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Glynnis

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Isn't is strange how hindsight is always 20/20? I just found out 4 days ago that my 7 year old cat, Jakob, is diabetic. Looking back, all of the symptoms were there, but they were not consistent enough for me to suspect anything was wrong. The climate where we live is exceptionally dry, especially in winter (humidity hovers around 40-60%) and I live on the top floor of an apartment that can get quite warm - I attributed Jakob's high water consumption to those two factors. He vomited on occasion, maybe once or twice a month but I didn't take alarm as I thought he perhaps was trying to get rid of a hairball. I finally took him to the vet when he began urinating outside of the litter box, thinking he had a urinary tract infection.

Imagine my shock when my vet called me with the news! I have began insulin shots twice a day with Lantus and have been feeding him a strict diet of food provided by my vet specifically for Diabetes. I've already seen a major improvement in him already. The water dish is still full when I get home from work, the litter box is near empty and he is looking more alert; although I'm cautious to be too optimistic. He goes back to the vet on Tuesday for his first glucose curve test.

My vet was a little reluctant to talk about remission (I guess it's still pretty early) but is there an average time we should be shooting for? I read some of the message posts where people were seeing their cats go into remission as early as three months? Can I hope for remission that quickly or does it really depend on each individual case? My vet didn't give me his sugar levels, I didn't think to ask, but I will definitely find out the next time we're in.

I will continue reading all of your posts and learn as much as I can about FDMB from those who have experienced it first hand.

Ciao,

Glynnis
 
Hi Glynnis, and welcome to FDMB,

Lantus is a great insulin for diabetic cats. You said twice a day, which is correct, but you didn't mention what the starting dose was.
What type of food did the vet give you?

Don't feel "different" about the hindsight thing. I didn't even know cats could have diabetes the day I found out that Bob did.
Yes, remission is a possibility. But as you suspected, it really is a case of Every Cat Is Different, or as we put it "ECID". My cat, Bob, was on PZI insulin for about 10 weeks, and now he doesn't need it anymore. He'll always be diabetic, but he's considered "diet controlled" now.

Have you read yet about home testing? Just about all of us do it, and you can too. You use a normal human glucometer, and get blood from kitty's ear. We test our cats at least 2 or 3 times a day, and always test just before giving insulin. That's the safest way to manage the disease, and if you do it yourself at home, you'll never have to bring Jakob in to the vet for another curve. A lot of times, the numbers are elevated at the vet's office due to most cats being stressed out from being there. Stress raises blood glucose significantly. If you are considering testing at home, we can point you to all sorts of videos that show you how it is done, and we can "talk" you through it easily.

Carl
 
Hi Carl,

Thanks for replying so quickly! I'm hoping that because Jakob's symptoms weren't extreme that the outlook is positive for him. My vet didn't mention doing a glucose check at home but I would definitely be more willing to do that. Can I find glucometers at my local pharmacy?

The vet started me off with 2 units of Lantus every 12 hours. The food he provided is Purina Vetrinary Diets Dietetic Management. It's quite expensive (approx $50 for a flat of 24 cans) but I'm afraid to try anything else and he seems to like it. Perhaps once I become a little more comfortable with Diabetes I will try and switch to something else.

Glynnis
 
Hi Glynnis
This is a really useful place with loads of useful information. I'm a newbie myself, so there's little useful or specifically helpful I can say to you today, except "welcome" and best of health to your Jakob!
(nice name)

Nat
 
Welcome to the FDMB family, Glynnis and Jakob! cat_pet_icon

Home testing has already been mentioned, so I won't repeat that. (Although it is worth repeating. :-D )

As long as Jakob is eating the wet prescription food that's fine. Having alternatives, and less costly at that, is handy to know since many cats won't eat the prescription stuff after a while. If he turns his nose up at the stuff, thankfully you can return it to the vet (also good to know). :smile: I have a link in my signature to Janet and Binky's list if you need it. We aim for foods with <10 carbs, some go for as low as <7 carbs.

Don't hesitate to ask questions. We're all here to help our kitties. :-D
 
My vet was a little reluctant to talk about remission (I guess it's still pretty early) but is there an average time we should be shooting for? I read some of the message posts where people were seeing their cats go into remission as early as three months? Can I hope for remission that quickly or does it really depend on each individual case?
Click to expand...

Glynnis, There is no "average" time for remission. You really need to look at this as a lifetime commitment whether remission happens or not. The main goal is to learn to hometest, feed only canned food, make sure kitty doesn't get into any dry or high carb human foods, test urine for ketones when possible or necessary (kitty gets sick, doesn't act right), and have a healthy, well controlled diabetic kitty. Remission is possible and happens quite a bit with newly dx'd kitties when dry food is completely taken away and some insulin is given..sometimes a few days, sometimes a few weeks, sometimes maybe for 6 months. Then there are those kitties that no matter what the human does the cat will never go into remission. I just don't want you to start this sugardance with the feeling that if you do everything right, Jakob will go into remission and then be totally distraught when it doesn't happen.

