do anything. Fast forward to last month when I could not watch Tiger deteriorate any more and went to a new vet who was very into people doing their own testing but seems to be heavily indebted to the prescription food peoples and is quite adamant about this, so I dont think this relationship will blossom either.
His Tiki food is low carb < 5 it seems.
I am going to to back to this vet to return the food she sold my partner and see what she says about stepping over to human insulin, which then means a conversion from u40 to u100 if I remember right?
I am totally into spreadsheets if that can shine a light on how to help Tiger. I will set mine up and holler if I need help THANK YOU
Waiting for 20 mins after his meal with insulin is new info and it makes me wonder what good it was to just test him after 6 hours.
I am going to digest everything I read here and get to work. In the meantime thank you to everyone! Having found this group feels awesome!
Karin & Tiger

ps to @Wendy&Neko I live right next to QB in Parksville. thanks for the tag
 
Just to jump in, I agree with everything that Bhooma, Bron, and Kel mentioned -- there's better food out there, better insulin, and we can swamp you with information.

This is a link pertaining to feline nutrition I'd suggest sharing with your vet. It's written by a vet who has put a great deal of time and effort into educating people about feline nutrition. She debunks the prescription food idea and is a strong proponent of a species appropriate diet. She has a recipe for raw feeding. There's also a food chart that's linked on the right side navigation bar if you want to see the range of food that's available that's low in carbs. I feed my guys a partially raw diet and use a pre-mix (i.e., a powder that contains all of the supplements to make raw food nutritionally complete that you mix with water and add to the food). It's called EZ Complete and sold by FoodFurLife. Wendy uses the same pre-mix so it's available in Canada.

If your vet gives you a hard time about insulin, this is the link to the guidelines for treating diabetes from the American Animal Hospital Assn. It's hard for a vet to argue with one of their professional organizations!

Sorry to add to your speed reading. Please let us know what you need.
 
Tagging another member @thebigfuzz who I think is near you. I am over on the mainland.

Tell your vet your cat won't eat the DM anymore - many get tired of the flavour anyway. There are lots of commercially available raw foods that are good and low carb. I fed primarily Red Dog/Blue Kat - all the flavours. If you go to your local pet food store that sells raw, they can show you what they have. There are a couple other good local companies that make raw. I did the RDBK cause I knew the person sourcing the meat (organic) and the person responsible for cleaning the plant. I don't do the premix much anymore, current cat not a fan, and we have so many commercially available raw options in BC.

If you don't do the switch to raw right away, do check out the calories in the food you are feeding. Some of them are quite low calories and what you want is higher calories per can but less carbs. Especially if he needs to gain weight. That usually means higher fat.

My vet started us on Caninsulin too - it didn't last long enough. Neko was much happier on Lantus, though I did eventually switch her to Levemir for other reasons. You can get the BD Ultrafine II syringes in any human pharmacy, purple and yellow box is what you want. Side note, for some strange reason, Safeway pharmacy ended up being cheaper for insulin/lancets and syringes. Go figure. Do ask around, prices vary. You want the 5 pack of cartridges, not the vials. London Drugs had good prices on glucometers, often throwing in the meter when you buy test strips. Look for a meter with a small blood drop requirement and as cheap as possible price on the test strips - those you will go through.

Don't worry about withholding food before testing, except for the two hours before giving insulin, when we suggest you do a "preshot" test to make sure it's safe to give insulin.
 
thebigfuzz said:
Waving from Parksville :bighug:

We just moved from the mainland and we went for a meet and greet to a new vet at Heritage animal hospital. The vet there was open to our treatment of Cosmo’s diabetes…testing, foods and all:)[/QUOTE
Hi! Waving back! Im at the same vet and am mainly dealing with the vet tech now but have a very different experience unfortunately. I have to come in for a ‘lengthy chat’ and have a feeling it will be the last chat there. ‍♀️
Click to expand...
 
Sorry to hear about the difficulties at the vet. Cosmo has a few other conditions, and we have been treating Cosmo’s diabetes for several years already. Cosmo is on lantus. The pet glucometers can be quite expensive, so most of us have switched over to human ones and it works well. Numbers are a bit different between glucometers, so once you choose one, I would recommend sticking with it and not trying to compare values. Many members have tried and it can be frustrating :banghead: We use the one touch ultra, because strips are readily available at shoppers drug mart, though I think the relion prime is less pricey. That one is available at Walmart, so depends on whether you want to drive into Nanaimo for supplies :)

The pharmacies out here seem to not be used to dispensing diabetic supplies, so just be cautious which needles/strips they are giving you. We have been presented with the wrong needles from time to time, but have caught it before checking out. We bring them a picture of the package now :rolleyes:

There is lots to learn, but you have found an amazing place at FDMB :)
 
thebigfuzz said:
Sorry to hear about the difficulties at the vet. Cosmo has a few other conditions, and we have been treating Cosmo’s diabetes for several years already. Cosmo is on lantus. The pet glucometers can be quite expensive, so most of us have switched over to human ones and it works well. Numbers are a bit different between glucometers, so once you choose one, I would recommend sticking with it and not trying to compare values. Many members have tried and it can be frustrating :banghead: We use the one touch ultra, because strips are readily available at shoppers drug mart, though I think the relion prime is less pricey. That one is available at Walmart, so depends on whether you want to drive into Nanaimo for supplies :)

The pharmacies out here seem to not be used to dispensing diabetic supplies, so just be cautious which needles/strips they are giving you. We have been presented with the wrong needles from time to time, but have caught it before checking out. We bring them a picture of the package now :rolleyes:

There is lots to learn, but you have found an amazing place at FDMB :)
Click to expand...

Ha too late, already had that happen, had to return strips for the AlphaTrak I had on loan from the vet. I started using a Bayer Contour Next One and found that at London Drugs in Nanaimo. I had to go to the vet for the syringes though.
You are right, I am so thankful to have found this page and all the information on it plus a community of caring people.
 
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