New & Need to Know I Doing Everything Right

I'm new here. My cat was recently diagnosed with diabetes. His latest trip to the vet last week his BG was still too high and vet increased insulin to 4U 2x a day. Vet also explained his liver enzymes were elevated and ran a thyroid test which came out normal. Vet further stated that Fluffy may be having something going on in the liver and put him on meds for that. Should I be alarmed? I cannot remember the name of the oral suspension prescribed since I'm not at home to look. I never had a diabetic cat. Fluff is active now and seems to be feeling better and better since his original diagnosis mid March. All he did was lay around and not active. He ate normally, just looked like he didn't feel good and lost weight, going from nearly 17 lbs to 12.4 lbs. He's playing again with the other cats. He has resumed jumping up into window perches to look out the window. His weight is staying the same. He eats mostly wet food now but has some access to dry food because of the other cats. I close him up to eat his wet food or else he'd let the others steal it! All my cats (7) would prefer wet food but its far too expensive to switch them over to just WET! He still urinating quite a bit and is now on 4U 2x a day for 10 days, then per vet increase to 5U if he is still urinating a lot. I'm picking up Walmart people glucometer tonight after work. I hope I'm doing everything correctly. I cannot loose my precious boy! He's a maincoon mix and 16yrs old. He was lost for 9 years and I got him back! A MIRACLE! That's a story for another day.

Should I be testing his urine? If so, which strips? Where to get strips? What should the urine levels be at?

 

Hi. Yes. It’s very important to begin testing at home to make sure it is safe to give the insulin and Fluffy won’t go hypo. What type of insulin are you currently giving Fluffy?

 

Can you tap on the blue link and give us information about Fluffy
Here is a link helping us to help you link. If you noticed, our members have some basic information about their cat's in their signature. This helps us to not pester you by asking the same questions (your cat's name, insulin type, date of diagnosis, etc.) repeatedly. We also have a link to our spreadsheet in our signature. We are very numbers driven. The spreadsheet is a record of your cat's progress. By linking it in your signature, we can follow along and provide feedback should you need the help.

We also have a spreadsheet where we track our
kitties BG to see how the insulin is working and how low their BG is dropping
I'll give you the link to set up our spreadsheet and how it works. If you have trouble seeing it up just ask and a member will set it up for you
We never increase insulin by whole units , we increase by 0.25 units
Also the syringes we use have half unit markings
Tap on your name ,then signature add info

• Add info we need to help you:
  • Caregiver & kitty's name
  • DX: Date
  • Name of Insulin (do not include dose or frequency)
  • Name of your meter
  • Diet: "LC wet" or "dry food" or "combo"
  • Dosing: TR or SLGS or Custom (if applicable)
  • DKA or other recent health issue (if applicable)
  • Acro, IAA, or Cushings (if applicable)
  • Spreadsheet link. Please put the signature link on the bottom line of your signature information, on its own, so it is easy to find.
  • Please do not put any information about your location in the signature for security reasons. If you wish to add your country location, please add it to your profile.

Be sure to click the 'Save Changes' button at the bottom. If you need help urgently it is important we know these things at a glance. We don’t want to waste valuable time finding out information.

At Walmart you can buy the Relion Premier Classic monitor for 9 dollars
17.88 for 100 test strips
26 or 28 gauge lancets
Cotton rounds

Always aim for the sweet spot warm the ears up first, you can put rice in a sock and put it in the microwave, test it on the inside of your wrist to be sure it's not to hot, like you would test a babies bottle. You can fill a pill bottle with warm water and roll it on the ears also.Just keep rubbing the ears with your fingers to warm them up

6. As the ears get used to bleeding and grow more capilares, it gets easier to get the amount of blood you need on the first try. If he won’t stand still, you can get the blood onto a clean finger nail and test from there.
When you do get some blood you can try milking the ear.
Get you finger and gently push up toward the blood , more will appear
You will put the cotton round behind his ear in case you poke your finger, after you are done testing you will fold the cotton round over his ear to stop the bleeding , press gently for about 20 seconds until it stops
Get 26 or 28 gauge lancets
A lot of us use the lancets to test freehand
I find it better to see where I'm aiming
You can also put a thin layer of vaseline on the ear ,to help the blood bead up

Here is a video one of our members did
VIDEO: How to test your cat's blood sugar

Most of us feed Fancy Feast Classic Pate , we like to stay at 6 % carbs preferably under
Dry food is too high in carbs
Here us our food chart for you to look at
https://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/dr-pierson-new-food-chart.174147/

 

Thank you, Diane. I was going to tag you.

 

I answered about the urine strips on your other thread. Lots of pharmacies carry ketone urine test strips. As I said, I used a blood ketone meter.

