I can be a testimonial for the poor quality of commercial cat foods. I have 2 cats now who are diabetic. Azrael just started insulin tonight. And it's a tiny amount just .5 but I think he will be OTJ sooner than later. A few weeks ago I took him for his yearly check up. They did a blood panel sort of a way to be proactive in case anything looked off. Azzy looks great. Good weight spunky sweet- doesn't have any of the diabetic symptoms, however his blood sugar was elevated to 313. Azzy does not travel well to the vets so she thought it could be stress induced. They needed to test his urine. Azzy is like my child. He is pretty easy going and will let me do anything so I just free caught the urine and today they called saying there was sugar. Nothing dangerous but it is confirmed that he is diabetic. I started spot testing him at the beginning of April and just by switching food I got his blood sugar down in the 200s. Tonight's preshot was 235. I just tested it +5 and its 117 after .5 units of Lantus. So while I am sad about having two diabetic kitties I really do believe that dry food is the devil! I have proof! Azzy is a trooper. He just gets really impatient with the ear pricks but I am working on that! My vet also was very impressed that I can monitor at home and I could free catch his urine. The information on this site is gold. It has helped Abigail tremendously and Azzy may not have to be on insulin long because I knew what to do and because we caught it early. Thanks guys!
Now I have 2
- Thread starter mdmnore88
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Wendy&Tiggy(GA)
Member Since 2011
Welcome to my world! I adopted the second diabetic cat so i knew what I was getting but Tiggy was in remission at the time and once I got bailey he came out of remission and I ended up with two!
Double trouble. Double the sleepless nights
and double the meters (helps me keep track) but I use the same insulin.
I see Abigail gets too excited about post test treats. Tiggy did too, he would squirm and fight and beg whenever I brought out the meter that now he doesn't get treats, just a cuddle after. I wonder how low she dropped today? Maybe she will earn a decrease soon.
Double trouble. Double the sleepless nights
and double the meters (helps me keep track) but I use the same insulin.I see Abigail gets too excited about post test treats. Tiggy did too, he would squirm and fight and beg whenever I brought out the meter that now he doesn't get treats, just a cuddle after. I wonder how low she dropped today? Maybe she will earn a decrease soon.
I don't know what is going on with this girl. I just tested her. This would be +6 and its up to 245. Now I did give her a treat too about an hour ago when Azzy got tested so that could be messing with it. I'm just wondering what is up. I just increased her a few days ago to 1.5 and she is still shooting high.
Wendy&Tiggy(GA)
Member Since 2011
What kind of treats? Maybe try low carb ones?
She could be bouncing off a low today. If so, she will come back down. Hold the dose a little longer to see if she does..
She could be bouncing off a low today. If so, she will come back down. Hold the dose a little longer to see if she does..
mdmnore88 said:
Sorry to hear that. I can also be a testimonial of the poor quality of commercial cat foods. My April just got diagnosed. On 2 units of Caninsulin bid. What are you using for insulin?
I can't believe how bad dry foods are. Futhermore, I can't believe how much worse the diet food is over regular food. I was diligent with my annual vet checkups, but nobody ever blinked twice when I said he wouldn't eat wet food. Dry food is fine they said, he's going to be a big kitty so start him on diet food at 1yo. He's been getting garbage for 10+ years! I didn't know better, since so many people were getting dry food and I didn't really hear any major problems. He was healthy and the vet was happy. Now I know. I only hope I caught it early enough to get him OTJ.
Wish I could help, but I'm really new to all this. Hope your kitties are OTJ soon. Keep your chin up. I was really upset before the diagnosis because I knew it was coming, and right afterwards I was lost and confused. The people here have really straightened me out, and no doubt will help you with your numbers and give suggestions. I feel so much better after just ONE day here! Unbelievable. Love this place and the support and the people.
Seems like you already know what you're doing, so just know that you're doing the best for your kitties.
BJM
Member Since 2010
Vet stress may raise the glucose 100-180 points, so that office level wasn't particularly useful for diagnosis. The vet should know this.
Plus, the renal threshold of 240 mg/dL would have been exceeded by the stress-related rise in glucose, so of course the urine would likely test positive.
Did the vet do a fructosamine test? Was the cat ravenous, and/or extremely thirsty?
Whatever ways you can reduce the carbs will help, regardless, since cats are carnivores, not vegetarians. :smile:
Plus, the renal threshold of 240 mg/dL would have been exceeded by the stress-related rise in glucose, so of course the urine would likely test positive.
Did the vet do a fructosamine test? Was the cat ravenous, and/or extremely thirsty?
Whatever ways you can reduce the carbs will help, regardless, since cats are carnivores, not vegetarians. :smile:
Deb & Wink
Member Since 2013
Sorry to hear you now have two diabetics but now you have twice the sweetness in your house. :lol: :lol: :lol:
Please, don't beat yourself up on feeding the dry foods. Pet nutrition seems to be a neglected area and most of us had no clue of better foods until we had diabetic cats.
Playing devil's advocate here, but there are some dry foods that will work with diabetic cats. The draw back to them is that most are very high in calories and too many calories makes a kitty overweight. Being overweight can lead to insulin resistance. Also, the low water content in dry food can lead to other problems, UTI's and kidney issues among them.
Some cats simply will not eat anything but dry food. Trying to transition a cat from dry to wet does not always work. It is certainly worth a concerted effort to try to get your cat to eat wet food and it is one of our 'best practice' recommendations but we realize it is not possible for all cats. Transitioning tips here on Dr Lisa Pierson's website: http://www.catinfo.org/docs/TipsForTransitioning1-14-11.pdf
It took me 3 weeks to transition my dry food addict and I thought that was really fast.
MDMnore88, you probably already know a lot of this nutrition information, so I apoligize for the repeat. I was including it for April.
April, if you look at the bottom of MDMnore88's post, you can see some little tidbits of information and it says she is using lantus.
That information is in her user control panel, profile, edit signature. You can do the same thing.
Please, don't beat yourself up on feeding the dry foods. Pet nutrition seems to be a neglected area and most of us had no clue of better foods until we had diabetic cats.
Playing devil's advocate here, but there are some dry foods that will work with diabetic cats. The draw back to them is that most are very high in calories and too many calories makes a kitty overweight. Being overweight can lead to insulin resistance. Also, the low water content in dry food can lead to other problems, UTI's and kidney issues among them.
Some cats simply will not eat anything but dry food. Trying to transition a cat from dry to wet does not always work. It is certainly worth a concerted effort to try to get your cat to eat wet food and it is one of our 'best practice' recommendations but we realize it is not possible for all cats. Transitioning tips here on Dr Lisa Pierson's website: http://www.catinfo.org/docs/TipsForTransitioning1-14-11.pdf
It took me 3 weeks to transition my dry food addict and I thought that was really fast.
MDMnore88, you probably already know a lot of this nutrition information, so I apoligize for the repeat. I was including it for April.
April, if you look at the bottom of MDMnore88's post, you can see some little tidbits of information and it says she is using lantus.
That information is in her user control panel, profile, edit signature. You can do the same thing.
BJM said:
The urinalysis was done two weeks after his blood test. I think it was a fuctosamine test as well because she did two different blood tests. She used that as her final diagnosis. He does get stressed at the vets so I just stuck a cup under him when he went to the bathroom at home. He is all wet food. I switched this about a month ago. He was in the 300s then went into the 200s just after switching the food. He has been super hungry but none of the other usual symptoms. No excess urinating or thirst. No accidents. He is my best bathroom boy!
tuckers mom
Member Since 2009
I usually have more than one on insulin at a time because I adopt FDs. If I may offer some advice, well not really advice, but just some thoughts in general.
You may find that your kitties blood sugars require very different amounts of insulin. In cases like that, try to come up with a routine. For me, recently I had a grey/silver tabby (Fred) on insulin and my sweet Kiki who is grey and white like a tuxedo kitty. I always shot Fred first and Kiki second. Fred took a little more insulin than Kiki and I never wanted to worry did I use the right syringe on the right kitty.
Although you may not be like me and draw up both syringes and carry them with you to the kitties.
You may also find your kitties follow each other with their BGs. So many times mine would both be low at the same time and high at the same time, but like any kitty, they liked to toss me some crazy numbers too. It may be tempting to test just one if they've been displaying the same patterns for weeks on end, but there's always the chance that one could be too low.
One good thing, I did find it was easier to determine when my insulin was going bad, all kitties would start showing bad numbers.
