thatgirlblu
Member Since 2013
Hi there, my name is Blu, and I have a beautiful 11 year old kitty boy named Fluffy who was very recently diagnosed with diabetes. Unfortunately because I, like many before me, had NO idea that commercial dry cat food was so awful for cats (he's had tummy problems his whole life, always used to scarf-n-barf wet food, and almost all food wet or dry made him itchy and vomit a lot, this Purina dry stuff I found from an old vet was the only thing he didn't puke or get sick on so unbeknownst to me about the very high carbs and bad stuff I thought I was doing him a favor) so he's been on a high carb dry food most of his life. I noticed he was peeing a lot and drinking more so I immediately took him to the vet 2 weeks ago. They did blood tests and said he had diabetes. They said it was not anywhere close to the worst cases they've seen and that I caught it extremely early so the outlook was very good. They started him on Vetsulin twice daily (every 12 hours) at 2 units each dose. They also recommended Hill's brand w/d food which I declined to purchase until I could go home and research it (which is when I discovered thanks to Dr. Lisa Pierson DVM of catinfo.org that it was NOT what I wanted to feed my cat). Instead I slowly started switching him to a natural higher quality much lower carbs and higher protein dry food (ya know, with real meat, heh...but wait, there's more) sort of as a buffer to transition him to 90% wet diet, it took me a week of mixing two foods, and giving him small tastes of wet, bear in mind this was also his first week of insulin. Unfortunately it is hardly an option to give him 100% wet as we unfortunately live in a studio apartment (though a large one at that, but still) without rooms to separate the 2 cats in, and my female freaks out and refuses to eat if I put her in the bathroom, and if she doesn't finish hers he eats it, she lets him, and HE cries and freaks out if placed in the bathroom, so there is no extra wet to go back to in the middle of the day should he really need it, so I'm at a loss there, and since his BG gets so low between meals I feel I have to leave out like a 1/4 cup or so of the higher quality dry just in case he needs to eat in between (he does really good about nibbling in only very tiny amounts when I have noticed he's low BG). I bought a blood glucose monitor (Relion Confirm) and have been testing him through out the week during the food change. This is where it gets bad.
So my vet set up once weekly BG tests in the office. Why this is even necessary since I have a BG tester at home and can simply call every week with updates, I don't know, but so be it. I TOLD them he gets REALLY stressed at the vet, he doesn't hiss bite or scratch but he runs into the corner and just shakes and gets low to the ground with his head on the floor. He gets SO nervous I can feel him shaking, ugh I feel so bad. So any way, knowing this, after a week of 2 U twice daily of Vetsulin, and me checking his BG through out the week, I told them "He will show much higher due to stress but I am sure the dose is fine until we can do a glucose curve to be sure, he is starting a wet food diet tomorrow and it is very low carb/high protein and I know doing that can cause a need for reduction in insulin dose immediately and in the interest of preventing hypo I'd like to give it another week cause I'm starting the wet food tomorrow or do a BG curve next week instead" and she INSISTED that going up to 3 U was what he needed and I was wrong and made me feel as though I'd hurt my cat by not listening. So I went home and gave him the 3 U when it was time to give him insluin.
The next day, he was less active so I checked him and his BG was low 4 hours after insulin. 90. Which is not THAT low I realize, but four hours after insulin? They told me peak low was 6 hours, and it shouldn't get much below 100, and in 4 why was he 90? Mind you this was the day we cut out 90% of all dry and fed full wet twice daily. When he was 90 I called the late night vet, they told me to give him food, they said even give a tiny handful of the dry food to bring him up a bit, and check at the 6 hour mark (2 hours later) so I did that. (Now you understand why him having no food for 12 hours between wet food makes me nervous so between wet I leave 1/4 cup of the dry out even though I don't want to :/)
2 hours later at the 6 hour mark he was 70 BG. This is AFTER eating dry and he got a treat too. Called them back to report, they said yes now it is peak time and it is the lowest of the day but 70 is a bit too low for eating and all, so watch him for signs of dropping lower. Fortunately, he did not show signs of getting lower, though I hadn't stressed him more by checking (they just said look for clinical signs now, not necessarily numbers) so I waited for another 2 or 3 hours. Checked him again. He was 549!!! And he hadn't eaten since that small handful and had mostly been resting. What the heck? I KNOW my monitor works, we checked against the vets and it works fine. SO I did some research......and I found this: http://www.vetsulin.com/vet/Cats_Monito ... mogyi.aspx which seems to explain our entire dilemma.
