Newly diagnosed and confused! ‍♀️

[Fezza1981]

Hi all, I’ve been reading all of your posts with great interest and think this group will be a great help to me
My cat, Linus, was diagnosed last week with feline diabetes. He has been having 1 unit of insulin for a week and then we went back to the vets today for a curve test. His blood sugar levels are 28.9 on average and at the lowest was 19.8. The vets have said to increase to 1.5 units for the next week and return for another curve test. To me this seems illogical, it is not a matter of the money, more the principal, but with such a large gap to get his levels back to single figures are they just trying to get more money from me and drag the process out? Or is this normal?
Can you buy home blood test kits to measure the levels yourself and adjust accordingly to their levels? Has anyone else had similar readings and what was their cat dosage?
Also the vets told me they would do a scan for tumours or cancer as diabetes is usually a secondary to this. I cannot find this anywhere online and now they have said they aren’t doing one until his levels are stable. I’m confused!
Any help or advice anyone can give would be appreciated. Thank you

 

[Sylvia Sheaffer]

Hi all, I’ve been reading all of your posts with great interest and think this group will be a great help to me
My cat, Linus, was diagnosed last week with feline diabetes. He has been having 1 unit of insulin for a week and then we went back to the vets today for a curve test. His blood sugar levels are 28.9 on average and at the lowest was 19.8. The vets have said to increase to 1.5 units for the next week and return for another curve test. To me this seems illogical, it is not a matter of the money, more the principal, but with such a large gap to get his levels back to single figures are they just trying to get more money from me and drag the process out? Or is this normal?
Can you buy home blood test kits to measure the levels yourself and adjust accordingly to their levels? Has anyone else had similar readings and what was their cat dosage?
Also the vets told me they would do a scan for tumours or cancer as diabetes is usually a secondary to this. I cannot find this anywhere online and now they have said they aren’t doing one until his levels are stable. I’m confused!
Any help or advice anyone can give would be appreciated. Thank you

My cat, George, was diagnosed Sept. 6th. His BS was over 600. Last check, about 2 weeks ago, it was 84, and that's kind of low. George gets 3 units of insulin every 12 hours. Are you sure those numbers above are his blood sugar numbers? Was he in a coma?

 

[Sienne and Gabby (GA)]

Welcome to FCMB!! We will do our best to answer your questions and give you a hand getting Linus feeling better. You didn't mention what insulin your vet prescribed. I'm going to answer your questions but please understand, without knowing which insulin you're using, my answers may not be 100% on target.

Dose - given the blood glucose (BG) range, it's not unreasonable for your vet to have increased Linus' dose from 1.0u to 1.5u.

Home testing - We strongly encourage home testing! You can go to any pharmacy and get a glucometer. Many, if not most of the people here use a human glucometer for their cat. There are meters that are made for animals but the strips are extremely expensive compared to strips for a human meter. You can do a curve at home. There's nothing magical about a curve nor does it take any special ability. You are testing ever 2 hours for a 12-hour insulin cycle. A curve tells you when insulin onset and nadir (lowest point in the cycle occur) and how much duration you're getting from the insulin. Lots of vets don't encourage home testing. They believe that it will have a negative impact on your relationship with your cat. In most cases, it's actually the opposite. Your cat learns that what you're doing helps him feel better -- of course, giving your cat a treat every time you test helps to reinforce that testing means treats!! Given that we home test, we have guidelines for how to make decisions about dose without benefit of paying for an office visit to your vet. So yes, we can help you learn how to manage Linus' diabetes on your own.

Diabetes and health - I've been a member here for 10+ years. I don't think I can recall a cat who had an underlying tumor or cancer that caused diabetes. Frankly, we will see cancer dropping BG numbers and not causing a cat to be in high numbers. I haven't a clue what your vet is talking about. I'd ask him to produce an article from a veterinary journal documenting this information.

Now that you've introduced Linus, how about posting on the Health board and tell us a bit more about your sugar kitty. The people over on Health will help you get your signature in place and help you get a spreadsheet set up so we can begin to help with Linus' numbers.

@Sylvia Sheaffer -- Linus' numbers were lower than your cat's. Why would you even begin to think the cat was in a coma? (It's a rhetorical question. You need not reply.)

 

[Christie & Maverick]

We likely have just a minor miscommunication, since I'm Canadian I recognize the World mmol/L numbers that the original poster noted. The 28.9 mmol/L would be 520 in US mg/dL, and 19.8 mmol/L would be 356 mg/dL . I don't think Sylvia recognized the different measuring system.

 

[MrWorfMen's Mom]

Diabetes can be a secondary condition from benign tumours of the pituitary or adrenal glands but odds are in your favour that is not the case and usually investigations of that type are not be done until a trial of insulin indicates the need to do so. I would definitely question your vet further as to his/her specific reasons for wanting further scans at this point in time.