Hello all - my name is Marlene (aka kadacat) and I live in Ottawa, Canada. Our 13 year old male cat, Scratch, has just been diagnosed with feline diabetes. Today was his first day on insulin. He spent the day with the vet so they could monitor him. His top glucose reading was 18.4 before insulin - the lowest reading before it starting up again was 14.3. He is on Caninsulin twice a day.
We have noticed a decline in Scratch's health for the past several months but attributed it to loneliness since we had to put our 4 yr old female tabby down in January - she has pancreatitis. When his condition didn't improve we took him in for testing. He has lost a considerable amount of weight which seems to have come off mainly in the past few weeks. Since Friday he has had a further decline with noticable inactivity and lack of interest in eating or drinking.
Today when I went to the vet for insulin training - the vet told us Scratch has ketoacidosis. In order to stabilize his glucose we need to get this condition under control. The way to do that is to flush the body of ketones through intake of food and water. Problem is, it is now difficult to get Scratch to eat or drink. They are force feeding him at the vet and injecting fluids under his skin for hydration. The vet gave us three options to treat the ketoacidosis (1) keep Scratch at home and continue with the insulin twice a day feeding him before the injection and monitor him (2) bring him back to our vet where they can continue what they did today or (3) take him to an animal hospital where they would put him on IV to flush his system. Of course the third option is the most expensive.
So, I am sure others here have experience ketoacidosis. What do you think? Will the regiment of starting Scratch on insulin and force feeding food and water be enough to kick start his system into responding correctly? We spent a fortune on trying to save our cat Tess and in the end left the hospital without her. I really don't want to go through that again.
- Marlene
We have noticed a decline in Scratch's health for the past several months but attributed it to loneliness since we had to put our 4 yr old female tabby down in January - she has pancreatitis. When his condition didn't improve we took him in for testing. He has lost a considerable amount of weight which seems to have come off mainly in the past few weeks. Since Friday he has had a further decline with noticable inactivity and lack of interest in eating or drinking.
Today when I went to the vet for insulin training - the vet told us Scratch has ketoacidosis. In order to stabilize his glucose we need to get this condition under control. The way to do that is to flush the body of ketones through intake of food and water. Problem is, it is now difficult to get Scratch to eat or drink. They are force feeding him at the vet and injecting fluids under his skin for hydration. The vet gave us three options to treat the ketoacidosis (1) keep Scratch at home and continue with the insulin twice a day feeding him before the injection and monitor him (2) bring him back to our vet where they can continue what they did today or (3) take him to an animal hospital where they would put him on IV to flush his system. Of course the third option is the most expensive.
So, I am sure others here have experience ketoacidosis. What do you think? Will the regiment of starting Scratch on insulin and force feeding food and water be enough to kick start his system into responding correctly? We spent a fortune on trying to save our cat Tess and in the end left the hospital without her. I really don't want to go through that again.
- Marlene
