Newly Diagnosed and Overwhelmed

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Meg B

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Hello,

My cat Nelson (11 years old) was diagnosed yesterday. I've spent hours and hours and hours on this and other websites getting myself education on a disease I knew absolutely nothing about. My head is spinning. We did our first insulin injection this morning (1 unit of Lantus) and I've started very very slowly making the change from dry to wet food (my vet recommended Hill's M/D but, after doing some research, I think I'll switch to Wellness). I have not started home testing yet, but will definitely do so in the coming days.

Anyway, my question is this: The pharmacist gave me short needles and I'm just wondering what the implications are there. Are long needles better? Any thoughts?

Many thanks,
Meg
 
Welcome :smile:

For your question, there is nothing wrong with using the short 5/16 inch needles. Many people here use those. As long as you tent the skin, you can fully insert the needle into the skin and give the injection. A plus of the shorter needles is that they are available in the thin 30 and 31 gauge.

Some people do like using the longer 1/2 inch but those are only available as 29 gauge. Some cats may notice the slight difference between a 29 gauge needle and a 30 or 31 gauge needle. Some people feel that it is easier to give the injection to a cat with long fur.

Lantus is a great insulin to use and your starting dose is good :smile: Wellness would be a much better choice over the prescription junk.

Feel free to read the rest of the web site and learn more about how to manage your cat's diabetes. And post back with any questions :smile:
 
Hi Meg!

I'm a relative newbie, too. Ruby and I are about 3 months into this stupid dance of FD and my head is still spinning. But this is the right place to be. Everyone here is incredibly generous with their help and support. I can't imagine how we would have made it this a far without them. The home testing is really important. Its very possible I could have lost Ruby really early on if I didn't have the board to turn to. Its getting better though. Hang in there!

I stared out with the 1/2 needles and was having trouble with a lot of fur shots. Ruby would try to run away in the middle of giving her the shot. I think they might have been a bit larger of a gauge, too. I've had much, much better luck with the 5/16 length in the 31 gauge. Ruby barely flinches when I use those, other than when she's just grouchy anyway. :smile:

Amy & Ruby
 
I started out using the 1/2 inch needles (which is what the vet gave me the script for), and then switched to the shorts after reading about them here. It was far easier for me to give injections with the short needles. I kept poking through to the other side of the tent with the 1/2" ones, and shooting the insulin out into Bandit's fur. I never got a single fur shot once I switched to the shorts.
 
Great - thank you guys so much for the information! Nelson did really great this morning with his first injection. He barely seemed to notice it so I'll stick with the short needles.
 
Welcome Meg,

Actually for both of my two diabetics I use the short needles even though both are long haired cats. Especially with Musette my insulin dependent girl, she is a Himalayan and very very fluffy, but very petite, so I find that the shorter needles make it easier to make sure the insulin goes into the cat and not the fur.

Sounds like you are off to a flying start, you are on a good dose of an excellent insulin and starting a diet change to a great diet. Give yourself a pat on the back. :-D The Last piece of the puzzle will come when you start testing at home. Although I would encourage you to start that as soon as possible especially since you are changing his diet to a good low carb/high protien canned. I was very lucky with my first diabetic Maxwell, he went into remission and completely off insulin in about 2 weeks with a simple diet change, if I hadn't been home testing I would not have caught how quickly he was going into remission, since I adopted him as a diabetic so had no clue what 'normal' behavior for him, so wouldn't have realized until it was too late that a hypo was setting in.

Please read as much as you can on this site and ask all the questions that pop into your head, there are no silly questions.

Mel, Maxwell, Musette & The Fur Gang
 
Now that you are mastering injections, it is vital that you start home testing as soon as possible. Why?

Well, think of it this way - if Nelson were a human child, would you inject insulin blindly into him? Would any doctor suggest you do that? No, they would not, so why is it different, just because the patient is a cat? It's not, you need to monitor the BG levels, even at 1 unit, (which by the way is a good starting dose) the bg's can change and he could hypo. Especially, with changing from dry food to wet food.

Are you willing and ready to learn how to home test? We will help you. And if you tell us where you are located there may be a fellow member close by who could help you in person.
 
Welcome -- I'm a relatively new person to this world too.

We so far have been lucky that our cat, Neo, has responded to the change to wet food totally (the Friskies pate that he always got along with his hard food) and hasn't needed an insulin shot since last Saturday night! :RAHCAT

We basically have been testing him twice daily (pre-breakfast and pre-dinner), though if he had an extremely low or high reading, we'd be doing more testing during the day.

Good luck!
 
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