I am a huge jthm fan, so I thought he might be *that* Squee!
I don't know if your vet is trying to rip you off or is simply has not kept current with the treatment of feline diabetes, but home testing is safer and more accurate than vet testing, and not to mention FAR cheaper. I never once paid for testing at the vet beyond Bandit's initial diagnosis--my vet told me that testing at the office was unreliable, so I had to test at home if I wanted Bandit to get better. Also, the ONLY safe way to administer insulin is to check Squee's blood glucose levels before each shot. Stress will inflate blood glucose values in the office, so cats are commonly overdosed when dose recommendations are based off of in-office values. As you probably know by now, hypoglycemia is very dangerous and can be deadly.
You absolutely do not need to pay for any vet testing if you are home testing. The vet testing is a waste of money since the numbers aren't accurate anyway.
I look at it like this--you wouldn't recommend injecting insulin into a human diabetic without testing their blood glucose levels, and it's exactly the same for cats. Just like people, you need daily tests to determine the correct dose of insulin. Otherwise, you're just guessing at what the dose should be and shooting blind, which is not only counterproductive, it's dangerous.
However, I understand that you may be hesitant to trust people online over your own vet, so I would urge you to do your own research. Here are the AAHA diabetes guidelines for dogs and cats for you to print and give to your vet:
http://www.aahanet.org/PublicDocuments/AAHADiabetesGuidelines.pdf. Note on page 4 (218), where it says that home monitoring should be highly recommended and encouraged. I've also attached the veterinary article that the guidelines cite for you to give to your vet as well.
I would also urge you to read this veterinarian's page about diet and urinary tract issues:
http://catinfo.org/#Cystitis_. You will have great difficulty regulating your cat until you change the diet, and a canned diet will be better for the urinary tract problems anyway since lack of moisture from dry food is what causes the urinary tract issues to begin with.
You also don't need your vet's blessing to change the diet or start home testing. You can go buy any human glucometer (many people use the Relion meter from Walmart because it has inexpensive strips). You can say your cat will no longer eat the prescription food and return it to your vet for a refund.
The three key factors that lead to regulation, and then remission in diabetic cats are a low carb canned diet, regulation via home testing, and a slow acting insulin. The majority of newly diagnosed cats go into remission when the correct steps in treatment are taken from the beginning--the sooner you get on the correct treatment path, the better are your chances of remission.
Unfortunately, people in your situation show up here more commonly than not--many vets either have not kept current on the subject, or are afraid the owner will freak out at the prospect of home monitoring. The best thing you can do is to research the subject on your own, and educate your vet. If your vet refuses to get on board with the correct treatment despite the information you're bringing him saying otherwise, then it's time to find a new vet. My current vet wasn't recommending all the right aspects of treatment when I started going there--but I provided them with veterinary articles and information that supported my choice of treatment for Bandit, and now they have completely changed their treatment guidelines at their practice. A good vet might not know everything, but they are willing to learn and change. :smile:
