Newly Diagnosed in New Zealand

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kathpj

kathpj

Member Since 2012
Hi everyone,
Today my beautiful 10 year old red burmese boy has been diagnosed with DM.
Up until 3 weeks ago he was fit and well. He was weighed at the vets at 6.5kg. A solid cat, not obese. Today he weighed 5.8kg. We had noticed that his litter tray was wetter than usual. His blood result showed his glucose level was 19. Does that make sense? They have said insulin twice a day after 4 days at the vet dosing him. My husband an I are both students and on very little income. He was on dry food. We have changed him straight away to a wet food. With the lowest carb we can find.
I really need to know what our options are. The vet was very much my way or not at all. I can't bear the thought of loosing him but can't afford the setting up & ongoing insulin management. I would love to hear from anyone who can help me. Added to the fact that I have 4 very upset children to justify any decision to.
thanks, Kath
 
It's great that you changed the food. The next thing is to get a human meter and start getting blood glucose levels at home. Then you can see if the food change made a big enough difference in his levels or if you will need to give a little insulin. Your 19 is not a terribly high number, especially when you consider he might have been stressed at the vet and stress raises bg levels. We can buy a cheap meter and strips at Walmart; I'm not sure what you have available.

We do have members in New Zealand. Hopefully they will along.
 
Hello there Kath!

Yes, the first step is to get a meter so you can test and see where your boy is. Changing the food is great and hopefully it will help his numbers to get low enough to not need insulin. I don't know what NZ has but I would stay away from the generic brands. My reasoning is that here the generic brands are not reliable for cats- nor do they have the lowest strips, either.

Check on-line to see if people have strips or meters for sale- we have craigslist and ebay.
 
Thank you for your advice.
I can't believe he actually looks a little brighter today. Can changing his food make that much difference?
It was great to hear that 19 is not too bad a reading. I was so upset when the vet said he either comes in for 4 day for dosing which would cost $400 or have him put down. I am looking for another vet who is more symathetic and perhaps knowledgeable in this area.
I will look on trademe(ebay equivelent in NZ) for a blood glucose monitor.
Trying to work out the low carb foods is difficult. Would love to hear from anyone in NZ who knows what is available.
Thanks again, great help already.
Kath
 
There were quite a few posts on the old FDMB board with New Zealand canned food choices. Unfortunately, Rebecca (owner of FDMB) has disabled that board because it was crashing this board for some reason.

You can try Binky's non-US food list: http://binkyspage.tripod.com/nonusfd.html

Are brands of food available in Australia also available in New Zealand?
 
thank you. I maybe able to get a whiskers variety that is low carb.
youdiabeticccat.com has given me some hope that diet will be a large factor in getting this under control.
What a great help this site has been already.
Kath
 
Hi there Kathpj - another Kiwi here!

Sorry I have not been on here recently and didn't get the private messages alerting me to your post.

It's quite a while since I had a diabetic cat, and I don't know about current glucometers here. Wish I had one to give you, but alas............... my cat Myrtle was kind of semi-feral and hated to be handled, so I never home-tested her, feeling that I'd be lucky even to give her insulin. I did treat her, and tested her urine which I became expert at catching, but it is a poor substitute for home-testing with a glucometer. (I had regular fructosamine tests to get some sort of handle on her glucose levels). She responded really well, though, and I never regretted treating her, howver imperfectly. (She got cancer in the end)
Enough about me - just a long way of saying thjat I'm not a lot of help!

Food-wise, I mostly fed my cat Fancy Feast (the "classic" varieties) because those ones are lower in carbs than the expensive diabetic food the vet will try and sell you (canned and dried).
The Whiskas loaf-style varieties are also suitable (the purple label tins). I did also feed the Chef classic style varieties (not the casserole ones) because Myrtle wouldn't eat Whiskas but she did love Chef. Some of them look quite meaty so I assumed they'd be good, but I could never find out the carb content. Very poor content listing on can!
I only ever bought Fancy Feast when it was on special because it isn't cheap.
The other good thing you can do now and then is feed raw meat if you have access to a pet food shop than sells it. I can get really lean horse meat that looks very edible even for humans (but of course we wouldn't!), and Myrtle was crazy for it (as have been my subsequent cats). It is really cheap, too.
Or you could try Jimbos raw meat in a plastic container from the supermarket - there's another brand of raw meat too - in the refrigerated pet food area.
If your cat won't eat raw meat, you can give it a very quick zing in the microwave, not to cook it but just brown it a little and give it a nice smell. Cool it, though!
Can't get lower carb than raw meat! It's not a complete diet unless you grind up an entire animal (which I believe some here do!)

What insulin are you using? I had a vet that would only use caninsulin (back in 2005-2006), but a lot of vets nowadays will use Lantus/Glargine and it is far better. Vets can be a problem! Mine, I felt, thought I was a bit of a know-it-all, but I stuck with him because he was very good at handling my difficult cat!

Good luck. There's a lot of good advice here on this Board and I'd certainly recommend glucose testing at home, even if I failed to do so!
 
