Yes, I was just reading a post in here somewhere about cats starting out too high. I'm not sure how the vet arrived at this dose. In July of 2016, Franklin went in for his annual checkup and both he and his sister had lost about a pound from the year before. On July 5, 2016, he was 17.12 pounds. I didn't think much of it. In December I took him back in, perhaps just to be weighed. He was down another pound to 16.12. His sister was also down more, a little more than a pound. So now I'm a little alarmed. The vet wanted to do blood tests and so on. But I called my best friend to chat with her. Money was tight and I wasn't even unemployed yet! I had been feeding them Science Diet dry food for indoor cats. She suggested I move to Purina One and see if they gained weight. While talking to her I realized that in the past several months I had noticed they didn't seem to be eating as much of the Science Diet food. And I recalled many months ago, the front label had changed. So I wonder if the ingredients changed.
I bought a baby scale and started weighing them everyone morning. It wasn't long before they were both gaining weight again. They were chowing down on this Purina One. By April 26, Franklin weighed 19.8 pounds. He's a big guy so maybe a little overweight but not much.
Since I'm unemployed I am home more. I started noticing that Franklin was a little lethargic. He was laying around in not his usual spots, often on the floor, when he was normally a climber of bookshelves or to the window sills. I also noticed a lot more urine in the litter box. I could tell he was losing weight so I weighed him. Down to 16.3 pounds. And I noticed he had diarrhea. With the weight loss and the diarrhea, I headed to a low cost animal clinic on a Friday. She did blood tests. They had to gas him to do the blood tests and while he was out from that she tested his urine. She said the glucose level was over 500 so he was definitely diabetic. So off I went in search of insulin and when the blood tests came back on Monday, his glucose was at 449. I started him on insulin that Saturday night before we got the blood test results.
It was later in the week when I read that there could have been a chance to have tried to control it with diet before starting the insulin. Wish I had known that a few days earlier.
And on that visit to the vet, they told me, of course, that he had to be on the Science Diet W/D food. The vet tech offered me a choice of the dry food or the canned food. I took the dry food because it was cheaper for the long term. I went back on Monday and bought some cans of W/D food because he needs to eat something before he takes the insulin and while he was eating the dry food, I was concerned he wasn't eating enough pre-insulin. I started mixing the dry and canned food. And somewhere in all this mess, I discovered this awesome online neighborhood. I read on here that I needed to get him off the dry food. And to not use the W/D food. I wanted to use up the dry food. So I was leaving some out for him in between meals because he's hungry. I checked in with the vet about W/D and Dr. Lisa Pierson's cat food analysis. She was familiar with that and said Fancy Feast would be okay.
We finished off the canned W/D last night and started the canned Fancy Feast this morning which I did mix with the dry. But tonight I started with just the Fancy Feast. He got slightly more than half of a can while his sister got the other half. I'm debating on offering them more food before we go to bed tonight as he has been particularly hungry in the mornings. His weight has been up and down the past couple of weeks. This morning he was at 16. 4 1/2. (His sister's weight has been fine although she has lost some since he was diagnosed. She went on a hungry strike because in the beginning she wasn't getting any canned food. She can be very stubborn. She was 15 pounds when he was diagnosed and has dropped to 14.3 1/2. But I expect that to go back up a little as we move to the regular diet of Fancy Feast. I'm wondering if his sister will ever realize that forever now, she gets canned food and will stop the anxious, excited circles she runs in at meal time now.)
I did not do my first BG until Monday afternoon (413) and called the vet to report it. She told me she wanted the two a day BG readings for a week and then we'll go from there.
More than you wanted to know but that is how we landed here.
Thanks for the link for newbies. I will read it soon.
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