Newly Diagnosed Cat-I am so worried!!!

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Michele&Rusty

Michele&Rusty

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Hello everyone, I am so thankful to have found this message board. We took my cat Rusty to the vet this past Friday, because i knew he wasn't acting himself, just being really tired, he's had some whiskers falling out, and had a sore on one of his front toes. He has also been drinking water like crazy, and we didnt know until Friday, but he has lost 3 pounds since September, even though he eats very heartily.
After doing a blood test, Rusty's sugar level was 321, but he had eaten that morning before we took him, so he wanted us to make him fast Sunday after midnight and bring him again Monday morning. Then it was 421, he gave him an insulin shot, and sent my DH home with 4 more shots to give him. He wanted us to bring him back today to check his level and it was over 500-Now he says we have to give him 2 injections a day, but didnt tell my Husband when to bring him back to have this checked again. I am freaking out about this and so worried about Rusty, he is my baby! My DH also asked the vet did we need a blood glucose monitor and he said that he didnt think so, that it just might take time to get Rusty's sugar stabilized. Does this sound normal? This is all so very new to me.
On a positve note, ever since his 1st injection, he has acted like he feels better, and his eyes have gone from being dull, to being nice and bright again. He has also gained 0.4 lbs back since Friday. These are good signs, right? Any guidance will be greatly appreciated!
 
Good signs

What insulin were you given? What dose?

We recommend starting at a low dose of a nice long-lasting insulin like Lantus (glargine) or Levemir (detemir) given every 12 hours.

We also recommend getting a human glucometer like the Walmart Relion and testing your kitty's blood sugar before every shot. We prick the edge of the ear for a tiny blood sample.

We also recommend feeding a low carbohydrate grain free wet food diet (canned or raw) -- dry food is not good for diabetic kitties. read www.catinfo.org for excellent Feline Nutrition info published by a vet

Changing diet can require an immediate change (reduction) in insulin dose -- so testing blood sugar is important to keep your kitty safe.
 
Welcome! Take deep breaths and try to relax. We have all been where you are, but this is a very treatable illness and there are tons of very experienced people here who can help you.
The most important things:
1. Diet. We recommend wet low carb food.
2. Home testing---so you don't give too much insulin, which can be life-threatening.
3. Starting low and going slow with the insulin so you can find out just what dose is best for your kitty, and do it safely.

We mostly use human glucometers and test before every shot and then around 4 to 6 hours after shot to see just how low the blood glucose level goes.

Read the FAQ to learn what you need to know. Ask all and any questions. We are eager to help you.
 
Thanks for your replies, I am not sure what type of insulin it is, I will check that as soon as I get home. I think the dosage that was prescribed is 4cc in the morning and 2cc at night. My husband knows for sure, and he has been great taking him back and forth to the vet, because of my crazy work hours.
I was wondering how the human blood glucose machine would work on a cat, since humans are supposed to prick a finger to get a test.
I have been reading a lot of info on here and while some of it is very frightening to me, alot has made me feel better, knowledge is power! :razz:
 
We prick the cat's ear to get blood for the BG test, and we can teach you how,
What is it that frightens you? This is a very treatable illness,nothing that we cannot help you with.
 
I am just mainly upset because I dont want to lose him, and want him to be healthy and happy. He is the coolest cat ever, but I am glad that we hopefully caught it in time. All of you have been great and there is so much info here!
 
Another question that I have is does feline diabetes cause dandruff? Iam noticing alot of it on him and he has never had it before.
 
The bottle should say the type and strength of insulin your cat is on. Insulin is usually referred to in units...100 units to one mL. So if my math is right, your cat would be on six units a day. The insulin is usually divided up into an equal number of units twice a day. Once we know what type of insulin your cat is on, then you could get some feedback about the dose. The only way you will know for sure how well the insulin is working is to test BG levels at home. Many vets tend to start cats on insulin doses that are too high. You want to make sure your cat's BG doesn't get too low (hypoglycemia).

To answer your question about the cat's coat, when I first got Nomad his fur was falling out and his skin was all flakey. He was also very underweight and had sores on him. As his diabetes got regulated, his skin and coat improved. You might want to brush your cat if he will let you. When cats are sick they sometimes lose interest in grooming themselves.
 
Welcome! My diabetic cat was on a dry food diet and his fur was all dull, not very soft, and he had dandruff. We recently switched him to an all wet low-carb diet and his skin and coat has greatly improved, although the best thing about the diet change was that he longer requires insulin! Squeezing one capsule of fish oil over your cats food once a day is supposed to be good for dandruff (as well as many other things), I actually just started all of my cats on fish oil tonight.

And even though most vets will say "oh that's not necessary" when asked "should I be home testing?", it really is! I almost lost my cat a couple months when he went into hypo and had a seizure (very scary), but now I home test so I never have to worry about his numbers getting too high or too low - because I always know what they are! Knowledge is power.