 

Lol that's too funny

 

This is a dangerous way to be handling the insulin dose. What blood glucose numbers (BG) numbers have you gotten from the vet? You can’t know what is a safe amount of insulin without testing his BG. You must know how low the dose is taking him. Also, can you share his lab work? You should be able to get it from the vet. I would like to see it. I see a lot of newly diagnosed cats with elevated liver enzymes. It’s not uncommon. When you get a chance, let us know what the liver medication is. Welcome to the Forum. We will be happy to help and answer questions!

 

I am going tonight to purchase Relion BG meter/strips to check it before increase dose to 5U. I agree! The vets told me that they function on the "blind" method. Term may be incorrect. Nonetheless, it is blind for sure! That's why I left the original vet that diagnosed Fluffy. I will get copies of his Blood work next trip in as I have no fax and the drive is a lil drive away. The name of the liver med is URSODIOL 100MG/ML @ 0.55ML daily. He is on Novolin N.

Thank you for your reply.

 

Novolin N but that will be changing soon to something else per DCIN.

 

Wow! Thank you kindly for all this important information! Much appreciated! I'm trying to understand instructions in the first two paragraphs of this email. I need to read it when I'm not distracted or when I can be on a PC as my cell is far too small to comprehend info on these forums.

 

I totally understand this! I have this problem all the time (using my phone and trying to reply to people!) There's a lot to take in at one time. We want to help you keep your boy safe! Ask lots of questions, we will be happy to answer.

 

I am glad you will be changing insulin since that's not the best. It would be great if you could get your kitty on an insulin that is very good for cats, like Lantus or one of the less expensive generics/bioequivalents. But we can still help you until then. We just need to get you started with a spreadsheet and testing so that we (and especially you) can see what is happening with Fluffy. What is fluffy eating now? Is it a low carb wet food? You say he sometimes gets into dry food? What kind? This can really impact his BG.

 

Awww. Thank you for your kindness! I truly appreciate the help. I've never had a diabetic cat before only diabetic dad. Yes...I will ask, ask and ask s'more as new questions populate my thinking space.

 

I don't have a PC at home, only my cell. No internet at home either...not affordable. I love Excel! I believe I downloaded the one you all use, but not sure which values I am to populate with Fluff's numbers / test results. All of my cats have eaten Friskies seafood pate for years on holidays, or treats. I inherited my sisters 18 yr old spoiled on wet food cat at her unexpected passing two years ago. So since then, they have all gotten a literal TBSP each, 1 wetfood 5.5 oz can a day and dry food. Since Fluff's diagnosis in March 2022, I went on a mission to research how to get him off insulin as he was just getting started! I believed it was all about diet having a dad that loved food and was diabetic. Since then I purchased additionally Fancy Feast pate flavors: seafood varieties, and chicken, grain free low carb (per charts I found online). In my favor, the Friskies seafood variety is in that list and they all prefer that! Prior to any diagnosis I have researched raw cat food recipes trying to calculate how to switch them all to raw food simply because the food they eat has been hard to get and I can't keep switching brands on them. The don't take to that well. But I know they'll LOVE raw but its so costly even making it myself is the plan. I have a meat grinder already, just affording the fresh meats for 7 cats and the time and freezer space to facilitate the project is a big ordeal for me. I know my cats all would have no problem switching to raw or all wet. Fluffy is locked up in bathroom when feeding on wet food so others don't steal it from him. He would let them too. I feed him 3oz. am/pm, then he comes out and nibbles on dry. I pick up the community bowl after a couple hrs, like noon and then return it at 7p. and repeat...picking up bowl before bed.

 

You will likely need to feed him more often than just twice a day. You will need a hypo kit with karo syrup and some medium and high carb food for emergencies.

 

@Diane Tyler's Mom where’s the sticky about the hypo kit. I can’t find it!

 

I have an ER syringe filled with KARO, what other snacks do I need?

 

I found it

https://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/jojo-and-bunnys-hypo-tool-box.2354/

 

You are invaluable my man!

 

When you can, read the link above that Kyle (Hendrick Cuddleclaw) posted. But you will need some medium carb food and some high carb food (like Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers flavors.) if he starts to drop lower than we want him to be, those are the tools you can use to het his blood sugar up. A little bit of Karo syrup can also be mixed in with regular food to give it more carbs. When I had to give straight Karo, I actually used about a 50/50 mix of Karo and water because it was a lot easier to syringe in. About 1.5 cc of that mixture did the trick.

 

What is your work schedule like?

 

We suggest only feeding fish flavors maybe only once or twice a week because of the mercury in it.
In case you haven't seen the food chart here is the link
https://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/dr-pierson-new-food-chart.174147/

You should always have these for your hypo kit
For your hypo kit you want some
Med and High Carb food such as the FF Gravy Lovers and some honey



Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers Gourmet Beef Feast in Gravy 20% High Carbs

Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers Gourmet Chicken Feast in Gravy 15% Med Carbs

Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers Turkey Feast in Gravy 15% Med Carbs

Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers Chicken and Beef in Gravy 15% Med Carbs

Good idea to mark the cans with magic marker how many carbs

Look for some 23 percent carbs also

Or any on the food chart.