Newbie! 9 year old Caesar

Status
Not open for further replies.
Deb and Caesar

Deb and Caesar

New Member
Hi everyone.

I am in Sarasota Florida with a big ol' 18 lb tomcat named Caesar who was diagnosed a month ago. Symptoms were the usual: excess drinking and urination, huge appetite, walking funny and most noticeably--weight loss. I am an ex -lab tech, so I had GluoStix here and tested his pee. 4+!! Fasting sugar was 455, and he is now on 3 units Pro Zinc. I give him canned food in the AM and PM with his shot, and the low carb dry food is out all day. The problem is, I have 4 other cats who like the expensive stuff too! Oh well, they can reap the benefits.
I am doing OK, but this is really limiting!! I need to find another local diabetic cat owner who can come over and give injections and I will reciprocate. I will ask my vet.

The good side is, he is doing OK. Back legs are still a bit wobbly, and he cannot jump like he used to. I hope that disappears.
Thanks for all you guys do on this site!!!


Deb and Caesar
 
Re: Newbie! 9 yar old Caesar

Welcome to the site. I am glad to hear that Caesar is doing better. I am in Canada so i sure can't help with shots, but my first most important suggestion is to drop the dry food, all dry food and you will see MUCH better BG numbers. Low carb dry is merely an advertising ploy, and if you don't have any health issues where you must feed this dry food, cutting it out immediately will get you healthier BG numbers.
If my Shadoe gets even a small mouthful of dry, her numbers soar into the 400s, so I have seen the effects of dry.

I am sure others will have good food advice for you, but here are mine:
Binky’s Food Lists
Feeding Your Cat: Know The Basics of Feline Nutrition

I am gone pretty much between amps and pmps during the week, so I and many others make use of auto feeders like this one to ration out the proper food
Petsafe 5-meal Auto Feeder

If you could expand on the statement, "this is really limiting" I bet you will get tons of suggestions how better to deal with it all.
 
Re: Newbie! 9 yar old Caesar

Good morning. Welcome to FDMB. I live in Jacksonville, so I am a little too far away to help with the shots.

First, 3 units is a high dose to start a newly diabetic cat on unless there are other health issues going on. Most of the cats here get 1 or 2 units twice a day. Insulin should not be dosed by the weight of the cat. We recommend starting low and going slow about raising the dose. By starting too high, in addition to risking hypoglycemia, you also can miss your optimal dose and your cat can go through Somogyi rebound. What this means is the glucose levels will remain high because the body is trying to prevent itself from becoming hypoglycemic because of too much insulin. You should consider dropping back to 1 unit twice a day and not increasing insulin until he as been on that dose for at least one week.

Do you hometest using a glucose meter? It is a more accurate testing method than using the strips. You will want to test before every shot to make sure that it is safe to give the insulin. For newbies, we recommend that you do not give insulin if the glucose reading is less than 200. As you become more familiar with how Ceasar responds to the insulin dose that you are giving him, that "don't shoot" level can be adjusted to a lower level.

Now to your main question. Gayle is right, you should get rid of the dry. However, right now because Ceasar is getting such a high dose of insulin, you really need to lower that insulin dose also. The dry food may be the only thing that is preventing him from becoming hypoglycemic. As for the canned food, if you are feeding him prescription food, that is not necessary. Most of us feed our cats regular canned foods such as Friskies or Fancy Feast. I have 8 cats, with one of them being diabetic, and they all eat the same canned food which is Friskies. And you are right, feeding them canned is beneficial. It lessens the chance that any of the others may develop diabetes.

So why do you need help giving Ceasar shots? Does your work schedule vary or you travel often? The reason I am asking is that you may not have developed your routine yet and that is why it seems overwhelming. Even when I had two diabetic cats, it added less than 10 minutes a day to routine to care for their diabetic needs. This included testing both before every shot and preparing and giving their insulin shots. I can test, feed all of 8 of my cats canned food and give insulin shots in about 5 minutes. You just need to find the routine that works best for you.
 
Re: Newbie! 9 yar old Caesar

Hi there - I know it seems overwhelming at first, but you have lots of support from the members of this board, and we will help you. Once you develop a routine, it isn't all that bad. And of course, the reward is that your cat will start to feel a lot better.

As a lab tech, you may find it a bit easier to get into hometesting. Although glucostix are useful for an average of how much your cat exceeded the renal threshold in a given period of time (since the last urination), it won't give you a snapshot of what the blood glucose levels are - this is just like it is for human diabetics. Don't despair - we can help you with all of this. Take a deep breath, read, ask questions, and try not to stress too much. (I know - easier said than done.) Laura
 
Hi Deb!
so glad you intoduced you and ceasar.
your newbie kit should arrive i'm thinking by moday?
3U is too high a dose if you've switched diets and actually in general too high a starting dose.
it's ok to start at 1U and it will save you time and frustration one you start testing in knowing if he's getting to much or too little. start immediatly.
all of your cats should be eatting the low carb canned stuff. will save them all health issues down the road.
all or mostly all your diabetic work can now be done from home so you won't need to run to vet for this. it is quite managable and the first few weeks there seems to be much to learn but eventually it will all become 2nd nature.
i'm going to send you a video of one of our members testing his kitty ok.
Lori and tomtom
 
WOW! I cannot thank you guys enough for all your responses. I learned A LOT.

Like 3 units his high for starters. My vet said nothing of it. Caesar's 6 hour glucose was 170, so the vet told me I could take the insulin to 4, but I have not. I feed him canned food AM and PM, but supplement it with dry in between that is on Binky's list. From what I can tell from the list, only 4 dry foods have low (about 10%) carbs. Is that OK?

I have 4 other cats who are enjoying the healthy food regimen too!

Yes, I do travel--just simple overnights, but that is not a problem I gotta figure out. I put up a flier at my vets offering trade-offs to other diabetic cat owners. I do not want to board him.

Lori, thank you for the kit. Today is the first trial, if I can get the big boy to sit still long enough!

THANK YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
I will be glad when you are testing his blood at home. (The pee testing gives you a number after it has made its way all the way through the cat so it isn't a good predictor of what his blood sugar levels are at the moment of the shot.) I agree with the idea of going to 1 unit twice a day until you can test his blood sugars.

Have you recently changed to wet lo carb? If so, be careful. Oliver's bg levels went down 100 points overnight when we switched from dry to wet. Here is a food chart - there are lots of food under 10%. http://www.felinediabetes.com/diabetic-cat-diets.htm Do stay away from feeding fish too often.

The difficulty walking can be neuropathy. Methyl B12 will help as will regulation. http://www.felinediabetes.com/weak-back-rear-legs.htm

Welcome! You will get lots of useful advice here.
 
OK--I have a really dumb question. You give your kitty wet food twice a day and nothing in between?
 

Attachments

  • Caesar.jpg
    Caesar.jpg
    173 KB · Views: 504
Personally I free fed wet of course I have the luxery of being home all day to do it. But basically I put out food about 4 times a day. All of mine are grazers.

Mel & Max
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top