Please let us know more about your kitty - what kind of food does he eat, what type of insulin, how much, etc... so we can help you with more details. And don't worry, diabetes is a very manageable disease, my cat was diagnosed 5-1/2 ago, he's 17 now. :)
 
whimic said:
Thanks for your replies, I am not sure what type of insulin it is, I will check that as soon as I get home. I think the dosage that was prescribed is 4cc in the morning and 2cc at night.
Click to expand...

Insulin is measured in units, not cc.

"4 cc" is the equivalent of 4 completely full 1 cc (1 ml) insulin syringes which is obviously way way too much for a cat, even high dose ones :shock:

Why did the vet prescribe two different doses? This board generally recommends giving a specific dose twice a day, example 1 unit twice a day. Dose hopping can make it harder to achieve regulation.

It's important to know what kind of insulin your cat is getting. There are several insulins out there diabetic cats can use and some are better than others. And some are U100 strength while others are U40 strength so it's important to know what strength the insulin is and to be sure that you are using the correct matching insulin syringes (U100 insulin syringes with U100 insulin and U40 insulin syringes with U40 insulin **unless you do the conversion for U100 insulin syringes**)

Feel free to post more questions :smile:
 
whimic said:
I am just mainly upset because I dont want to lose him, and want him to be healthy and happy. He is the coolest cat ever, but I am glad that we hopefully caught it in time. All of you have been great and there is so much info here!
Click to expand...

My cat Max was diagnosed in early January and I was right where you are, worried and upset. Tears rolled down my cheeks at the vet and I cried when I got home. It is really overwhelming at first, going from knowing nothing about diabetes to needing to know everything, but you've come to the right place. The advice I've received here has been invaluable and has really helped me turn Max's health around. Giving shots, pricking ears, convincing Max to eat a different diet, it's a lot to deal with at first, but you can do it! And it won't always be so overwhelming.
 
Sorry for not getting back to everyone-
I finally got some info
Rusty was prescribed ProZinc (protamine zinc recombinant human insulin), but on the box it was for the reduction of hyperglycemia and hyperglycemia-associated clinical signs in cats with diabetes mellitus
Directions say-Give 4 units in the am, Give 2 units in the pm.

This little bottle of medicine was over $100.00, and that is ok since i had a little money, but I dont know what I am going to do if i have to keep buying this, we are down to one income. I will try to work over if i can, because he has improved since starting the injections and I want him to keep improving!
 
That is a high dose, especially if you are not testing. We usually recommend 1U AM and PM (12 hours apart) to start with, going up slowly as needed. And we give the same dose AM and PM, we find consistency works best. But most of all, testing is crucial. If the insulin brings the BG too low, you need to know this---in order to adjust the dosage and to treat the low BG with added carbs (food or some form of sugar). We can teach you how to home test. It seems daunting at first, but soon becomes routine. We test, at a minimum, before every shot to be sure the BG level is not too low . I would stongly recommend that you get
1. a human glucometer (there are many good ones, many people here get the Relion from Walmart because it is the cheapest),
2.test strips,
3. and lancets to prick your cat's ear with.
Let us know of any questions you have and how we may be of help. Good job posting!
 
Not every Costco carries diabetes supplies -- my local one does not :-|

If you change the food to lower carbohydrate - high protein canned food -- your cat's insulin needs will go down -- and hence COST will go down.
 
PZI is a great insulin and can work well. We have found that it works best to start low and go slow, using home testing to see how the insulin is working. Starting with a higher dose than one unit twice daily can be over your ideal dose. It makes it much harder on the cat and the parent to start high. You run the risk of a overdose.

Here is a document with lots of good information on how PZI works: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=32799

As others have said, the best way to keep Rusty safe is to test his blood glucose levels at home - just like you would do for your 2 legged children. We would love to help you learn how.
 
If you have'nt yet checked out 'newbie kits' please do.
It's for newly diagnosed, stressed, and peeps with financial concerns.
It will have all you need to start testing and all you'll need in the future for it is refills of strips.
I've had a lot of recent orders the last few days so maybe you were one of them.
It's the link below this post.
Lori
and tomtom too!
 
aaaaaaaaaaaand, that one bottle of pz could last you a very very very long time...5-7 months!
 
Welcome! My kitty was diagnosed 2 weeks ago and I can totally relate! We give Julius 1 Glargine once a day right now. We invested in a meter to test him at home. Trust me it is worth it, I love my vet but they were charging $25 per glucose test! I can do it at home for $1. I bought the freestyle light meter, I have read it can give a low false reading but my vet uses the same one an it requires the least amount of blood .03mg vs .06 with other meters and it beeps when it gets enough blood which is nice too. The strips are more expensive, but getting the reading and not having to get so much blood is worth it to me. We switched Julius to a raw diet (we need to give him some supplements I am sure but we haven't found out what yet so I will tell you what I feed him) Canned Tuna and salmon, canned sardines (all in water) cut up chicken thighs (raw) and raw food from the vet, though he loves the tuna/salmon/chicken best! I can buy it at the store and his readings went down from 360 to 304 in a week with diet alone. I have read a lot about no dry food, and I don't give mine any dry food now at all. I think a lot of the prescription vet food is a racket, especially if you have to figure out what to spend your money on, spend it on the insulin and the strips. Don't get sucked into that vet prescribed diet! we were paying $50+ for 8.5lbs of dry food! 3lbs of chicken thighs at walmart is approx $7! Sardines are $1 can! If you test at home, give a good diet and do the insulin in time he should level out. I hope this helps!
 
