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SweetBoy'sMomma09

SweetBoy'sMomma09

Member Since 2020
My boy Milo was diagnosed with diabetes 8 Jan. 2020. Waiting to hear back from my vet about different .treatment options. Any advice on how to go about making sure my boy stays healthy? Also I travel (by personal vehcile) for work as a contract cardiac sonographer and my boy travels with me. I'm currently in my home state between contracts. How does traveling with a cat with diabetes work? He stays in his carrier when I'm driving.
 
Hello and welcome.
First off, this is not a death sentence, no life span needs to be lost and if you do things the right way then there is no reason your cat can't thrive and lead a normal happy life. Unfortunately, many vets are not quite up to date with the correct treatment of diabetes (can believe I am still saying this after over 15+ years doing this)
Fortunately, your cat picked you and you are smart enough to research things on your own. This disease cannot be treated by vets as they cannot get the correct information to guide you in treatment. Only you can do that.
I would recommend that you use Lantus insulin. It is the least risky and I believe the insulin that has the most success with not only getting cats regulated where the diabetes doesn't do any damage but also has a very high remission rate where the diabetes becomes diet controlled. It is expensive but you can look on craigslist and maybe save 70% on your purchase.
You will need to tell the vet what kind of syringes you need. Tell him you need u-100 3/10thcc 30 or a 31 gauge with half unit markings
Speaking of diet, Most cats get diabetes in the first place because they eat dry food. (steroids also cause diabetes in some cats) Canned foods under 10% carbs. (No gravy sauce types) are best and dry food shouldn't be fed again not only because of the diabetes but for general health as well. There should be a list of canned foods and their carb contents above in Dr Lisa's web site. www.catinfo.org
Doses usually should start at 1 unit of insulin twice a day 12 hours apart. With Lantus, it is very important to keep the shots as close to 12 hours apart as possible because of the way this particular insulin works.
If your cat is comfortable with traveling then it shouldn't be an issue. Stress can raise the blood glucose significantly and I imagine you will find out soon enough if the traveling affects the blood glucose numbers.
Home testing is the key along with food. It is the only way to know if it is safe to give insulin as well as giving the information needed to treat this disease correctly.
The board can teach you how. You can buy a glucometer lancets and test strips at any pharmacy. Many people use a reli-on meter as it works well enough and the test strips don't cost an arm and a leg.
Hope some of this helps. This is not as hard or scary as it feels like right now. If you test at home, ask advice from people here, there should be no need to run to the vets for things diabetes related. Ask questions as you need to and the combined knowledge of the board usually comes up with some sound advice.
Very best to you and good luck
 
The recommended insulins for cats are Lantus, Levemir or Prozinc. Your vet will probably have a favourite that they are familiar with. Many people here from the US buy their insulin on line from Canada for substantial savings.

Here we are also proponents of low carb wet or raw food as appropriate food for diabetics. What are you feeding now?

I travelled quite a bit with my girl, not at first as she wasn't used to it. But we did do rather longer trips - a couple 3 day road trips of 9 hours on the road each day. And she went on a couple holidays and day trips with me that involved cars and ferries. I even did a couple flights with her. We have even had members here go camping with their diabetic cats. One of our members wrote a document on travelling with diabetic cats, with input from many of us who have done this. And as I discovered with my girl, sometimes stress can cause their numbers to drop! Always plan road trips with locations you can pull over and test or feed the cat if needed.
 
Wendy&Neko said:
The recommended insulins for cats are Lantus, Levemir or Prozinc. Your vet will probably have a favourite that they are familiar with. Many people here from the US buy their insulin on line from Canada for substantial savings.

Here we are also proponents of low carb wet or raw food as appropriate food for diabetics. What are you feeding now?