You may find that your kitties blood sugars require very different amounts of insulin. In cases like that, try to come up with a routine. For me, recently I had a grey/silver tabby (Fred) on insulin and my sweet Kiki who is grey and white like a tuxedo kitty. I always shot Fred first and Kiki second. Fred took a little more insulin than Kiki and I never wanted to worry did I use the right syringe on the right kitty.
Although you may not be like me and draw up both syringes and carry them with you to the kitties.
You may also find your kitties follow each other with their BGs. So many times mine would both be low at the same time and high at the same time, but like any kitty, they liked to toss me some crazy numbers too. It may be tempting to test just one if they've been displaying the same patterns for weeks on end, but there's always the chance that one could be too low.
One good thing, I did find it was easier to determine when my insulin was going bad, all kitties would start showing bad numbers.
I have gotten into a routine. Azzy is a little wiggle worm and has little patience so I do him first. Abigail, although noisy will sit still for me while testing or giving a shot. Azzy is only on .5 and Abby on 1.5 so yes it would be bad if I got it mixed up. BUT I am a numbskull. I got the new needles that have the half marks. I didn't realize that and for about two weeks I was giving her .5 and she wasn't too bad on her numbers. Right now this is just so crazy! I love my kitties so much. My vet was super impressed though when I told her everything we were doing. She thinks because we caught Azzy before he showed any symptoms (just through his yearly checkup) that he may be OTJ sooner than later
Deb & Wink
Member Since 2013
With two kitties to test and dose, you would need a good routine to keep everything straight. Hopefully, the two cats look a little bit different so you can easily tell them apart. :shock:
haha! Yes they look so much different from each other. I would have to be going blind to mistake them! Abigail is a long haired black and white Maine Coon. Azreael is a short haired American Domestic with grey and white markings. I almost named him Bandit because the gray comes down over his eyes like he is wearing a mask!
Deb & Wink
Member Since 2013
We'd love to see pictures of Azreal. I know you have two spreadsheets going but I don't see a profile for either kitty. You could create a combined profile doc and link that into your signature. Many people include pictures in that profile doc. That way, we could see some more pictures of Abigail too. We only get a hint of how beautiful she is from that tiny avatar picture.
Profile creation instructions here: http://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=79123
I figure you can work on it in your copious free time since you only have 2 sugarcats to manage now.
I think member Larry and Kitties has lots more sugarkitties.
Profile creation instructions here: http://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=79123
I figure you can work on it in your copious free time since you only have 2 sugarcats to manage now.
I think member Larry and Kitties has lots more sugarkitties.
TheBowHuntress
Member Since 2012
Just curious: did the newbie cat have any sort of steroids given previous to the diagnosis? Pills or injections?
Deb & Wink said:We'd love to see pictures of Azreal. I know you have two spreadsheets going but I don't see a profile for either kitty. You could create a combined profile doc and link that into your signature. Many people include pictures in that profile doc. That way, we could see some more pictures of Abigail too. We only get a hint of how beautiful she is from that tiny avatar picture.
Profile creation instructions here: http://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=79123
I figure you can work on it in your copious free time since you only have 2 sugarcats to manage now.
I will have to do that. They are both pretty kitties. Abigail is the prettiest in the world and she will let you know. Azzy is just sweet sweet sweet and will look at you with these precious eyes. I love my kitties so much!
TheBowHuntress said:
No Azrael was going for his yearly shots and check up. They started offering this bloodwork package where they run a basic blood panel just for a little more money. I figured it would be good to catch something early. And it is good because he didn't have any of the symptoms like Abigail did. And I am thinking we caught it very early and he may go OTJ.
Lisa and Witn (GA)
Member Since 2009
I have been there, done that. Taking care of two diabetics is not any more difficult than caring for one. At one time, I had two sugar kitties. Witn was diagnosed in 2005 and I adopted Spot & her sister, Tiger, in 2007. If I did not already have a houseful of cats (8) and also rescue kittens, I would easily adopt another one. Right now, Ricky is my ony sugar kitty.
Deb & Wink
Member Since 2013
Your Abigail looks so much like my foster kitty Wink, they could be twins! Fraternal of course. 
Looking forward to more pictures of Abigail and Azzy.
Looking forward to more pictures of Abigail and Azzy.- Status