Thanks everyone for the advice, I am going to check out the newbie kit asap. Rusty is doing pretty good, we started giving him 2 units in the am and the pm. As far as his food, I had always fed them Cat Chow or Meow mix, the indoor formula, and 1 can of wet food per day, but when he got diagnosed the vet didnt say to cut out dry food, but to put him on one that had chicken or fish listed as the 1st ingredient, so I bought Purina one Advanced Maturity (i think), because it had the highest level of protein. But since I have been learning so much here, I went to Binky's page and bought a bunch of wet food with the lowest carbs I could find yesterday. I have been strictly giving him that since then (actually before then, because I already had some).
He is loving it, as he has always been crazy about wet food!
 
If your cat has been eating dry food and you switch to only low carb wet, BG levels could fall significantly and you could be giving too large a dose of insulin. We usually recommend that people do NOT switch to only low carb wet unless they are home testing. Sometime the BG drops by 100 or more points and Could put you in a hypo situation.
 
One thing, you might want to drop Rusty back to 1u twice a day until you are home testing since you have changed his diet to low carb. Because that can DRASTICALLY drop his blood sugar readings alone. A lot of cats will drop anywhere from 50-100 pts or more almost over night with the change in diet alone.

My own sugarcat Max was 485 when he was dxed on October 08, with 1u twice a day of Lantus and a diet change for a little over a week he went into remission and off insulin altogether. So diet plays a huge role in this. I would rather see him be a little higher for a few days until Lori can get a newbie kit to you, than going too low for even a minute because the dose that was fine for him on dry food is way too much on a low carb diet.

Mel, Max & The Fur Gang
 
If you switch your kitty from dry to wet you MUST decrease the insulin dose by AT LEAST half IMMEDIATELY, especially if you are not home testing regularly. My cat Mali was switched from dry to wet, we didn't realize what an impact the diet would have, and he went into hypo and had a seizure. He was on 3.5 units twice daily at the time. We rushed him to the vet and he was put on a glucose drip. One day and $700 later we got to bring him home. I began home testing and now he has been off insulin for 2 weeks (he is on a strict all wet low-carb diet). He is basically fine, and seems healthier than he's been in a long time, but the seizure seemed to cause a bit of neurological damage and he twitches sometimes.

So if you decide to keep your kitty at the same dose and continue the all-wet diet, please watch him very closely for any signs of hypo, it can come on fast and strong.
 
Ok, I just went to the Purina website, is it the Purina ONE Vibrant Maturity that you have? If so, that food is somewhere around 38% carbs. If you've switched from a 38% carbs food to a 10% or less carbs food, that can have a dramatic impact of blood sugar levels.
 
Well kind of... lol It comes with instruction on how to use the meter but since it really is a human meter the instruction on how to use it on Rusty is here http://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=287 there are tons of links to videos etc there.

And of course once you get it and start trying it for yourself you can always come here post what is working and what isn't and we all have our own way of doing it and what tricks did and didn't work for us.

Mel, MAx & The Fur Gang
 
Barbara, please check your pm's. I don't think I am getting a confirmed address to send your newbie kit.
PM's are on the upper left corner of your screen and are for private messages.
 
and yes Barbara, it comes with everything you will need to start testing immediatly and a little paper of instructions for how to use the rice sock and some links to show the actual testing. Waiting to find out where to send it.
 
I took Rusty into the vet this morning to have his BG level checked and it was 302! I know that is still high, but it is the lowest his has been so far! I am so happy and hope that he keeps improving!! :RAHCAT dancing_cat
 
If it is 302 at the vets, it can be much lower at home. Some kitties are 100 points lower at home with no strange smells, noises or people. I'll be glad when you get the newbie kit and start testing.
 
whimic (Barbara?), just for comparison, my cat has been on Prozinc for a little under 3 weeks now, and my vet started me at 6 (SIX!) units every 12h, which was way, WAY too much. She read over 400 in the vet's office, but 300 and below when I got her home. I started testing and immediately cut the dose to 1 unit, but went even lower to 0.5 units and gradually up to 0.8u. I just found out this weekend that her BG levels are very susceptible to stress, as I had company and she bounced all over the place. So if you're giving PZI without testing yet, you should take the others' advice and drop the 12hr dose down to 1u until you can get a good hometest baseline.

If you look at Sabian's Spreadsheet in my signature line, and her chart also, you can see just how bad she fluctuates on prozinc.

Good luck! Everybody's here for you and they've saved Sabian's life at least once or twice so far with their advice!
 
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