optimaloctopus said:
Hi, my cat was just diagnosed today! I've never had a diabetic cat before, so I'm a bit overwhelmed by all of this. My vet prescribed one unit of lantus twice a day, and also gave us prescription food. I haven't purchased a meter yet (I was looking at the trueresult but have seen things about it giving inconsistent results?) so I'm really worried about changing things too much as I don't want him to become hypoglycemic. He had his blood tested at the vets and his BG was 24 mmol/L or 432 mg/dl. I obviously want to start treating my cat as soon as I can, but I think I would be more comfortable once I had the meter to test him at home and make sure everything goes well. The vet said that changing his food and giving him the one unit twice daily will be fine, and that he only needs to have a curve done in a month to see how he's doing with the insulin and the diet change. She seems very experienced with diabetic cats (she had three diabetic patients today alone, and has a diabetic cat living at the office as a pet) so I generally do trust what she says but I'm still really worried. Any suggestions?
First welcome to the site.
You don't need to feed any fancy expensive vet food; save your money for test strips for your meter.
I don't know what you are feeding right now, but go with low carb wet food like Fancy Feast or Friskies pates varieties. Here's Dr. Lisa's food list; look for ones with under 10% carbs
http://catinfo.org/docs/FoodChartPublic9-22-12.pdf
What were you feeding before?
if you have not started insulin yet, and need to changed the diet, do the diet changes first. Your cat has not suddenly become diabetic, so a few days to fix the diet is the best approach. There are just too many cats who are diet controlled and once they switch foods, they need very little insulin or maybe no insulin at all. It's harder to adjust what's needed if you start insulin at the same time as you are fiddling with the diet.
OK meters..... for sure get one, and just avoid the Tru2Go or TRU results kind of meters as they have shown to be iffy with many cats, not reliable at all. The other one is the FreeStyle meters with the butterfly strips; they don't register very high BG numbers for cats, so don't bother with that one either. If you are in the US, your best bet is the Relion as the strips are most economical. If you are in Canada, you can't get the Relions as they are in the US only, so go with any of the OneTouch or Accu-Chek - my favorite has always been the Bayer Contour as the strips sip fast and no coding needed as with other strips' meters.
Start home testing now, and make the food changes. That way, you will see your cat's true at home/relaxed numbers and you will be able to track any changes from the food.
One question I have is this: How did your vet diagnose feline diabetes? I ask because a few vets have been basing their diagnosis on a single glucose number on a blood panel.... the best test is if your vet did a fructosamine test which is an average of your cat's numbers for the last few weeks. If that number's high, it means your cat's been in high numbers for at least a few weeks.
The insulin choice is good, but diet needs to be proper, and you need to test at home so that you know if it's safe to give your cat insulin or not.... and curves at the vet? Waste of time and money because the cat's stress will skew the numbers, and why put your cat through all that? You can track your testing numbers on a google spreadsheet that others use around here, then send the link in an email to your vet so she knows how your cat is doing. Actually, your vet can check online anytime she likes once you send her the link.
Another question: Does your cat have any other health issues - or did you take the cat for the vet for something in particular?
I'd hold on the insulin until you know you need it.... food and test at home, and then see if you need insulin or not.
Gayle