All we ever want is to see our pet healthy, happy, playing and enjoying life and if that means testing and shooting insulin for the rest of their lives, then so be it, happy to do it.
 
I'm not a big fan of the prescription food. The Purina DM isn't bad when it comes to carbohydrates (7%), but read the ingredients -- it's made up of primarily animal by-products. For what you are spending for prescription food, you can spend less for human grade, high quality non-prescription food such as Wellness or EVO that are muscle meat. Lisa Pierson, DVM's website on feline nutrition is a wealth of information about food quality and she does a lot of myth busting about not only dry food but prescription food for diabetic cats. There are a lot of options for low carb food out there and many of those options will not break the bank. Janet & Binky's list and this nutritional values spreadsheet are good resources.

Better than asking your vet for your cat's blood glucose (BG) values, you can learn to home test. Home testing is the best way to keep your cat safe and for you to be able to effectively manage Jakob's diabetes. Testing lets you know if it's safe to give a shot or when a dose change is needed. You won't need to be taking Jakob to the vet for curves -- you can do this on your own and the curve will be more accurate. Many cats experience a significant amount of stress at the vet's office and as a result, their BG readings are inflated. What can happen, then, is the vet adjusts the dose based on those inflated numbers. It's easy to then end up giving your cat too much insulin which can be dangerous. Being able to home test circumvents this kind of situation. If you are near a Walmart, the Relion brand meter is inexpensive as are the strips that it uses.

I'd echo what Hope said about remission. Lantus (and Levemir) gives a newly diagnosed cat the best chance at remission if you are following the Tight Regulation Protocol. This approach takes some getting used to and there are other approaches to dosing. If you want to read more about Lantus dosing, there are starred, sticky notes at the top of the Lantus board. There's information there about the Tight Regulation Protocol.
 
Every single cat and situation is unique, but there are some things you can do to aim for remission, when your Jakob is ready.

Food. If you are feeding any dry food; toss it, and that includes those 'treats'. They are high carb, have poor ingredients, and contribute to high BG numbers. Check out Binky's list, someone had the link in their signature, and pick some low carb wet foods. Many people go with Fancy Feast pates, or Friskies and 9Lives pates; they are economical and low carb. You can get a couple cans with grilled and gravy in the names, but they are for emergencies if Jakob goes low in his BG numbers. Food is a very big deal because many animals are DIET CONTROLLED and once the lousy food is removed and they are served low carb wet food, their BG numbers drop into good zone.

Health. How about those teeth? Quite often, animals may have higher numbers because of some illness and some bad teeth being cleaned/fixed/extracted go along way to bring BG numbers into line.

Testing at home. This part of the picture saves you worries and a bundle of money as neither you nor your cat like to go to the vet and staying there for curves is crazy.... you can do a small poke on the cat's ear, and test with a meter by sipping up the drop of blood from the poke. Lots of good meters at the pharmacy, but do NOT get the FreeStyle meters as they give false readings. Relion is great if you are in the US, or Bayer, OneTouch, Accu-Chek are also very good. By testing at home, you can tell how Jakob is doing, and you may find he does not need insulin, or needs it for a very short time.
I compare testing BG at home or at the vet once a week like testing your child's temperature... would you want to test more often at home to see if your child's temp is dropping or just hope it's going well and take the child to the dr once a week for a reading. It's a no brainer; test at home for your peace of mind and Jakob's health.

Insulin. Good choices are Levemir, Lantus or even Prozinc. I don't recall if you mentioned insulin choice in your post, but if you have not started yet, then making changes and testing at home will let you know if you even need to start shots or not.

There are plenty of people here all the time, so any question you have, just ask away.
 
Don't beat yourself up about the hindsight thing. Hobbs was that way too. I took him to the vet in September because he was also peeing outside the box. His BG at the time was 100 but his kidneys were showing signs of disease, so we caught that on accident. Soon after he started showing signs of diabetes, except I didn't realize they were symptoms. The drinking/peeing more I attributed to his kidneys doing better. Sure in hindsight I "should" have known something was up, but I didn't. We caught the diabetes at his 3 month check up for his kidneys. Welcome to the group!
 
Wow, thank you everyone for the helpful advice. :-D I will definitely start home testing beginning tomorrow!! I understand remission may never happen, I'm just more concerned that Jakob is healthy and will do everything I can to keep him that way.

Before last weekend, I didn't even read the ingredients on my pet food - but I'm sure going to start. I will look at all of the links you have all sent me - it's nice that I'm not alone.

Glynnis
 
Re: New to the Forum - Just did first home test!

Well I just did my first at home test with Jakob - it was a bit tricky (it took me two tries, sorry buddy!) but I managed to get a reading of 15.4 mmol/l. I think that is not too bad? He ate and had his insulin about 3 hours ago, but as this is the first time I've ever done this, I wanted to do it while I was awake and not pressed for time. I will test him again before supper time and insulin and see where we stand. Your comments and suggestions are more than welcome!

Glynnis
 
Hang in there--I've only been doing this for a couple of weeks and I feel pretty confident now! And my cat feels better and acts like his old self. Welcome!
 
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