The site says to either decrease dose by 50% or go to 1 IU (I think that translates to what my vet called units, no? not sure) which ever is lower SO I started giving him only 1 unit every 12 hours starting last night and will call my vet when they re open tomorrow to discuss, did I do the right thing? In the short term I'd rather give him less and see his BG a little high than give him more and then maybe he gets too low and it's really dangerous. Especially since he started that all wet food the day AFTER they upped his dose. But he has never been this up and down high and low before when he was on 2 units, close to that but never that low (when he was on 2 units he'd get to 450-490 max but usually more like 350 with a low of 150)
Idk, advice would be awesome.
Also I'm gonna do a BG curve in a week any way. I was told I could do one at home, record it every hour like a diary for 12 hours, and give it to my vet (of course they checked the accuracy of their tester against mine so they can compensate the difference) so they know how the dose is affecting him.
Yeah any way, onto that advice I think I need, heh. Mind you I only learned about feline diabetes 2 weeks ago so I'm new, but I just want what's best for Fluffy! Thanks!
So my vet set up once weekly BG tests in the office. Why this is even necessary since I have a BG tester at home and can simply call every week with updates, I don't know, but so be it. I TOLD them he gets REALLY stressed at the vet, he doesn't hiss bite or scratch but he runs into the corner and just shakes and gets low to the ground with his head on the floor. He gets SO nervous I can feel him shaking, ugh I feel so bad. So any way, knowing this, after a week of 2 U twice daily of Vetsulin, and me checking his BG through out the week, I told them "He will show much higher due to stress but I am sure the dose is fine until we can do a glucose curve to be sure, he is starting a wet food diet tomorrow and it is very low carb/high protein and I know doing that can cause a need for reduction in insulin dose immediately and in the interest of preventing hypo I'd like to give it another week cause I'm starting the wet food tomorrow or do a BG curve next week instead" and she INSISTED that going up to 3 U was what he needed and I was wrong and made me feel as though I'd hurt my cat by not listening. So I went home and gave him the 3 U when it was time to give him insluin.
The next day, he was less active so I checked him and his BG was low 4 hours after insulin. 90. Which is not THAT low I realize, but four hours after insulin? They told me peak low was 6 hours, and it shouldn't get much below 100, and in 4 why was he 90? Mind you this was the day we cut out 90% of all dry and fed full wet twice daily. When he was 90 I called the late night vet, they told me to give him food, they said even give a tiny handful of the dry food to bring him up a bit, and check at the 6 hour mark (2 hours later) so I did that. (Now you understand why him having no food for 12 hours between wet food makes me nervous so between wet I leave 1/4 cup of the dry out even though I don't want to :/)
2 hours later at the 6 hour mark he was 70 BG. This is AFTER eating dry and he got a treat too. Called them back to report, they said yes now it is peak time and it is the lowest of the day but 70 is a bit too low for eating and all, so watch him for signs of dropping lower. Fortunately, he did not show signs of getting lower, though I hadn't stressed him more by checking (they just said look for clinical signs now, not necessarily numbers) so I waited for another 2 or 3 hours. Checked him again. He was 549!!! And he hadn't eaten since that small handful and had mostly been resting. What the heck? I KNOW my monitor works, we checked against the vets and it works fine. SO I did some research......and I found this: http://www.vetsulin.com/vet/Cats_Monito ... mogyi.aspx which seems to explain our entire dilemma.
The site says to either decrease dose by 50% or go to 1 IU (I think that translates to what my vet called units, no? not sure) which ever is lower SO I started giving him only 1 unit every 12 hours starting last night and will call my vet when they re open tomorrow to discuss, did I do the right thing? In the short term I'd rather give him less and see his BG a little high than give him more and then maybe he gets too low and it's really dangerous. Especially since he started that all wet food the day AFTER they upped his dose. But he has never been this up and down high and low before when he was on 2 units, close to that but never that low (when he was on 2 units he'd get to 450-490 max but usually more like 350 with a low of 150)
Idk, advice would be awesome.
Also I'm gonna do a BG curve in a week any way. I was told I could do one at home, record it every hour like a diary for 12 hours, and give it to my vet (of course they checked the accuracy of their tester against mine so they can compensate the difference) so they know how the dose is affecting him.
Yeah any way, onto that advice I think I need, heh. Mind you I only learned about feline diabetes 2 weeks ago so I'm new, but I just want what's best for Fluffy! Thanks!
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