I travelled quite a bit with my girl, not at first as she wasn't used to it. But we did do rather longer trips - a couple 3 day road trips of 9 hours on the road each day. And she went on a couple holidays and day trips with me that involved cars and ferries. I even did a couple flights with her. We have even had members here go camping with their diabetic cats. One of our members wrote a document on travelling with diabetic cats, with input from many of us who have done this. And as I discovered with my girl, sometimes stress can cause their numbers to drop! Always plan road trips with locations you can pull over and test or feed the cat if needed.
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My vet wants to put my boy on Prozinc 1 unit, twice a day. Haven't started insulin yet, because I'm waiting on it to be delivered. Then I will go back to the vet's office to be shown how to administer the insulin. He and my parents cat had been on CRAVE indoor dry food with my boy getting some wet food throughout the week. I haven't gotten a certain brand of canned food, just whatever's on sale that I though he might like. I made notes as to what he did/didn't like, so I'd know what to get when he ran out of what I had at the time. Vet wants Milo on Purina ProPlan D/M wet (am/pm) and dry (to snack during the day) food. For his current weight vet said he needs to be eating 260 calories. My parents cat will eat the same as mine.

I'm trying to just give wet currently have some Fancy Feast, Whole Earth Farms, Merrick Purrfect Bistro, Friskies, and Purina D/M. Do have some dry food out, but they haven't been to interested since starting mostly canned.
 
Ideally you should food under 10% carbs, wet or raw food is best. This list on the site of a vet nutritionist Dr. Lisa Pierson, lists a lot of the commercially available foods in North America. You don't need to feed D/M. And I'd definitely not feed the dry. A heads up, many cats get tired of the DM. The Fancy Feast and Friskies classic pates are fine, most of the Merrick Purrfect Bistro, but a couple are a little higher. Whole Earth Farms also depends on the flavour. If you have some that are higher than 10%, save them and set them aside for if his blood sugar goes lower and you need to bring it up.
 
Started with 1 unit ProZinc last night. His number then were 369 with the EmbracePro. They were 320 this morning before 1 unit ProZinc. Also getting the Alphatrack2, because the vet insisted and for a backup. Looking for other test strips to use with the Alphatrack2. Read about Freestyle Lite, regular Freestyle and Petsure strips.
 
Meters are made to be used with test strips for that specific meter. Although other people may have used those other strips, doing that could throw off the readings. Substantially in some cases. Trying to use test strips for a human meter in a pet meter is not recommended here. Each meter is programmed and reads information from the strip and has coding behind the scenes to get that reading.

I think you live in the US, but you haven't said. If you are in the US, Human meters, like the Relion Premier line available at Wal-mart in the US have a much lower cost of test strips than the Alphatrak 2. It's the cost of the test strips that will really hit your wallet hard, with $1 to 2 per test strip for the pet meters.

I used both types of meters at the beginning of my diabetic boys journey with feline diabetes, Alphatrak 2 and human meter. I even did side by side testing on the same blood drop. (Shelter was complaining about my testing too much with the pet meter. All that testing got my boy diet controlled though).

Before the pharmaceutical companies saw a market for pet specific meters, all vets used human glucometers. Sigh.
 
As a compromise with the vet, you could always use the human meter with much cheaper strips most of the time, and safe the Alphatrak for curve days, if that is what the vet wants. The manufacturer of the Alphatrak does not recommend using other strips in their meter, even the Freestyle. Special testing is done of the Alphatrak test strips. Personally, I would just not want to play that game with my cats life. All our dosing methods are written with human meters in mind.

Good luck with the Prozinc, I hope it helps Milo's numbers.
 
Deb & Wink said:
Meters are made to be used with test strips for that specific meter. Although other people may have used those other strips, doing that could throw off the readings. Substantially in some cases. Trying to use test strips for a human meter in a pet meter is not recommended here. Each meter is programmed and reads information from the strip and has coding behind the scenes to get that reading.

I think you live in the US, but you haven't said. If you are in the US, Human meters, like the Relion Premier line available at Wal-mart in the US have a much lower cost of test strips than the Alphatrak 2. It's the cost of the test strips that will really hit your wallet hard, with $1 to 2 per test strip for the pet meters.

I used both types of meters at the beginning of my diabetic boys journey with feline diabetes, Alphatrak 2 and human meter. I even did side by side testing on the same blood drop. (Shelter was complaining about my testing too much with the pet meter. All that testing got my boy diet controlled though).

Before the pharmaceutical companies saw a market for pet specific meters, all vets used human glucometers. Sigh.
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I do live in the US. I have an Embrace Pro human glucometer I got from my pharmacy. I've realized it does seem to take a bigger sample size though.
 
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