Newbie On Deck! Meet Marvin!

[Anna & Marvin]

Hi all, I was sent by the FB group to post an introduction here, and told you are all Very Nice and are not likely to eat me.

Sugar Kitty: Marvin, a Turkish Angora/Ragdoll
Age: 15 on 1/21
Insulin: Lantus
Dose: originally 2u, adjusted by me to .25u two weeks after diagnosis when his numbers evened out.
Frequency: 12 hours apart, 6 am and 6 pm.
Home testing: Yes, with a ReliOn human meter; he had a Libre for a month in the beginning but it ended up being wildly inaccurate and unreliable.
Food: Tiki Cat mousse, a tablespoon at a time, throughout the day—if he eats too much too fast he barfs. I feed him whenever he asks for food and after tests. If his numbers are too low for my comfort, he gets a little bit of Friskies gravy on top.
Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HZBEY-73jgabcuwb0qFJDxFNDl1iUb6V-E7EtLBFSSI/edit?usp=sharing

He was diagnosed on 11/22/21 after some weird symptoms—yowling, fixated on water, whimpering—made me take him to an emergency vet. They took his vitals, declared him fine, and tried to send me home. I refused to leave and insisted something was wrong, so they took him back and did bloodwork. His BG was >500 and the vet declared him diabetic. Marvin then spent three very expensive days in the hospital while they got his BG under control. He came home with a URI, a prescription for a $300 bottle of insulin, the wrong syringes, a Libre monitor I didn't understand how to use, and no other instructions. Oh, and a bill for $5,000.

The first week was absolute hell. I did not sleep more than a few minutes at a time, I stopped eating and lost 10lbs, I was crying all the time and couldn't go to work at all, and Marvin was sick and miserable (he also had a URI from the vet's). I couldn't get him to stay below the 300-400s, and when I gave him his insulin he'd crash into the 50s and I would end up back at the vet. He had the Libre then, and I didn't know how it actually worked. I need things explained to me in detail in order to be able to process the information, and the vets didn't do that. I was flying almost totally blind. I couldn't figure out how to do anything, and I had no support. I was alone, and I began to think I couldn't do it and that it was time to let him go.

Then a friend who had a sugar kitty of her own sent me to this forum and the Facebook group, and the first bit of advice I got was to take him off the RX "diabetic" dry food immediately. I did, and with some Friskies gravy and a little FortiFlora, I finally got him on wet food. His numbers dropped immediately and dramatically. He spent a couple of days in the 200s, I fiddled with his dose until we landed on .25u, and since 12/10 has stayed in the 90s and 100s. He rarely goes over 120, and when he does it's usually because he found some dry food I missed. I gave up on my malfunctioning Libre and started to poke test instead. It works so much better.

Once his BG evened out, he became a whole new cat—playful and chatty, social, snuggly. He just asked for belly rubs. He seems years younger. It's an amazing difference.

He has not had any insulin since 12/25. He is very responsive to insulin so I am leery of dosing him, even just .25u, when his numbers are under 120. After reading so many terrifying hypo horror stories, so many memorial posts, and some really scary lectures by my vet that anything below 80 was a death sentence, I am petrified of double-digit BG numbers. I have a severe anxiety disorder and I am autistic, so you can imagine how much fun all of this is for me. I'm working on it, and the FB group had excellent advice, but I could really use some success stories, especially with hypo episodes. I have ongoing nightmares about it.

The FB group and this forum saved Marvin's life, 100%. I've learned more here than my vets ever told me. Thank you so much for having me here.

 

[Bron and Sheba (GA)]

Hi and welcome Anna and Marvin to the forum.
You are pretty well organised I can see from the Fb page which is good. If I could ask you to set up your signature which you will find the link in this link
HELP US HELP YOU and then link Marvins spreadsheet to the signature, it will show up every time you post and we will be able to see the SS and all about Marvin instead of asking you repeatedly about him. Thanks!

Are you giving snacks during the first half of all the cycles?

Looking at the spreadsheet, he is very close to remission but I think he still needs a little bit more support of the insulin so that he get a strong remission.
Any BG above 50 is a safe number. Below 50 and you need to give high carb food or honey and test again in20 minutes to see the BG is rising.
I would suggest giving him a drop of insulin each 12 hours and see how he goes with that.
We want him to be in green BGs all the time to get the strong remission.
To get the drop of insulin, you need to push the plunger right in, and then holding it in, you push the needle into the insulin and then let go of the plunger. That should draw up a drop. I would test it a few times and see if you get a drop out of the needle before you actually give it.
I know you are very nervous to give insulin when the BG is lower so why don’t you start by giving the drop if the Preshot is over 100?
Get a +1 and a +2 each time to start with to see how he is going and them test as you normally do after that.

I am going to tag @Wendy&Neko to see what she thinks.

 

[Sienne and Gabby (GA)]

Welcome to FDMB!! It sounds like our FB group got you off to an excellent start and, more importantly, you have great instincts when it comes to caring for Marvin.

Thank you for the background on Marvin's diabetes journey. I'm truly sorry that the emergency vet was less than helpful. In the grand scheme of things, they are there to deal with emergencies and not to provide education. I had a similar experience with my kitty but it was largely because I speak "medicalese' and two vets didn't realize I had no idea how to give a cat an insulin injection. YouTube was a great resource.

With regard to lower numbers, we regard normal blood glucose range as 50 - 120. We also have two dosing methods that we use with Lantus. One is more aggressive than the other and encourages shooting lower numbers. My point here is that your vet gave you instructions based on his/her comfort with low numbers and likely due to most of the caregivers that he works with not home testing. As you've found, we strongly encourage home testing as it's the best way to ensure your cat is in safe numbers. Unless numbers drop below 50, the numbers you're seeing are not worrisome.

If you're not giving Marvin any insulin, you have no need to worry about low numbers. You're not risking hypoglycemia if you're not giving insulin. I don't necessarily disagree with Bron -- I'd just like to see a little more data since it looks like Marvin's numbers are spending more time under 100, which is a good place for him to be. We try to keep a cat on insulin, even a drop, for as long as possible as a mean of supporting the cat's pancreas for as long as possible and to increase the probability of a strong remission.

I'd like to suggest you keep track of Marvin's numbers today, much like you've been testing. If the majority of his results are over 100, would you be comfortable giving him a drop of insulin? We can provide instructions on how to do that.