Allie & Myrtle (GA) said:
The other good thing you can do now and then is feed raw meat if you have access to a pet food shop than sells it. I can get really lean horse meat that looks very edible even for humans (but of course we wouldn't!), and Myrtle was crazy for it (as have been my subsequent cats). It is really cheap, too.
Or you could try Jimbos raw meat in a plastic container from the supermarket - there's another brand of raw meat too - in the refrigerated pet food area.
If your cat won't eat raw meat, you can give it a very quick zing in the microwave, not to cook it but just brown it a little and give it a nice smell. Cool it, though!
Can't get lower carb than raw meat! It's not a complete diet unless you grind up an entire animal (which I believe some here do!)
Click to expand...

A raw meat diet is good for cats :smile: As Allie said, raw meat on it's own is not a complete diet. You either have to add supplements to the raw meat, or use the "frankenprey model" raw diet, or buy a commercial brand of raw pet food (typically frozen).

Here's some info about making making your own raw pet food: http://www.catnutrition.org/foodmaking.html and http://catinfo.org/?link=makingcatfood

There is a canned food available in NZ called Ziwi Peak that you can feed to your diabetic: http://www.ziwipeak.co.nz/products/cuisine/daily-cat-moist-cuisine/
 
Thank you very much for your great advice. Red is a bit of a Teddy Bear and we seem to be able to test him ok.
We have not made the decision to put him on insulin yet and are just monitoring his glucose on a change of diet. He seems to like Whiskers beef & chicken cassorole. Wasn't particular on loaf type. Is a jelly better than cassorole?
I'm going to try and get a week of testing then go to vets with results.
When you have to think about cost++ its not an easy decision.
Great to hear from you,
Kath
 
kathpj said:
He seems to like Whiskers beef & chicken cassorole. Wasn't particular on loaf type. Is a jelly better than cassorole?
I'm going to try and get a week of testing then go to vets with results.
When you have to think about cost++ its not an easy decision.
Great to hear from you,
Kath
Click to expand...

If Red will eat "Jellymeat" (Chef or Whiskas) or any jellied type of meat, I think it's better than the casserole or "mince" varieties because they have a lot of gravy that is quite high in carbs. A lot of cats will only lick up the gravy and leave the bits of meat.

Well done with the testing - you are a champion! If you can get a week of results you might be able to persuade the vet that you have enough info. without a costly stay at the vet's for testing. As others will say/have said, it is a stressful place for a cat and often produces higher numbers than he'd have at home.
The cost of those days at the vet would often include a urine test and a fructosamine test. The fructosamine test is useful for a cat that is not regularly tested because it gives a clue to the previous 2-3 weeks' blood glucose levels, e.g. in the natural home setting, and in the case of a cat that is a suspected diabetic getting an initial diagnosis, it should be done.

However, your week's testing at home should give the info. you need, without the costly fructosamine test.

Hopefully, your vet will co-operate and work with you to find ways of saving money, if you decide to use insulin, or realise you need to. If you start with a low dose you can work up gradually IF necessary, or it can even happen that with careful dosing and monitoring with a good insulin like glargine (or Lantus as it is called on this Board), you might well be lucky enough to kick-start Red's pancreas into life after a short period of treatment - and then you might have a diet-controlled-only cat! :-D It certainly happens!
Don't let any vet tell you you need to start on a weight-based dose - that's for dogs.
The best advice you can ever get to manage diabetes cheaply with minimal vet intervention is from the REAL experts on this Board, where people have cats that have gone off insulin or been treated successfully for many years - not the 2 year time limit the vet will probably state.
The tricky part is in not alienating your vet if you want to keep him/her, or in finding a vet that will work with you.
 
Thanks Allie,
I will go and read some more labels today and try some jelly type whiskers/chef or hopefully fancy feast will be on offer. He loved a tin of that when we tried it! He is licking the gravy off the whiskers first, so maybe still having too many carbs. I'll keep going. He hasn't been out for a week and is now trying despeeratly to escape. A good sign of feeling better in himself!
Kath
 
Actually, Kath, I never stopped Myrtle going out as she usually did. (She was indoor/outdoor like most Kiwi cats!)
I figured that she would practically go insane if I changed her routine, and she was ferociously territorial, so she needed to go out to check all was well out there! I probably would have raised her glucose levels by forcing her to stay in.
Her outdoor behaviour was my best key to how she was feeling. If she was jumping up on the fence and running around the garden I was reasonably content (bearing in mind that I was not home testing, so had to judge by watching her behaviour very carefully)

(I know that going outside for any cat is not approved by most people on this Board. There might be a risk for an unmonitored cat on insulin having a hypo outside. I guess I was lucky! nailbite_smile )
 
Allie & Myrtle (GA) said:
Actually, Kath, I never stopped Myrtle going out as she usually did. (She was indoor/outdoor like most Kiwi cats!)
Click to expand...

Allowing cats outdoors is normal for most UK cats too. Bertie, at thirteen and a half, is the youngest of my five cats, so they're doing OK so far (touching wood and crossing fingers when I say that!). In fact, some folks in the UK would think it cruel to make a cat stay indoors!!! (unless there were exceptional reasons for doing so).
 
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