New Member - Switching to insulin this week

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MotleyMurphy13

MotleyMurphy13

Member Since 2022
Our 12 year old boy Murphy was diagnosed with diabetes last August. We took him in because he had lost 4lbs and had increased thirst and hunger. His blood sugar was 460. He was started on Glipizide, 2.5mg twice a day and switched to Purina Dry DM food. Murphy also has lower urinary tract disease, so canned food with added water was already in his regimen, and we switched his canned food to lower carb options. We have been slowly increasing Glipizide ever since and are still struggling with sugars in the 300s, yet his clinical symptoms (weight loss, thirst, bad breath) have improved. We are now at 7.5mg in the morning and 5mg in the evening.
After reading some of the threads here, we have made the decision to switch to insulin. We have an appointment with the vet on Wednesday to get instructions and supplies. I'm pretty overwhelmed with the idea but I will do whatever it takes to improve his health.
We just got an Alphatrak 3 and I have started testing at different times of day. Last night's result (about 2hrs after 5mg Glipizide and dinner) was 510. That has been the highest number so far and I may have cried when I saw it.
I probably have 100s of questions and I know the vet will answer most of them. I'm so thankful that I found this forum to help; I've already learned a lot here. I'm curious if anyone has found that insurance was beneficial in cost. Also, we live in a very rural area so most everything is ordered online. We utilize Chewy the most but I'm wondering if there are other recommendations?
Any other suggestions or advice is welcome and I thank you all for the help that has already been provided just by maintaining this forum!
 
Chewy is great. If you already have pet insurance, it should cover some of the treatment costs but if you’re going to add him on now, the diabetes would be considered a pre existing condition and it would not be covered :(

the first suggestion I have is removing the dry food completely from his diet. It’s too high in carbs and diabetic cats need low carb food. And keep home testing daily because the diet change can bring his bg down by as much as 100 points! A dry high carb diet is not good for any cat, especially a diabetic cat. That’s like feeding your diabetic child a diet of chips, ice cream and sweets.

With a diabetic cat you need:

  • A low carb wet diet that is 10% carbs or under. Most of us use around 4-7% carbs
  • A suitable insulin such as Lantus or Prozinc which are long acting, more gentle insulins than the old insulins. Do not let your vet talk you into Vetsulin, which is also called caninsulin because it was made for dogs. It’s a harsh and fast acting insulin that does not last 12 hours so your cat is unprotected once it wears off
  • We recommend hometesting the blood glucose with a human meter…it is not necessary to use a pet meter which is expensive to run and is no better. It will keep your kitty safe and you will know how the dose is working for your kitty. Only testing every so often will not tell you what is happening in between those times and an awful lot can happen in even a day.
  • HELP US HELP YOUhas information about the spreadsheet, signature and hypo box which you will need to be able to look after your beloved kitty properly

We are happy to help you with setting up the spreadsheet and sorting out what food to buy.
FOOD CHART have a look on this chart and choose foods that are under 10%.

You will also need some higher carb foods for that hypo box..information in the help us help you link.

You said you already purchased the pet meter, but know you don’t have to use one. Most of us here use human meters which are way more economical since the test strips are way cheaper. Walmart’s ReliOn is a favorite and it can be ordered from Walmart online along with the strips and lancets.

This is an excellent site for diabetic cats…it has been around for more than 25 years and has very experienced people to help you.

Keep asking lots of questions.
 
If you did not have pet insurance prior to your cat being diagnosed with diabetes, it will be considered a pre-existing condition and it's unlikely that you will be able to get your cat insured.

As you've seen from the test numbers, Glipizide is not ideal for cats. In fact, it may prevent a cat from going into remission. It can cause protein deposits in the pancreas (pancreatic amyloidosis) and creates problems in the pancreas which is what causes diabetes in the first place. Most vets do not prescribe Glipizide for this reason. Vets will mistakenly think that they are doing you a favor by not having you give an insulin injection.

I've used Amazon for some of my kitty supplies. I've also found great deals on eBay for items like strips for my glucometer. However, I did not use a pet meter like the AlphaTrack. I'd encourage you to get a human meter. It is inevitable that you will run out of strips at the worst possible time. The only way you can get AlphaTrack strips is online. You can get strips for a human meter or get a human meter and strips at any pharmacy. At least have a human meter as a back up. In addition, there is a vast difference in the cost of the strips for the AT meter (they run about $1.00/strip) vs a human meter where they range from about $0.16 - $0.25 per strip.
 
I expected the insurance would be a no-go, but it never hurts to ask around! As for the pet meter, I will plan on getting a human one for a replacement and/or back-up. Our vet said we didn't need one, but I just can't go into this blindly. As they say, knowledge is power!

Once we get him used to insulin, we will revisit removing the dry food. We tried it previously, due to the urinary tract disease and it did not go well. I should have mentioned that we have another cat, his sibling from the same litter, and have always free-fed. Now that I work from home, this is something we can work on changing going forward! Both cats only get low carb canned food, a move I know the other cat will benefit from as well. I do have some higher carb food available, all stuff we used to feed prior to his diagnosis.

How do you recommend asking the vet for a specific insulin? It feels rather awkward to me and I'm hoping whatever they have for us tomorrow is what has been recommended here! Fingers crossed that the appointment goes well. I'll post an update in a few days. :)
 
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